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Ask HN: Are there any remote companies that pays SF rates worldwide remote?

• stephenr 6y ago
  What is the logic that says over inflated salaries that are required to make hiring possible in a ridiculously expensive place to live are the only measure of “pays well”? You could have a salary substantially less in equivalent dollars and still end up better off if a huge chunk of that income isn’t being spent on putting a roof over your head. Or do you just want the bragging rights “I make 300k” but are sick of spending half of it on rent?
  • byoung2 6y ago
    I don't know about the OP, but I live in Los Angeles so when looking for remote opportunities I need a salary comparable to local onsite jobs. I've got a daughter in school here and my wife has a job with 10 years seniority and a pension at 20 years so it isn't realistic to move to Idaho for the cost of living savings. I've been working remote for 5 years and it has limited my choices to companies that pay LA wages. I've talked to coworkers who live on 5 acres in Texas, a mansion in Iowa, or 20 acres in Arkansas and they think I'm crazy but I can be at the beach or Hollywood in 15 minutes and I don't have to deal with snow or rain.
    • detaro 6y ago
      But that's different from what OP asks, since not all remote companies pay the same rate globally.
    • stephenr 6y ago
      I guess maybe it's a factor of the US employment/benefits situation but I don't quite understand this scenario. In Australia (where I grew up) if you leave a company, you don't lose your retirement savings from that time, because they're not controlled by the company. Is that what you're suggesting: that if your wife changes her job, she'll lose the money that's been paid into a retirement fund for her? As for kids: changing schools can be a hassle but I'd hardly consider it a reason not to move to a much more liveable location.
      • gbear605 6y ago
        For a lot of jobs in the US, you have a pension where if you retire from the company after X years there (in this case 20 years), then they’ll pay you some fixed sum every month for the rest of your life. There isn’t a “retirement fund for her” that money has been paid into, but rather it’s a single on/off switch. This dates from the 50s-70s when staying at a single company your whole career was the norm. Nowadays, most companies offer a 401k retirement plan that you can take with you, but some older companies or government agencies still offer pensions. As for the kids, I’d say that staying in one school district is a huge plus for them, but it varies depending on the kids and the school district.
        • dragonwriter 6y ago
          > For a lot of jobs in the US, you have a pension where if you retire from the company after X years there (in this case 20 years), then they’ll pay you some fixed sum every month for the rest of your life. Pensions are extremely rare outside of the public sector, and have been for about the length of the average working career.
          • adventured 6y ago
            What do you consider extremely rare? 13% of private sector employees still participate in a pension plan. It does seem very likely a large share of those are older workers and that that percentage will continue to erode over the next 10-20 years. https://www.pensionrights.org/publications/statistic/how-many-american-workers-participate-workplace-retirement-plans https://www.pensionrights.org/publications/statistic/how-man...
            • dragonwriter 6y ago
              > What do you consider extremely rare? 13% of private sector employees still participate in a pension plan. Down from 18%, ~7 years before, when 39% and growing of those who still had pensions in the private sector had non-traditional pensions that weren't pure specified-benefit plans, but instead were (for the vast majority of non-traditional plans) hybrid cash-balance plans where the actual benefit is determined by investment returns through the point of retirement (basically, a defined contribution plan where the accumulated balance is used to purchase an annuity at retirement.) https://www.epi.org/blog/private-sector-pension-coverage-decline/ https://www.epi.org/blog/private-sector-pension-coverage-dec... IIRC, a big part of the decline being that for many private employers, pensions, especially traditional ones, are legacy plans that haven't been offered to employees for decades, and are only available to employees that have been working with the firm since they were generally available.
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      > ... and I don't have to deal with snow or rain. But the smog, the wildfires, and the traffic are, um, not ideal. I admit that the beach in Iowa is somewhat lacking...
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • byoung2 6y ago
        Traffic is a nonissue when you work from home. Wildfires are getting bad but the hope is that they can be mitigated over time, unlike snow every winter.
        • stephenr 6y ago
          Hope in one hand and shit in the other, see which fills up first. If you think extreme weather events (droughts, the ensuing wild fires, hurricanes, blizzards, etc) are going to reduce any time soon, you need to pay more attention.
  • revertcommit 6y ago
    You're totally right but I was asking this question because I wanted to know if there are any other companies similar to Basecamp that pays you SF rates no matter where ever you're in the world.
    • stephenr 6y ago
      Looking for a remote salaried position in another country seems like a weird situation to me. The headaches of setting up legal entities, complying with tax laws, benefits etc for whatever location the person is in, is not worth it IMO. If you're a freelancer, it's up to you to decide what rate you want, and if you're willing to negotiate on that rate. For reference, I charge clients about 3x more now, living in a relatively small city in Thailand than I did when I left Melbourne (Australia) several years ago, which is ridiculously more expensive.
