Ask HN: How to Compete in a Global Remote Work Environment? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Compete in a Global Remote Work Environment?

6 pointsAnsil84920 comments

I was recently applying for a remote job in which the interview committee informed me that as the role is remote, they are recruiting globally. I was then asked for my salary expectations.

I am genuinely confused as to how to answer this question: as this is a position that is hiring globally, it seems that applicants who live in regions where the cost of living is substantially lower can of course in turn list their salary expectations as much lower.

Logically, global-hire positions then seem to me to be a race to the bottom. If I list my salary expectations as the equivalent of $20 an hour, an equally-qualified candidate who lists theirs as $10 an hour will of course logically get the job instead. So what do you do in such a scenario? Offer to work for practically nothing, or risk not getting hired because someone else is willing to work for less?

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If the company is from the same first world country as you then you have a significant advantage of having cultural affinity to the people who are doing the hiring and that you might be working with if hired. Someone from overseas might be as good at programming as you and perhaps they would even adjust their working hours to match the company timezone, but they cannot completely replicate a shared cultural understanding that is needed for smooth collaboration.

Furthermore, if someone from cheap country is truly as good as someone from developed country at doing the same job then it is undesirable for them to sell their work too cheaply (let's ignore clickworkers here - we're talking about skilled knowledge work). If quality is there, they want to sell it at marginally lower price. Therefore global competition for skilled work does not necessarily cause race to the bottom - cost of labour will converge to some globally mediocre level long-term. It may go down in the first world, but will go up in cheaper places. Employers are likely to still find it worthwhile to pay more for local candidates work ceteris paribus due to cultural affinity advantage that is difficult to surpass for someone from abroad.

Consider Upwork. There's masses of people spamming the platform with incoherent ramblings about how good they are at doing something real cheap (and still struggling to get enough work), but on the other hand there are people making six figure yearly amounts. That would not be the case if global competition always made the price go down to third world levels.

Just say the amount you feel is fair to ask for what you can do and would the worthwhile for you.

Domestic workers have been competing with outsourced workers since time immemorial. The winning formula is to just be good at what you do. Outsourced work may be cheaper in salary, but it often comes with significant overhead and indirect costs that negate the salary advantage. In the end, the best value wins, not the cheapest salary. So just charge commensurate with your value: if you charge $20/hour in salary, provide $20/hour of value.

Which is why I said, _assuming two equally-qualified candidates_. I think that assuming that others will either be less qualified or have more 'overhead costs' is a bit arrogant and will result in not getting as many job offers.

Unless you badly need the job, take the risk.

The company will get to pay a lower wage if and when they find another candidate they like who's willing to take it. For the moment they have you; they may or may not have someone else.

Their strategy could net them someone with your skills for less, but playing that game comes with risk and costs them time and money in the short term even if they win. If you reduce your bid because they might find someone cheaper, you guarantee they get their best-case outcome at no cost with zero risk, at your expense.

They're hoping you'll assume the market doesn't bear your price. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You don't find out unless you ask.

You should always know how much you're "worth" in the market at the moment - that is, given at most a couple months of job search, what is the maximum offer you're likely to get. [1] So, just ask the company for that amount - or a little more if you think the job might suck, a little less if you think it may be cool etc.

[1] In order to have this info, you should either interview semi-regularly or at least have a network of colleagues in similar roles who are sharing market info with you.

> [1] In order to have this info, you should either interview semi-regularly or at least have a network of colleagues in similar roles who are sharing market info with you.

I do, in a domestic market. But the issue I'm struggling with is competing in a global remote market. I don't think anyone has a global network of colleagues that knows salary base ranges for every country in the world, and yet that's effectively the market.

If you're worried about not getting the job, just ask for your local worth. If you don't get that remote job, then no big deal, as you can soon just get a local job that pays that. If you can't, then in means that you're either in a small niche and may wait longer for the right opportunity (I'm in such position, it makes things trickier), or your sense of how much you can get paid is probably too high anyway.

No matter where and how are you being hired there are 2 key rules:

1. If you have strong negotiation position - just state your expectations and make sure they are really high and satisfy you (do you research)

2. Any other case - never share your expectations until the end of interview process and untilyou know what’s the salary band/level they estimated you. Then negotiate up to max of that band (based on your research, again)

> 2. Any other case - never share your expectations until the end of interview process and untilyou know what’s the salary band/level they estimated you. Then negotiate up to max of that band (based on your research, again)

What would then be a polite way to respond to the question 'we are hiring globally, what are your salary expectations?'

I think it's a bit too early in the conversation to discuss that; I need to learn more about the team/role and would love to discuss it when we get closer.

Doubt that this is a real concern. Most jobs are still not fully-remote or global and so this is really just a small sub-set of jobs like the ones in Fiverr or Freelancer which are small jobs that can be done by freelancers anywhere.

Most companies are still going to hire locally and so better to focus on just getting one of those local jobs.

> Doubt that this is a real concern.

I mean...it is a very real concern for me because I've found myself in the described situation twice now.

If you're doing work that someone else could do for less, then you're screwed for the reason you're outlining.

The alternative is to do the kind of work very few else can do. For example, there are a lot of people who can take a ticket and code a solution that functions. There are substantially fewer people who can take a vague idea and code a solution that scales, both in terms of performance and in terms of additional functionality.

> The alternative is to do the kind of work very few else can do.

I feel like that's a ridiculously arrogant worldview. There are nearly 8 billion people in the world. And by definition, half of the population is average/below average. It's supremely arrogant to think that you're vastly above average to the point of being irreplaceable.

Additionally, the issue is that given two equally-qualified candidates, one can do the work for less simply owing to the fact that they live in a region where the cost of living is much less. That's the issue I'm struggling to death with.

To put what I said another way, try to do the kind of work that gets snatched up quickly when it's on the market, so the people you're competing with are all otherwise happily employed. It's not as hard as you may think, to be "among the best". Very few people are trying that hard to begin with, so you can make a lot of ground quickly.

Also, when 6 out of 8 of those billion people aren't nourished or raised in a way that grows their brain (physically or developmentally), it's not hard to beat them, and then from there other opportunities whittle it down.

Also also, in western culture (which is where the jobs I know anything about are), there are huge payoffs for being at least a little arrogant. If you're not arrogant, you're going to lose to someone who is.

I feel like I'm not articulating my predicament properly. My concern is not a lack of self-confidence, I know that I am good at what at I do and my resume and references reflect that. What I am concerned about is that someone else who is just as good at what they do, but lives in a country with a lower cost of living, then therefore ask for substantially less when asked for their salary expectations, and will therefore likely get the job, which then creates a race to the bottom of sorts, because to stand a chance of being hired I then need to lower my salary expectations to be lower than theirs, and so on, does that make sense?

> someone else who is just as good at what they do, but lives in a country with a lower cost of living

Be better than them in some way. Surely no one person is out there who is as good or better at literally everything you bring to the table, yeah?

So what's your specific advice - to stop searching for "software developer who gets clear requirements" and instead search for "software developer who gets vague requirements"?

For me, yeah. For you, it doesn't have to be that, just be a unique combination of skills that very few people have. Pick any combination of things you're interested in.

I went fullstack with product/communication skills, and it's worked out for me.

I don't get why you want to compete in that market.

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