3 ms·

I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. I'm not cranking out code that is somehow less eff

by wlll 6y ago

I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. I'm not cranking out code that is somehow less effective while living in the NW England, and so to pay me less than someone else is downright insulting. I also, to be clear, don't have any hard feelings about people who live in even cheaper[0] places than me, it's their choice. I used to work with a guy in the Phillipines who was on the same as me. Good for him! [0] It's not that cheap in the NW England. It's clearly not SF, NY or London, but it's not cheap.

hota_mazi 6y ago
> I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. That is very short sighted. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality.
- wlll 6y ago
  Two things here. 1. That is very short sighted. Short sighted? You mean, the area-independent wages I've been earning for the last 10 years or so are going to stop? I can't see that happening, if that's what you mean. 2. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality. Only if I am doing something that requires me to be in a certain place, because that's where the value is created. There is a local market for drywall fitting in SF, and there is one in Bunghole, Montana. You can't make the CA rates in MT because you can't provide the value in CA while still being in MT. As a programmer though, I can provide value wherever it is needed from pretty much anywhere I want to be. I'm not providing value in my house, here in England, I'm providing the value at the place I work for. It's for this reason that I'd fully expect to be able to charge Polish rates to a Polish company, and SF rates to an SF company.
- capableweb 6y ago
  I think you're missing the context here, we're talking about remote positions. Maybe what the company expect to pay depends on where the company's HQ is, if they have one, that kind of makes sense. But the company's cost for an employee shouldn't take the location of the (remote) employee into account because that has nothing to do with the hiring/work whatsoever.
  - wlll 6y ago
    Yeah, I think that's partly my fault, I didn't go into enough detail. If I applied for a job/contract in Poland for instance, I'm not going to stamp my foot and throw a tantrum because they won't pay me SF rates. I'd expect them to offer me Polish rates. I also wouldn't expect them to pay me NW England rates (which are likely much higher).
ngngngng 6y ago
How do I find a job that pays me top dollar independent of where I live? I'm a software engineer in a lower cost of living area of the US and I've considered moving to the bay area because wages stagnate here pretty early on in your career, and are generally far lower than in other areas of the world.
- wlll 6y ago
  I can tell you how I think I did it. - Work hard Reputation is a thing. You don't have to kill yourself, but the industry isn't that big, so getting a reputation for being a slacker isn't going to help. - Be a nice guy/gal This can be a reputation thing too. No-one that is worth hanging out with expects you to drink, or stay out late if you don't want to, but the more you get to know people and the more pleasant to be around as a person you are the more likely you are to succeed. Meeting people if you can (conferences, meetups etc.) and convincing them that you are a nice person (bonus points if you are) can kinda remove the first stage of interview. An ex co-worker invited me and a friend round for dinner a couple of years back while we were travelling. It wasn't some polo-shirts-tucked-into-slacks and golf networking type thing, he just did it out of the kindness of his heart. I remember that, it's good for people to remember you like that too. - Convince people you are smart Being smart is one thing, but you have to market yourself too. Don't be obnoxious about it, but don't hide it away. This can be anything from emailing/slacking the company "Hey, check out this cool thing I did that you might be interested in" to just chipping intelligently (but respectfully, see the nice thing) in conversations/meetings. Going to conferences and talking intelligently to people about stuff helps, or the harder route, contributing towards open source. "I have three rails commits" a lot more impressive than "I have no rails commits" (if you're into Rails, check out the Rails github issue tracker, you can literally create PRs and get them merged). - Take an interest in people, and listen Even if it's hard, like it is for me. - Focus your attention in the right places. Like on upcoming or hard to hire for technologies that smart people are starting to use but that aren't ubiquitous yet. No-one with a "bums on seats" mindset is going to consider a remote PHP or JS dev if they tripped over 5 walking from their car to the office that morning. For me this was Rails. It's still hard to hire Rails devs and that means that companies are having to consider remote people, and the wages are good. Go is another wave. Popular, used by some smart people, hard to hire for. There are others I'm sure. - Apply anyway Just like it's totally possible to get a job that asks for a degree when you don't have one (my first job ever for instance), you can apply for jobs that don't allow remote then ask to work remote. Let them tell you no if they want (don't get too invested of course), but I've worked at companies that have tried to fill spots for over a year, good developers for a lot of technologies are hard to find, and at a certain point companies that aren't friendly to remote working, with the right candidate right there, but who wants to work remotely might just re-consider. - Apply to companies that are remote Gitlab famously pays location based wages, but might actually be a decent stepping stone to somewhere else. Shopify does remote, I don't know if they do location based wages. Basecamp pays SF rates. You can apply to all these places, and maybe be rejected, but then apply again in the future. I know that there's at least one person who didn't get into Basecamp on the first application. - Meet people, if possible It helps that when people see your CV they think "Oh hey, I remember ngngngng, they talked intelligently about threads vs processes at that conf". If you're shy, that's tough and you'll need to work round it. I was shy and worked round it, so it was possible for at least me. - Become a contractor/consultant You need skills that you can market to a company (I do Rails performance/scaling and upgrade consultancy, I made someone's controller in the critical path 1500 times faster and orders of magnitude smaller the other day, that's good marketing). You also need to market yourself. Reputation helps, but then so does a website that tells people how much you've helped other people in the past. - Once you are there Make sure to tell people about your successes. If you're working at a company that is not fully remote this is even more important. "Hey peeps, I thought you might be interested in this thing I did" again. - Have an idea where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. Mostly this is about not letting yourself get stuck in a rut rather than having a fixed plan. Don't let yourself get used to the grind. - I don't know, maybe do move to the Bay area Are you young and single with no kids? It might not be a bad move. It could be a stepping stone. I have visited SF a few times and loved it, but then each to their own :) Once again, this is I think what I did and I think what worked for me. It's all cumulative though, and I'm 40 now, and starting the local Ruby user group maybe 13 years ago was a long time ago, and a distant first step on the path to where I am now.

