7 ms·

You’re talking about a remote employee costing less, not being a better value. The value of an employee is not equal to that employee’s cost. Assuming all emplo

You’re talking about a remote employee costing less, not being a better value. The value of an employee is not equal to that employee’s cost. Assuming all employees were paid equally, you’d still find some who were more/less valuable to the company than others. Extend this recognition outward, and the cost can quickly be seen to have little to do with determining the value of a good (or poor) employee. The things that determine a team member’s value are things like productivity, coachability, quality of work, and many other things unrelated to their raw dollar cost.

matz1 8y ago
From the employer perspective, better value means lower cost for the same amount quality.
- bobwaycott 8y ago
  That's an extremely naive employer perspective. It is exceedingly rare to be able to place an exact dollar amount on the contribution of a team member. Much less to place an exact dollar amount on some subjective notion of quality. The only exact dollar amount an employer-employee relationship definitively has is the negotiated price at which the two actors are willing to play together. I've been the employer. With any technology professional, I'm willing--and happy--to pay right up to the rough approximation of value I feel the team member brings. Most of the time, that rough approximation is, "Do I feel like the company is getting its money's worth out of this team member?" It's rare to find the same amount of quality among a number of team members, because everyone is unique and brings their own flavor of contribution to a team. Person A might bring a lot more to the planning, architecture, and direction of the project. Person B might be great at not only delivering code, but helping others do so, as well. Person C might be a royal pain to manage as part of the team. Person D might crank code out non-stop, but seems to create bugs/issues in proportion to the amount of code they're pushing out. Judging the quality of team member contribution winds up working out to some sort of curve--there are usually outliers on the high and low ends. You want the vast majority of the team to be roughly equivalent and trending toward the high end. The low-end outliers--those who clearly are not keeping up with the team, not providing enough value in their contribution, are difficult to manage, aren't good team players, etc--those are the people where the cost starts to become an issue. An employer who prioritizes the exact dollar cost to be as low as possible isn't looking for quality--they're looking to fill seats as cheaply as possible, while hoping something passable comes out as a result. Nobody who knows what they're doing is going to want to stay in an environment like that.
  - matz1 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you are trying to say here but yes >dollar amount an employer-employee relationship definitively has is the negotiated price at which the two actors are willing to play together I agree with this. But don't forget, the employee living in lower cost of living area can afford to negotiate lower pay to undercut those who live in expensive area. Let say I move to vietnam, I can now easily afford to demand for 1/2 of the pay compared someone who live in bay area. Then why don't a company choose me instead ? Again, assuming I can produce the same quality of work as bay area programmer. The goal of a company is still to make money and managing expense is always important.
    - PeterHK 8y ago
      why would anyone want to do that? you think your company is some kind of special place? ill just look for another job where i dont have to just ask for 1/2 of what i want...
      - matz1 8y ago
        Sure, if I can find a company willing to pay that much. It is going to be difficult in global market. By going remote, you are competing with people around the world. If think you are that really really special programmer who are better than most people worldwide in what you do, then yeah you can demand whatever you want. I knew I'm not that special. By living let say in Vietnam, I'm still happy with the 1/2 amount I got and companies has incentive to hire me instead.

matz1 8y ago

From the employer perspective, better value means lower cost for the same amount quality.

bobwaycott 8y ago
That's an extremely naive employer perspective. It is exceedingly rare to be able to place an exact dollar amount on the contribution of a team member. Much less to place an exact dollar amount on some subjective notion of quality. The only exact dollar amount an employer-employee relationship definitively has is the negotiated price at which the two actors are willing to play together. I've been the employer. With any technology professional, I'm willing--and happy--to pay right up to the rough approximation of value I feel the team member brings. Most of the time, that rough approximation is, "Do I feel like the company is getting its money's worth out of this team member?" It's rare to find the same amount of quality among a number of team members, because everyone is unique and brings their own flavor of contribution to a team. Person A might bring a lot more to the planning, architecture, and direction of the project. Person B might be great at not only delivering code, but helping others do so, as well. Person C might be a royal pain to manage as part of the team. Person D might crank code out non-stop, but seems to create bugs/issues in proportion to the amount of code they're pushing out. Judging the quality of team member contribution winds up working out to some sort of curve--there are usually outliers on the high and low ends. You want the vast majority of the team to be roughly equivalent and trending toward the high end. The low-end outliers--those who clearly are not keeping up with the team, not providing enough value in their contribution, are difficult to manage, aren't good team players, etc--those are the people where the cost starts to become an issue. An employer who prioritizes the exact dollar cost to be as low as possible isn't looking for quality--they're looking to fill seats as cheaply as possible, while hoping something passable comes out as a result. Nobody who knows what they're doing is going to want to stay in an environment like that.
- matz1 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you are trying to say here but yes >dollar amount an employer-employee relationship definitively has is the negotiated price at which the two actors are willing to play together I agree with this. But don't forget, the employee living in lower cost of living area can afford to negotiate lower pay to undercut those who live in expensive area. Let say I move to vietnam, I can now easily afford to demand for 1/2 of the pay compared someone who live in bay area. Then why don't a company choose me instead ? Again, assuming I can produce the same quality of work as bay area programmer. The goal of a company is still to make money and managing expense is always important.
  - PeterHK 8y ago
    why would anyone want to do that? you think your company is some kind of special place? ill just look for another job where i dont have to just ask for 1/2 of what i want...
    - matz1 8y ago
      Sure, if I can find a company willing to pay that much. It is going to be difficult in global market. By going remote, you are competing with people around the world. If think you are that really really special programmer who are better than most people worldwide in what you do, then yeah you can demand whatever you want. I knew I'm not that special. By living let say in Vietnam, I'm still happy with the 1/2 amount I got and companies has incentive to hire me instead.