Yeah programmers / developers / software engineers act as an interface for other people for computers. It's not surprising that these qualities of that 'interface' affects price:
- intuitiveness i.e how easy is it to communicate with this person (language fluency, etc...)
- quality i.e. how well do this person understand not only the requirements but also the actual goals
- 'latency' i.e. how convenient and how fast can you communicate with this person (time zone, can you both see facial expressions, hear changes in voice, etc...)
This is insightful. These are possible remotely though:
* intuitiveness i.e how easy is it to communicate with this person (language fluency, etc...)
Native English speakers have an advantage here.
* quality i.e. how well do this person understand not only the requirements but also the actual goals
Experience, empathy, critical thinking, intelligence. Not necessarily common or easy but on site vs remote doesn't affect this really.
* 'latency' i.e. how convenient and how fast can you communicate with this person (time zone,
Hire people from your country or even your time zone.
* can you both see facial expressions, hear changes in voice, etc...)
Use video chat constantly.
Remote work is a skill like any other. It makes sense most employers that offer it require 5+ years doing it previously. The article author makes a good point. A great way to get this is to work at a company with many remote employees and start on site before transitioning to full time remote.
Maybe some people are just cut out for remote too. I remember at the beginning of my career running a business where I talked to the CEO of a mid sized company regularly about his needs, and always delivered. He was thrilled and amazed. It was just good listening, communication, programming skill and hard, applied work. Nothing fancy.
The weird thing about the Bay Area is if you want to live on 5 acres in a home built in the last five years somewhere quiet and pretty that is 20 minutes from the office in traffic, you're basically looking at Woodside. On the low end, those houses start at around 3 million. Good luck paying that mortgage on the income of even two software engineers.
Whereas you could buy the same house somewhere else in California for 300k.
So even though it is indeed pleasant to have coworkers to talk to in person for social needs, the compensation to housing cost math just flat out doesn't come close to working unless you are willing to make some serious housing quality sacrifices.
- intuitiveness i.e how easy is it to communicate with this person (language fluency, etc...)
- quality i.e. how well do this person understand not only the requirements but also the actual goals
- 'latency' i.e. how convenient and how fast can you communicate with this person (time zone, can you both see facial expressions, hear changes in voice, etc...)