4 ms·

I feel like there's an implied "and keep their comp". There are a decent number of remote jobs out there right now. They pay well, but certainly not SF TC.

by noodle 6y ago

gremlinsinc 6y ago
yeah cause quality of life is so much better earning 200k and living w/ room-mates or a small apartment over owning your own home and earning 120k. I'd gladly take 120k over 300k as long as I don't need to live in SF. cost of living is just not worth it. Remote's best cause you can live anywhere including rural. I live in rural utah and work remotely doing freelance mostly, love it. We have 1GIG internet in most rural communities in Utah, though.
- hellisothers 6y ago
  You’d rather not make an additional $100,000 _post tax_? That’s about $9,000/mo, way more than the CoL difference, way. And $300k in the Bay Area isn’t even crazy, $400k is also reasonable. If you want to stay in Utah for family/life reasons that makes a ton of sense, but don’t make it about the comp, it doesn’t add up.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    If I could afford to OWN a home for < 500k that has 5 bedrooms and I could earn 240k, maybe it'd be worth it. But for like 140-200k, I can get 5+ rooms in Utah, decent schools, near family, etc.... politics could be better, but that's just a personal beef. The same home would probably cost > 1 million in SF. I can't even imagine earning 1 mill, as a self-taught dev doing freelance who's aging (40).
somerandomqaguy 6y ago
More or less this. If you're making the same take home comp in SF as you are in the mid west, why go to live somewhere where the climate isn't as pleasant year round?
PNWChris 6y ago
Frankly, I think that implicit assumption by workers is totally fair! The way COL adjustments are done results in a strong incentive to live wherever costs the most. Some time ago I made a comment on this concept that I'll re-post here with minor edits: -- Say you move to a lower cost of living area, perhaps 6% cheaper, and your employer adjusts your wages down by the same amount as the change in COL. Now all your expenses are 6% lower, but your money left after expenses is also 6% lower. That means that despite being no worse off in terms of quality of life, your savings went down 6%. Strictly speaking, if you maintain the same relative ratio of costs to savings, it’s always rational to take the highest income, even if it’s in a higher COL area. This is because costs can be measured as a percentage of income, but savings ought to be measured as an absolute value. -- The "fix" would be to somehow work out what workers spend, and only adjust that part of their salary by COL. That's invasive and gives an unfair COL-adjusted comp advantage to the highest earners who can save a bigger portion of their income. I don't have an ideal solution. I guess there could be a standardized single remote COL adjustment (perhaps adjusted by country or something to account different legal frameworks and mandatory benefits), and the remote worker can live wherever without comp adjustments other than local tax.
- downerending 6y ago
  > Now all your expenses are 6% lower, but your money left after expenses is also 6% lower. If so, arguably the COL is being done incorrectly. It should be adjusting just literally the "costs of living", not total comp. That said, having lived in a very high COL area and a normal area, my total take was higher in the former, but the risk/variance was also higher--a lot higher. It could easily have bankrupted me. Thinking in risk/reward terms (or like a market investor), I'd actually prefer the lower variance at this point in my life, even if the mean is also lower.
- noodle 6y ago
  This is true but its not linear. Even remote jobs are coalescing around a median salary. If you go from SF to Chang Mai, you probably aren't going to take a 85% pay cut, it will probably hit a local minimum for your role/experience/etc.. Your skillset still has a certain value regardless of location. Below a certain line, your savings rate will go back up again.

I feel like there's an implied "and keep their comp". There are a decent number of remote jobs out there right now. They pay well, but certainly not SF TC.

by noodle 6y ago

I feel like there's an implied "and keep their comp". There are a decent number of remote jobs out there right now. They pay well, but certainly not SF TC.

gremlinsinc 6y ago

yeah cause quality of life is so much better earning 200k and living w/ room-mates or a small apartment over owning your own home and earning 120k. I'd gladly take 120k over 300k as long as I don't need to live in SF. cost of living is just not worth it. Remote's best cause you can live anywhere including rural. I live in rural utah and work remotely doing freelance mostly, love it. We have 1GIG internet in most rural communities in Utah, though.

hellisothers 6y ago
You’d rather not make an additional $100,000 _post tax_? That’s about $9,000/mo, way more than the CoL difference, way. And $300k in the Bay Area isn’t even crazy, $400k is also reasonable. If you want to stay in Utah for family/life reasons that makes a ton of sense, but don’t make it about the comp, it doesn’t add up.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  If I could afford to OWN a home for < 500k that has 5 bedrooms and I could earn 240k, maybe it'd be worth it. But for like 140-200k, I can get 5+ rooms in Utah, decent schools, near family, etc.... politics could be better, but that's just a personal beef. The same home would probably cost > 1 million in SF. I can't even imagine earning 1 mill, as a self-taught dev doing freelance who's aging (40).

somerandomqaguy 6y ago

More or less this. If you're making the same take home comp in SF as you are in the mid west, why go to live somewhere where the climate isn't as pleasant year round?

PNWChris 6y ago

Frankly, I think that implicit assumption by workers is totally fair! The way COL adjustments are done results in a strong incentive to live wherever costs the most. Some time ago I made a comment on this concept that I'll re-post here with minor edits: -- Say you move to a lower cost of living area, perhaps 6% cheaper, and your employer adjusts your wages down by the same amount as the change in COL. Now all your expenses are 6% lower, but your money left after expenses is also 6% lower. That means that despite being no worse off in terms of quality of life, your savings went down 6%. Strictly speaking, if you maintain the same relative ratio of costs to savings, it’s always rational to take the highest income, even if it’s in a higher COL area. This is because costs can be measured as a percentage of income, but savings ought to be measured as an absolute value. -- The "fix" would be to somehow work out what workers spend, and only adjust that part of their salary by COL. That's invasive and gives an unfair COL-adjusted comp advantage to the highest earners who can save a bigger portion of their income. I don't have an ideal solution. I guess there could be a standardized single remote COL adjustment (perhaps adjusted by country or something to account different legal frameworks and mandatory benefits), and the remote worker can live wherever without comp adjustments other than local tax.

downerending 6y ago
> Now all your expenses are 6% lower, but your money left after expenses is also 6% lower. If so, arguably the COL is being done incorrectly. It should be adjusting just literally the "costs of living", not total comp. That said, having lived in a very high COL area and a normal area, my total take was higher in the former, but the risk/variance was also higher--a lot higher. It could easily have bankrupted me. Thinking in risk/reward terms (or like a market investor), I'd actually prefer the lower variance at this point in my life, even if the mean is also lower.
noodle 6y ago
This is true but its not linear. Even remote jobs are coalescing around a median salary. If you go from SF to Chang Mai, you probably aren't going to take a 85% pay cut, it will probably hit a local minimum for your role/experience/etc.. Your skillset still has a certain value regardless of location. Below a certain line, your savings rate will go back up again.