Keep a long runway in an emergency fund, keep your professional network warm, always be ready to bounce if your employer tries to change your quality of life for the worse (mandatory return to an office somewhere, for example). (Disclosure: This is how I operate, and have worked from home for over 7 years.)
[1] https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/companies-switching-remot... ("27 Companies That Have Switched to Long-Term Remote Work")
Certainly I believe that remote work was already on the way to becoming more and more accepted, but by moving out you're still limiting your employment prospects to those companies that decide not to focus more on in-person roles. Maybe that will still work out in the long-run, but I still think there's significant long-term financial benefit in maximizing your number of potential employers.
Plus, if you're expecting to move back to San Francisco at some point, right now is the time to do it while prices are through the floor. You're far better off moving in right now at a 35% discount—which is permanent given rent control—than trying to come back in another year when COVID-19 is (hopefully) over and people are flooding back in.
You apply at companies with remote roles. I haven't lived in SF though, and would never do so, so I can't speak to solving for timing the market there.
When you got major companies like Twitter, google, Facebook, and others already saying WFH is a permanent option that’s put pressure on others to figure out how to make it work.
Talent is needed at many, many companies and if the talent is a.) needed and b.) good enough the company will make “exceptions” to the rule.
Enough companies make enough exceptions and it’s a mainstay policy.
Overall, the other part is that companies that now offer remote work as a permanent option may not have to pay SF salaries so that’s a bonus to the company. It’ll go both ways, the company can say I’m not requiring you to live in high COL area and we have an office in X city, we pay 10% above the market average of ~35-40 cities so they’re still competitive on pay (assumption being that most companies move to this model, FAANG may overpay still but that’s always been the case) so now what do you do?
Literally the only thing keeping me from listing my house right now and moving to a different area is that not enough Bay Area companies have committed to permanent WFH yet. Once that happens, I'm gone.
there is a huge difference, not only in the kinds of work you can put on your resume, but in the quality of co-workers, and what you can learn from them.
You can approximate that experience in some other areas (Provo, Boston, Austin, San Luis Obispo, etc) but a LOT of American cities are still technological backwaters, and there's nothing available but garbage jobs that will drain your soul and turn you into a code zombie.
If companies look like they're aligning on more of a hybrid model where you can WFH but they expect you to show your face in the office every so often, then I'd have to stick to $CA$ and maybe head out somewhere on US-50 between Folsom and Placerville, or maybe way up I-5 somewhere towards Shasta.
It’s great when you have a family with kids and you’re less career focused. But I noticed my comp increased almost 2x their’s over the same timeframe.
This is also true when you're at a home office, and you get acquired, and it becomes a remote office. Your career gets fucked.
I've had it happen to me over and over again; and it's very different when you work at the headquarters.
It's my biggest worry about 'permanent WFH'. It's that I'll end up being like the remote-office nightmare all over again.
If the commitment is there for WFH to become an option for all, corporations will promote one or more WFH VPs to send the message that it’s OK, as occurred for women and minorities. I’d guess they’d choose rising stars with personal commitments that make WFH the obvious humane and moral choice.
If you have employees who have been working productively remotely for a year, it's probably better to find a way to keep them happy and working than to have to find a new employee.