This is exactly right. All the people clamoring for remote work are asking for us all to get paid less, or nothing at all because the job went to Europe or Asia.
Yeah, bullshit. Maybe you didn't live through all the panic about offshoring in the 1990's, but all of our jobs would have been sent to Southeast Asia if they could have been by now. Remote changes nothing. They still can't fill positions, and the dwindling population of the active workforce due to COVID will ensure that employees are in the driver's seat for a long, long time.
I am not as optimistic based on recent moves that seem to be intended to rein the employees in and mollify investor class, but I agree that if they could, they would have done it already. Simple reality is that it is genuinely hard to do stuff well across time zones. Add to this kids and demand for work life balance and it gets impossible fast. Companies would love 'tried and ready' person, but.. that tends to come with age and age demands some modicum of consideration; one way or another.
Auth0 (Okta) has quite a few Latin American (Argentina) and Spain workers. Don't know if that is growing or not.
> They still can't fill positions, and the dwindling population of the active workforce due to COVID will ensure that employees are in the driver's seat for a long, long time.
There are hundred thousands of jobless hi-tech professionals, let's see if this state stay for long.
Yeah, no kidding. First job I had, worked there 2007-2010, we had an office in India where a huge amount of our engineering staff was based (most of the time I was there, fully half of our entire headcount were in the India office, and the India office only had engineering people while the US had every department).
In 2016-2021, I worked at another company that had an office in the Philippines where most of our junior employees worked. In fact, at one point before covid, they started rapidly hiring Tier 1 NOC staff in the Philippines and announced they would no longer hire Tier 1 positions elsewhere and would phase out the US-based Tier 1 staff via attrition... and then a few months later (still before covid) all the remaining US-based Tier 1 staff got unceremoniously laid off out of nowhere.
Mass outsourcing has been happening since long before covid and remote work took off.
Y'know, some time I'd really like to see a poll about where people on HN are located, because honestly, I doubt more than a modest plurality are actually in the Bay Area, or working for FAANG.
And yet, it's generally so easy to detect the ones that are, because so many of them have the same attitude you do: that you're the only ones who matter on this site, or even the only ones who matter at all.
It gets to be pretty disgusting at times.
- A programmer who's never come anywhere near San Francisco
YCombinator was founded here. Many VCs are here. Google, Facebook, others are headquartered here or Seattle. There's definitely a Bay Area bias.
Regardless, I'm sorry you find it disgusting, and that you drew the inference that I think nobody else matters. I was simply pointing out that not returning to bay area offices is not consequence free.
I have been hiring very capable people in other countries at my startup. It's not just hypothetical to me that people in other regions will be the beneficiaries of this movement.
I will take “getting paid less” in exchange for me living where I want to live over having to live on the west coast any day.
I couldn’t have had the 3200 square foot house built in the burbs in 2016 (when I was making $135K) in any place close to a tech hub.
Now I work remotely for $BigTech and I can live anywhere. I live in a resort area in Florida half the year and fly around the US the other half and rent my place out (professionally managed). I actually downsized and paid about the same for where I live now as I did in 2016 and no state income taxes.
I wouldn’t go that far. My goal was to still live as if I was making the same thing I made before I came to BigTech
And for context: my budget at 49 years old could easily be supported by what a returning intern got at my current company. We aren’t talking about a lot of money by tech standards.
Housing: we were paying around $3500 a month all in - mortgage, utilities, yard, pest control etc. When we stay in our “Condotel” between October and mid March we are paying less than $3000 all in, the mortgage + HOA (CDD) thst covers everything else including utilities, access to three pools, a lake, a gym, three restaurants onsite, a running trail etc all included.
Our budget for hotels is about $3500/month - midrange Hilton extended stays also with gyms and pools.
-ground transportation - we had one car with a car note, that and maintenance, gas and car insurance for two cars came up to around $1000/month. We sold both of our cars. That’s now our Uber/occasional rental car budget.
- flights - before our “vacation budget” was around $8000 a year. Now that’s our domestic one way plane budget for the year.
I looked at a budget from 2016 when I was making $135K (less than a returning intern offer at my current job and I was 43 at the time), and my yearly spend has only increased by the $8000 flight budget.
Now “my“ budget does include my wife’s “allowance” that she was providing for herself when she was working part time in the school system. We agreed for her to stop working post Covid and when I got my current job.
Also, I give myself an “allowance” too that’s actually less than hers.
>This is exactly right. All the people clamoring for remote work are asking for us all to get paid less, or nothing at all because the job went to Europe or Asia.
This wont happen in the united states because of timezones. UK time is 8 hours off PST Indian is 13 off.
