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A friend of mine works/worked for <large company> in Seattle. He's a really talented guy, probably on his way to Principle Engineer in the near future. He's als
by mabbo 7y ago
A friend of mine works/worked for <large company> in Seattle. He's a really talented guy, probably on his way to Principle Engineer in the near future. He's also pretty critical to some major work they're doing. I'm certain he's paid well for it.
He told his boss he was moving to Montreal. Most other developers, if they said that the boss would probably have said "well, it's been great working with you". But my friend was a critical employee. Can't lose that guy.
Somehow, they found a way to let him be a remote developer from Montreal. Still doing great work. Still being paid well, I imagine. And this is all pre-pandemic.
Correlation does not imply causation. Being allowed to be a remote developer and being paid well are both signs that you might just be critical to your organization.
- whoisnnamdi 7y agoAuthor here I think this is a quite common story, or at least I've heard it a few times now so it feels that way: (1) Senior, important developer decides they want to change locations. (2) Boss can't afford to lose them. (3) So boss let's them work from wherever they want. This of course leads to natural correlation between working remote and skill, which would further correlate to earnings. Replacing a good software developers is non-trivial. That said, to quote from the analysis: Even once I control for various observable factors (including age, experience, hours worked, size of employer, programming languages, and more), fully-remote software developers earn 9.4% more than developers who never or only rarely work remotely.
- mabbo 7y agoI guess the problem is that the analysis can't find a variable for "is critical". I know lots of people with age, experience, hours worked, etc, that are not critical. I can think of a few that are exactly the opposite of critical. The only decent variable to measure whether someone is critical is their salary. But your anlaysis makes it sound as though [remote -> high salary], when really [high salary -> critical] and [remote -> critical].
- lostcolony 7y agoI'd go so far as to say that critical and valuable are not necessarily the same thing. I'd like to think I'm valuable; I go out of my way to not be critical. Intentional knowledge shares, documentation, mentoring, etc, plus focusing on writing systems that are fault tolerant, means that I could leave and it -should- be a minor hiccup. Heck, almost an entire team left along with me at one point in my career, and the projects we left behind just...kept working, no issues. Doubt that company is actually looking to figure them out so they can extend/support them should something need changing, but that's on them.
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoThe hazard there is that a new boss may come in and either not see this person as critical and let him/her go or see this person as critical and go to the effort to find an equivalently senior onsite person to replace him.
- JAlexoid 7y agoIf I stayed at companies that fall under #2, I'd be eternally miserable. I hate working with people who cannot be fired because the company would fold. We, developers, should be the people who the bosses actively want to be there... not "we can't fire him". It makes people less complacent towards other people.
- aprdm 7y agoI would say every company that has been around the block for a long time falls somewhat under #2. Some companies have millions and millions of LoC to run their business and it takes months for someone to wrap their head around some of the systems and be productive... You end up having people in departments that you would rather not lose and will go through great lengths to keep them because the cost of losing the institutional knowledge is just too big.
- dehrmann 7y agoEven for that guy, this is probably a terminal role at the company. Granted, pushing principal engineer is a pretty good place to settle, but he can't expect much advancement.
- gen220 7y agoIt might be obvious to say, but this is really dependent on the culture of the company. IME, if other engineers at the company (team members, managers) recognize your talent, they will give you a raise to keep you there, no matter whether you're remote or on-site. This is true for the simple fact that talented engineers tend to know they're talented, and when career advancement opportunities dissipate, they do not stick around long. Anecdotally, my company has several remote staff engineers. They get raises and promotions like anybody else, and have been remote for multiple performance review cycles. Our company has an on-site bias, but not a particularly strong one. That being said, if your company is old (15+ years) and not eng-driven, YMMV.
- thinkharderdev 7y agoHonestly, that sound exactly like the path I took. Was a senior engineer when I moved away from where my office was and went remote on a special dispensation (my company is in general quite hostile to remote work) and since then my career has continued to progress more or less as I expected. Of course I don't really know the counterfactual but in general I think people way overestimate the value of "face time" for career progression. And if you can be more productive working remotely (which I certainly think I have been) then it can be a net benefit. Of course that all depends on the company. Going remote is probably not great if you work at a small company with a tight-knit team.
- ckdarby 7y agoIf they didn't adjust his salary then he's making ~50-60% more because of the cost of living difference and USD currency.