  • allendoerfer 6y ago
    In case you can manage to keep the same savings-rate, living in an expensive place, you can move to an inexpensive place for retirement and retire earlier. The absolute values count. It is not only about cost of living/salary.
• jamil7 6y ago
  I doubt there are many, why would they pay the SF rates if they don't have to?
• mech422 6y ago
  Actually - many do... A lot of small companies/startups aren't setup deal with varying costs of living and what a 'comparable' salary would be, so they just pay what they would pay in the local market (SF). edit: my bad, I missed the 'worldwide' part...I only have experience with remote work in the U.S.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mfalcon 6y ago
  Basecamp does.
  • revertcommit 6y ago
    Any companies other than Basecamp? Since Basecamp rarely hires.
  • peruvian 6y ago
    Basecamp hires once every other year and they get thousands of applications for one position, so it's not really a good suggestion.
• raztogt21 6y ago
  In my experience is hard. All the remote offers I had always take into consideration that I live in México. While the salary is like 5x what the average SE in México is paid, it is never close to what my peers in California are earning.
• biermic 6y ago
  I'd focus more on providing enough value to justify a SF like salary. Just trying to find a company that will throw money at you while you sit in a LOC area will be tough. Companies are not stupid, and you are competing with the whole world. There will always be someone who can do the job for a cheaper price. So figure out what value you provide, that justifies inflated rates. Another approach is not to be an employee, but a business. But that's not as comfortable.
• JoeCortopassi 6y ago
  If you want a well paying remote job, you need to avoid companies that advertise remote work. 99% of the time they are trying to capture great talent for less money. Instead just apply to well paying places, and prove you are a worthwhile asset. Even companies that swear they are non-remote will usually make an exception Caveats: This usually only works if you're in the same country as the company (legal/tax complications). Also, while you might get SF salary you will almost never get SF stock comp, which is almost always worth as much as the salary
• codegeek 6y ago
  I may have a very controversial take on this but I would share it regardless. The moment you compete with remote developers all around the world, you have to be really really good to command great salaries. The reason is that the employers have a very wide pool to select from instead of location specific. So as an employer, I don't have an incentive to just pay "SF Salary" unless I find that really exceptional candidate. So focus on becoming that really really good candidate who can command SF level salary while living in say Thailand or whatever your choice of stay is. Otherwise, you are competing with hundreds and thousands of people and if you are just about as good as them, someone is willing to work for less than SF salary. Supply/demand ? Also, a company may be ok with a good enough dev. who costs much less than a great dev. who costs a lot more.
  • one2know 6y ago
    Salary has very little with how "good" you are, and determining "good" is the essence of this scam industry. Hypothetically, lets say there are devs being paid $1MM per year who are kicking back $250-500k to their managers who got them the jobs. They do the same work as everyone else. Are they good?
    • stephenr 6y ago
      In most industries, more experience = more pay. Not all, not always fairly, but generally. In tech, more experience in a niche field generally = even more money. It’s not that different than paying for regular items. There is supply and demand at play (hence niche roles will often pay higher) and the basic concept of “you get what you pay for”. Generally a more experienced developer will be more productive. Generally that means they’ll be compensated more. SF salaries are pushing the supply and demand part heavily: without sufficient salary the candidates can’t afford to live where the job is because it’s so over populated.
    • asdkhadsj 6y ago
      Oh it entirely does. But I think you're confusing the source for "good". As the GP said, supply and demand, you're competing with a lot more developers when you work remote. I think we'd all agree there, right? So now the company hiring has a large pool they need to sort through. How do you choose? Well they _could_ just choose the "best", but they get to define best, or good, right? Some companies may literally want to choose the best client they can, but many will want to balance all variables. They want a skilled candidate, who fits their culture, for a price that leaves them with a good feeling. A candidate willing to accept less pay is a value in itself. If the candidate meets or exceeds the minimum skill that the company is desiring, the cheap price tag is often great. Now I know this is a complex topic, but as a remote worker and someone who has hired many remote workers for a company with real, limited non-VC income, salary matters. Even in just the candidates I've interviewed, if they were all the same price tag I would have different coworkers today. Which isn't to say that my coworkers are bad or that we hired poorly, we hired based on variables at the time, and we made the right decision. Price has nothing to do with candidate skill, but is still often top tier variable in choosing a candidate. It is not a scam. It is reality.
• jppope 6y ago
  Pretty sure Basecamp pegs their salaries on Chicago rates...
  • enonevets 6y ago
    It’s top 10% standardized based on SF market rates Source: https://basecamp.com/about/jobs https://basecamp.com/about/jobs
    • jppope 6y ago
      they updated to SF sometime in the last 3 years. My info was based on what they had previously said. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-benefits-basecamp-complete-list-jason-fried https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-benefits-basecamp-co...