It gets easier all the time, the pay gets better, and I actually have a much better setup at home then I've ever had in an office (Granted, I've had 20 years to set it up...)
I'm not concerned about 'losing out' in any capacity going forward, especially now when its become so common.
After the pandemic there was an even larger number of companies that are at the very least remote friendly. Most < 1000 employee tech companies I know are never planning on returning to an office full time. I also believe a fairly large number of the major tech companies are also planning to be fully remote friendly going into the future.
Pre-pandemic getting a fully remote job didn't take too much work find, and now nearly all companies I've talked to in the last few months are willing to support remote roles.
There are _enough_ employers that will allow fully remote employees that it's not hard to find jobs, and it's only gotten easier in the time I've been doing it.
Do you mean pay you more because the office no longer needs to provide space and power for you, but you provide it for yourself? ... and because you can be called 'in' faster without the 45 minute commute?
:P
Why?
A company hires an employee because they think they can make more profit than that employee costs them.
My expenses have nothing to do with the equation except when the company wants to be cheap and figures out they can up their profit margin per employee by lowering salaries due to low competition for employees.
If you require $250/hr but a smart person in say Brasil will do the same work, to the same standards, for $100/hr, what is the rationale for the company to keep paying you? You might complain that the Brasilian is leaving money on the table but that's not in your control.
He's not though. He's undercutting someone else to get the business. Race to the bottom is one of the most fun features of capitalism!
If workers are also now expected to provision their own work space (space, desk, chairs, monitors, etc.), then the compensation model around those jobs also needs to be adjusted to account for that.
the other question is should employers pay a share of your property tax contribute to a sinking fund for repairs
If someone wants to live in a dense urban core and a company is 100% remote, that may not be a good deal.
I've been working from home for 5 years. Standing desk, Aeron chair, dual ultra wide monitors, it goes on and on.
It all adds up to about 1% of my compensation over those years.
I spend whatever it takes to have a great working environment, if I see something that will incrementally improve the 8 hours a day I spend working I immediately buy it. As far as my income goes it amounts to a rounding error.
>> there's a lot of people, including almost all the tech-oriented professionals under 30 that I know
That's called selection bias.
You have chosen to live in a location with expensive real estate. Good for you. Other people made different choices. I have rooms in my house I haven't been in for months.
The median income for mechanical engineers in the US is around $88k, with many (especially early-career) people making meaningfully less than that. I'm glad your income is high enough that thousands of dollars in equipment, and far more importantly, extra space in your living quarters, is a blip. I really am. But statistically, your situation is not representational of the hundreds of thousands of other workers.