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IMO, if you are fully remote, you might look at it the other way around. The ridiculous salaries are mostly in California and one or two other places. Those pl

IMO, if you are fully remote, you might look at it the other way around. The ridiculous salaries are mostly in California and one or two other places. Those places might realize that they can get react devs for a dime a dozen out of bootcamps all over the country for a third of that in a few months once they have let people do fully remote work for a while. The smart thing would seem to be to hire them now before the companies with bigger pockets start driving remote salaries up in the other 45 states.

meritt 7y ago
My bet: remote-only for most companies won't last. If there's one thing I've learned over the past 8 years running this company, is most people really struggle at remote. They don't have the dedicated work space, they lack the necessary self-discipline, and many people really start to falter without face time and social interaction. I suspect once this virus is solved, we'll see a flood back to in-person jobs. React was just a glib example anyway, I purposefully stay far away from anything trendy. I'm hiring people who are data smart, can think in SQL, and fully understand that AI/ML/NLP is smoke and mirrors bullshit in the vast majority of contemporary applications. Anyway, I guess my broader point is: When every single PE/VC is battening down the hatches, firms are preemptively laying off people by the thousands before their clients even start missing payments, and a large number tech employees are in mortgages/leases they cannot sustain without those aforementioned salaries? We're about to see a tech bust and housing crash far worse than dot-com. Things are going to get really bad. Programmers are about to be competing head-to-head with front-of-house restaurant employees for gig-economy jobs. Thus, I can afford to wait a bit to find the right people.
- randomdude402 7y ago
  Haha, glib examples indeed. I agree with you about remote reverting to a large extent. I have been working 90% remote for a while, but most of my co-workers have not and it is driving them crazy after only a few days. We know that a large subset of companies would prefer to have visibility and control. I still think that even if only 5% of the tech employees forced to work remotely for the first time these next couple months get a taste for it, it will change the landscape of remote work in a noticeable way. Even if just a few decent sized employers see and acknowledge good productivity in these next couple months and the talent pushes the issue, it could end up with a lot of 300k positions in california being replaced by 130k remote positions basically anywhere else. After being forced to do it for a while, it's hard to imagine this not happening to some extent, especially in areas that aren't especially strongly affected by stock market news bites.
- mcv 7y ago
  > "most people really struggle at remote" I used to think that, but now that circumstances are forcing me to work remote, I'm amazed at how much I get done, even with the crap communication due to the overloaded VPN at work. And that's while also trying to homeschool two children. Alright, this is a weird situation that's not comparable to anything else, but still, velocity seems remarkably high in my team.

meritt 7y ago

My bet: remote-only for most companies won't last. If there's one thing I've learned over the past 8 years running this company, is most people really struggle at remote. They don't have the dedicated work space, they lack the necessary self-discipline, and many people really start to falter without face time and social interaction. I suspect once this virus is solved, we'll see a flood back to in-person jobs. React was just a glib example anyway, I purposefully stay far away from anything trendy. I'm hiring people who are data smart, can think in SQL, and fully understand that AI/ML/NLP is smoke and mirrors bullshit in the vast majority of contemporary applications. Anyway, I guess my broader point is: When every single PE/VC is battening down the hatches, firms are preemptively laying off people by the thousands before their clients even start missing payments, and a large number tech employees are in mortgages/leases they cannot sustain without those aforementioned salaries? We're about to see a tech bust and housing crash far worse than dot-com. Things are going to get really bad. Programmers are about to be competing head-to-head with front-of-house restaurant employees for gig-economy jobs. Thus, I can afford to wait a bit to find the right people.

randomdude402 7y ago
Haha, glib examples indeed. I agree with you about remote reverting to a large extent. I have been working 90% remote for a while, but most of my co-workers have not and it is driving them crazy after only a few days. We know that a large subset of companies would prefer to have visibility and control. I still think that even if only 5% of the tech employees forced to work remotely for the first time these next couple months get a taste for it, it will change the landscape of remote work in a noticeable way. Even if just a few decent sized employers see and acknowledge good productivity in these next couple months and the talent pushes the issue, it could end up with a lot of 300k positions in california being replaced by 130k remote positions basically anywhere else. After being forced to do it for a while, it's hard to imagine this not happening to some extent, especially in areas that aren't especially strongly affected by stock market news bites.
mcv 7y ago
> "most people really struggle at remote" I used to think that, but now that circumstances are forcing me to work remote, I'm amazed at how much I get done, even with the crap communication due to the overloaded VPN at work. And that's while also trying to homeschool two children. Alright, this is a weird situation that's not comparable to anything else, but still, velocity seems remarkably high in my team.