by wlll 6y ago

hota_mazi 6y ago

> I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. That is very short sighted. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality.

wlll 6y ago
Two things here. 1. That is very short sighted. Short sighted? You mean, the area-independent wages I've been earning for the last 10 years or so are going to stop? I can't see that happening, if that's what you mean. 2. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality. Only if I am doing something that requires me to be in a certain place, because that's where the value is created. There is a local market for drywall fitting in SF, and there is one in Bunghole, Montana. You can't make the CA rates in MT because you can't provide the value in CA while still being in MT. As a programmer though, I can provide value wherever it is needed from pretty much anywhere I want to be. I'm not providing value in my house, here in England, I'm providing the value at the place I work for. It's for this reason that I'd fully expect to be able to charge Polish rates to a Polish company, and SF rates to an SF company.
capableweb 6y ago
I think you're missing the context here, we're talking about remote positions. Maybe what the company expect to pay depends on where the company's HQ is, if they have one, that kind of makes sense. But the company's cost for an employee shouldn't take the location of the (remote) employee into account because that has nothing to do with the hiring/work whatsoever.
- wlll 6y ago
  Yeah, I think that's partly my fault, I didn't go into enough detail. If I applied for a job/contract in Poland for instance, I'm not going to stamp my foot and throw a tantrum because they won't pay me SF rates. I'd expect them to offer me Polish rates. I also wouldn't expect them to pay me NW England rates (which are likely much higher).

ngngngng 6y ago

How do I find a job that pays me top dollar independent of where I live? I'm a software engineer in a lower cost of living area of the US and I've considered moving to the bay area because wages stagnate here pretty early on in your career, and are generally far lower than in other areas of the world.

wlll 6y ago
I can tell you how I think I did it. - Work hard Reputation is a thing. You don't have to kill yourself, but the industry isn't that big, so getting a reputation for being a slacker isn't going to help. - Be a nice guy/gal This can be a reputation thing too. No-one that is worth hanging out with expects you to drink, or stay out late if you don't want to, but the more you get to know people and the more pleasant to be around as a person you are the more likely you are to succeed. Meeting people if you can (conferences, meetups etc.) and convincing them that you are a nice person (bonus points if you are) can kinda remove the first stage of interview. An ex co-worker invited me and a friend round for dinner a couple of years back while we were travelling. It wasn't some polo-shirts-tucked-into-slacks and golf networking type thing, he just did it out of the kindness of his heart. I remember that, it's good for people to remember you like that too. - Convince people you are smart Being smart is one thing, but you have to market yourself too. Don't be obnoxious about it, but don't hide it away. This can be anything from emailing/slacking the company "Hey, check out this cool thing I did that you might be interested in" to just chipping intelligently (but respectfully, see the nice thing) in conversations/meetings. Going to conferences and talking intelligently to people about stuff helps, or the harder route, contributing towards open source. "I have three rails commits" a lot more impressive than "I have no rails commits" (if you're into Rails, check out the Rails github issue tracker, you can literally create PRs and get them merged). - Take an interest in people, and listen Even if it's hard, like it is for me. - Focus your attention in the right places. Like on upcoming or hard to hire for technologies that smart people are starting to use but that aren't ubiquitous yet. No-one with a "bums on seats" mindset is going to consider a remote PHP or JS dev if they tripped over 5 walking from their car to the office that morning. For me this was Rails. It's still hard to hire Rails devs and that means that companies are having to consider remote people, and the wages are good. Go is another wave. Popular, used by some smart people, hard to hire for. There are others I'm sure. - Apply anyway Just like it's totally possible to get a job that asks for a degree when you don't have one (my first job ever for instance), you can apply for jobs that don't allow remote then ask to work remote. Let them tell you no if they want (don't get too invested of course), but I've worked at companies that have tried to fill spots for over a year, good developers for a lot of technologies are hard to find, and at a certain point companies that aren't friendly to remote working, with the right candidate right there, but who wants to work remotely might just re-consider. - Apply to companies that are remote Gitlab famously pays location based wages, but might actually be a decent stepping stone to somewhere else. Shopify does remote, I don't know if they do location based wages. Basecamp pays SF rates. You can apply to all these places, and maybe be rejected, but then apply again in the future. I know that there's at least one person who didn't get into Basecamp on the first application. - Meet people, if possible It helps that when people see your CV they think "Oh hey, I remember ngngngng, they talked intelligently about threads vs processes at that conf". If you're shy, that's tough and you'll need to work round it. I was shy and worked round it, so it was possible for at least me. - Become a contractor/consultant You need skills that you can market to a company (I do Rails performance/scaling and upgrade consultancy, I made someone's controller in the critical path 1500 times faster and orders of magnitude smaller the other day, that's good marketing). You also need to market yourself. Reputation helps, but then so does a website that tells people how much you've helped other people in the past. - Once you are there Make sure to tell people about your successes. If you're working at a company that is not fully remote this is even more important. "Hey peeps, I thought you might be interested in this thing I did" again. - Have an idea where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. Mostly this is about not letting yourself get stuck in a rut rather than having a fixed plan. Don't let yourself get used to the grind. - I don't know, maybe do move to the Bay area Are you young and single with no kids? It might not be a bad move. It could be a stepping stone. I have visited SF a few times and loved it, but then each to their own :) Once again, this is I think what I did and I think what worked for me. It's all cumulative though, and I'm 40 now, and starting the local Ruby user group maybe 13 years ago was a long time ago, and a distant first step on the path to where I am now.