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Comment by ziggus | Hacker News Reader

Fine, you want to WFH? Awesome, expect a pay cut. Part of a modern white-collar salary has some expectations built into it, like the fact that people need to be compensated for the inconveniences of leaving their homes and coming to the office and therefore having to pay for things like childcare, cars, clothing, parking, etc.

Don't have those expenses anymore? Then why should I compensate you the same as if you did?

Why should I pay you more than some other remote worker in India, who'll work for a third of your pay?

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>Don't have those expenses anymore? Then why should I compensate you the same as if you did?

Because you're paying people to complete a job, not for what they do outside of work hours genius. Are you paying people who have kids and longer commutes more money? Didn't think so.

>Why should I pay you more than some other remote worker in India, who'll work for a third of your pay?

They're 1/3 as good. If that's such a good option then why haven't you done it already?

Good luck getting qualified workers with that attitude. Capitalism works both ways bud and isn't an employer only benefit. Right now employees have the upper hand and if you want to bring decent talent in you should probably be competitive.

What about being Indian makes someone 1/3 as good?

Going rate for someone in India that is as good as me is about 60% of my pay. So if they are making 1/3 as much as me they are not as good as me (though not 1/3)

> Going rate for someone in India that is as good as me is about 60% of my pay

Ah, totally not an inflated sense of self worth... do you have a source for that number? New grad salaries for even graduates of top CS programs in India are between 1/4th and 1/3rd of $100k [1]. For most other good graduates it's lower.

So what you said is incredibly ignorant and arrogant. Do better. You're not as special as you think.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-Ba...

I'm not a new grad though, I have many years of experience, and a history of being worth paying. I'm not allowed to see real numbers, but I'm told that real pay is around that range by those who do in my company. Note that in India people work longer hours, so per hour you are getting down to less than 50% of my wages.

> Note that in India people work longer hours

Grasping at straws here.

> I have many years of experience, and a history of being worth paying

Seems like your ego can't handle it. Why do you think that there aren't similar people elsewhere in the world? You can't keep throwing random numbers without sources to back them up. The reality is that your job can be done by many others living in a country with lower COL with much, much less money.

The person I'm comparing to is essentially my equal in ability, except for the things that are different between living in the US vs India.

I know col is better in India, that isn't as big a deal as you think because once you get past food and housing to luxuries to buy things are more expensive there. (Except servants are dirt cheap, while I wouldnt dream of one here )

>your job can be done by many others living in a country with lower COL with much, much less money

Then why isn't it being done by them already? Do you think companies hate saving money and just prefer to throw it away on more expensive employees who aren't any better?

Someone has an inflated self worth and ego issues but it's not the guy you're responding to.

Because of the article. Remote work is not preferred by many because it simply cannot match face to face interaction.

And I don't know what your problem is, I was merely pointing out the parent commentator was very wrong with the salary numbers they provided, which shows disconnect with reality. I never said that all jobs can and will go remote. Read my comments again, properly this time.

I'll give you a hint, it's related to the parent topic. Companies insisting on people being in the office and not remote.

You are both right and wrong.

Sure, you can hire a remote worker in India for less; go ahead.

But how people are paid as nothing to do on how they spend it to work. If someone has a partner that can take care of the children at home and walk to work, are you going to pay them less than someone who needs daycare, a car, a parking pass?

You pay to get skills executing a task. You put a price on it, adjust it to market value, and done. Who cares if the worker is in Bora-bora sleeping under the stars or in a suburban house in LA commuting in a new leased car.

Exactly. As a software engineer (now for 30 years), I've always considered myself a techno-whore. I sell technical-skills for money, and I'm fine with that. I'm very good at it, my stuff has been in several keynotes where the company wants to show stuff off..

I'm not especially invested in my employer, other than the stock price going up for all those lovely RSU's, but that hasn't stopped me working hard for one company for the last 16 years. The thing is though, that I work to live, not live to work.

I don't get a free lunch, but TANSTAAFL is as true now as it ever was; more important to me is that WFH (for me) is a major benefit, and this past year has shown it is (a) possible, (b) functional, and (c) oh so desirable.

So, for the first time in 16 years I'm seriously considering jumping ship. There's a chance I'll be promoted in October/November (one of those keynote things again) which comes with a healthy up-tick in bonus/salary so I'll probably stick around for that, but thereafter ? Close inspection of the market will ensue.

> Why should I pay you more than some other remote worker in India, who'll work for a third of your pay?

Because someone as good as me in India makes a lot more than a third of my pay. They do make a lot less them me, but not that much less.

Because someone in India isn't in the same timezone as me. Call me at your local 2pm and I'm wide awake. Call someone in India then and you get them out of bed. Of course some reading this will discover that India is a better timezone than mine. I work with great people in Australia, India, and Mexico - it isn't possible to have a meeting with all at the same time because the timezones don't overlap right.

Because you're still competing for me against local companies. You need to pay market rate at least for the area , for the work you want. Sure market rate in India is cheaper; but can they do what you actually need, in the time you need it? AT the time you need it ?

The entire remote worker in India thing is a fear mongering tactic. If it was so much cheaper and more efficient they would have all done it years ago.

    Why should I pay you more than some other remote worker
    in India, who'll work for a third of your pay?

You know they have plenty of bossy assholes in India too, right? Hell, GPT3 could probably do 80% of most managers' jobs already...

Yup. Some annoying middle manager threatens to hire cheap labor abroad? Use GPT3 to automate that manager’s job so we can all get back to writing code. Lol

Salaries aren't based on expenses, but that'd be pretty neat if they were. :D

With that said, I'd gladly make less than those that have to work in the office.

You don’t have to choose - plenty of remote jobs that are competitive on pay too. There’s lots of code to write.

Your last line is the part most people overlook. Offshoring and outsourcing have typically come with quality trade offs, not because Indians are somehow inferior engineers, but because companies have used in person offices to paper over a lot of process and communication issues.

> therefore having to pay for things like childcare, cars, clothing, parking, etc.

Where do you idiots get the idea that remote workers don't need to pay for childcare, clothes or cars?

Remote workers don’t need to pay for commute costs to work; whether that means the family needs fewer total cars or simply fewer total miles on the same car doesn't change that it is a substantial savings.

Similarly, even if (as seems likely in most cases) childcare is still necessary, not having to do a triangle commute of home-dropoff-work and work-pickup-home reduces the likelihood of overtime costs for childcare, given a constant number of working hours.

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