3 ms·

the solution is to work remote if you want a higher salary and to keep your lifestyle. our best employees and contractors are in places like texas and ohio and

the solution is to work remote if you want a higher salary and to keep your lifestyle. our best employees and contractors are in places like texas and ohio and we're based in california and pay above-market salaries becausd we're small. for what it's worth there are companies in large coastal cities that do not match the SV mold. you just have to be extremely upfront and non-yielding with your requirements when seeking them out/interviewing. as far as the smarmy office bullshit, i can't stand any of that stuff either, although i do enjoy a lot of urban amenities like restaurants and the general feeling of anonymity.

vonmoltke 11y ago
> the solution is to work remote if you want a higher salary and to keep your lifestyle. Easier said than done. Most companies that hire remote either want someone who has worked remotely before or "will make an exception for an exceptional candidate". That's a pretty high bar for someone struggling just to stay relevant.
- devonkim 11y ago
  The correct strategy I'd advise these days with my own experience being the caveat is that one should try to get as far along in a career as possible as early as possible anywhere that jobs may be and then only start to think about quality of life and all that other jazz that occurs outside these hubs once you can command the terms of your employment with any prospective employer. It is far, far harder to get as far with the abundance of technically-lackluster non-amibitous 9-to-5 lifestyle companies that are abundant outside hubs on one's resume despite being very talented otherwise and to land one of these remote jobs for prestigious, highly ambitious coastal city companies making tons of headlines and making lots of people rich. Most of these non-ambitious culture companies are extremely caste-oriented and culturally tend to value tenure at a company or non-employment factors like veteran status to technical proficiency or even experience in management and individual contributor alike. These are the companies that people like to talk a lot about what "things used to be like" in political debates where people stayed employed for 10-20 years and employees almost have a family-like relationship to each other rather than drinking buddies relationship. There's some merits to this kind of culture and approach to life but it's something I think only works for some people long-term and perhaps even then only at a certain stage of life and it's in your best interest to understand what kind of culture you really do want NOW and to be honest to yourself about what kind of sacrifices / trade-offs you are willing to accept. You are pretty unlikely to go from rags-to-riches founding a tech company in Tulsa, OK as an extremely smart, ambitious person with a lot of capital (not rags anymore though, catch-22) around unfortunately unless you can cart around a small army of loyal, dedicated workers that want to keep working with you ahead of their own personal interests to oh... not live in Oklahoma (no offense to OK, just an example). It may work in industries with much longer timelines for success than tech such as restaurants perhaps, but even among ambitious chefs they tend to go to areas where they can compete and learn among the most well-regarded before opening their own restaurants.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    i should probably add that all these people are in the 35-55 year old range. we're not paying 25 year old kids to work remotely, because i know for a fact that doesn't work.
- Serow225 11y ago
  Absolutely. I'd love to hear a solution that doesn't involve putting in 4 hours a night into an Open Source project, after finishing my 9-hour day job. That's not very feasible for someone with kids.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

vonmoltke 11y ago

> the solution is to work remote if you want a higher salary and to keep your lifestyle. Easier said than done. Most companies that hire remote either want someone who has worked remotely before or "will make an exception for an exceptional candidate". That's a pretty high bar for someone struggling just to stay relevant.

devonkim 11y ago
The correct strategy I'd advise these days with my own experience being the caveat is that one should try to get as far along in a career as possible as early as possible anywhere that jobs may be and then only start to think about quality of life and all that other jazz that occurs outside these hubs once you can command the terms of your employment with any prospective employer. It is far, far harder to get as far with the abundance of technically-lackluster non-amibitous 9-to-5 lifestyle companies that are abundant outside hubs on one's resume despite being very talented otherwise and to land one of these remote jobs for prestigious, highly ambitious coastal city companies making tons of headlines and making lots of people rich. Most of these non-ambitious culture companies are extremely caste-oriented and culturally tend to value tenure at a company or non-employment factors like veteran status to technical proficiency or even experience in management and individual contributor alike. These are the companies that people like to talk a lot about what "things used to be like" in political debates where people stayed employed for 10-20 years and employees almost have a family-like relationship to each other rather than drinking buddies relationship. There's some merits to this kind of culture and approach to life but it's something I think only works for some people long-term and perhaps even then only at a certain stage of life and it's in your best interest to understand what kind of culture you really do want NOW and to be honest to yourself about what kind of sacrifices / trade-offs you are willing to accept. You are pretty unlikely to go from rags-to-riches founding a tech company in Tulsa, OK as an extremely smart, ambitious person with a lot of capital (not rags anymore though, catch-22) around unfortunately unless you can cart around a small army of loyal, dedicated workers that want to keep working with you ahead of their own personal interests to oh... not live in Oklahoma (no offense to OK, just an example). It may work in industries with much longer timelines for success than tech such as restaurants perhaps, but even among ambitious chefs they tend to go to areas where they can compete and learn among the most well-regarded before opening their own restaurants.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  i should probably add that all these people are in the 35-55 year old range. we're not paying 25 year old kids to work remotely, because i know for a fact that doesn't work.
Serow225 11y ago
Absolutely. I'd love to hear a solution that doesn't involve putting in 4 hours a night into an Open Source project, after finishing my 9-hour day job. That's not very feasible for someone with kids.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]