9 ms·

I've worked remotely for 10+ years and I have one piece of advice. Ignore these policies. Live wherever you want and demand whatever salary you think you're p

I've worked remotely for 10+ years and I have one piece of advice. Ignore these policies. Live wherever you want and demand whatever salary you think you're producing at. If FB wants to leave high productivity labor on the table, let them. If any company has any kind of policy that stops them from hiring you, that's their problem. We've been in a seller's market for software development labor for nearly 20 years. Stop pretending like these arbitrary rules are your problem, it's theirs. They can't limit you. They can only limit themselves.

Spivak 6y ago
Yep! FB can’t pull this shit once you have other offers.
bevacqua 6y ago
So much this. There's companies out there that value output at what you're worth, regardless of where you live at. I'm almost certain that Facebook is one of those companies — when it comes to high output employees. Negotiate.
- bevacqua 6y ago
  Think about it from the angle of consulting rates as a remote developer. Would you charge a different rate to companies that operate in the same markets based on where you are at? Why would you accept a different rate as a FTE, then? You charge what you're worth, not where
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  The counter to that is that there's people that live in cheaper areas that are willing to accept less _because_ their cost of living is lower. If a company can hire them instead of someone )with the same productivity) basing their expected salary on what people make in SV, then why wouldn't they? Following that logic, people living SV should start making less while people living in inexpensive areas should start making more; it should even out to some extent.
  - Retric 6y ago
    That ignores why SV has a cost premium in the first place. High cost of living is pushed up because of the workforce not the other way around.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      SF, and much of the rest of the Bay Area to a lesser (or greater, on the case of Marin) extent had a notoriously high cost of living before “Silicon Valley” was more than a small part of the South Bay. It's more than tech work that has drawn people to SF, and that combined with supply restrictions that also aren't driven by the tech workforce have kept prices high since before the tech workforce showed up.
      - Retric 6y ago
        Going back to say 1950’s and it was still the workforce pushing up cost of living. Who those people are and what they are doing is a function of the time period, but people want to live there in large part due to the weather etc.
  - bevacqua 6y ago
    I don't see that as a counter. Yes, this might be bad long term for people staying in SF, and good long term for people outside of SF/the US. But individually you can look for opportunities in your own local market and get local market rates, or break that paradigm and look at other markets, just like companies are waking up to hiring employees in cheaper markets (beyond hiring consulting firms). Like everything in markets, there's always opportunities for the wise to take advantage of, on both sides
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      If demand for labor goes down in SF, and wages go down in SF, so will the COL.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
- esoterica 6y ago
  > There's companies out there that value output at what you're worth In any auction the selling price is not the value of the item to the winning bidder, it's the second highest bid plus $1. If you move to a LCOL area the competing offers are all going to be garbage unless you can find a second high-paying company to extend you a remote offer (which may or may not happen, depending on how widespread remote work becomes). Facebook has no reason to unilaterally raise their bids unless you can secure good competing offers as leverage.
- war1025 6y ago
  The trouble is there are people who are highly paid because they are legitimately good at what they do. And then there are people who are highly paid because they live in an area where high pay is the norm. The former are going to be fine either way. The latter are in for a rude awakening.
  - chii 6y ago
    so how do you differentiate if you are good at what you do, or is just highly paid because of where you live and worked?
    - chrischen 6y ago
      Easy! If you live in The Bay Area it probably applies! Many companies have a hiring restriction that requires candidates to live near their offices so that they can physically appear for work. This of course constrains the labor pool which artificially inflates salaries. This is of course exacerbated by the fact that in The Bay Area housing itself is also constrained, which multiplies the cost increase on local talent.
xeromal 6y ago
Why not just live in SF?
- bestnameever 6y ago
  > the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. And you're potentially causing yourself a nice future tax issue.
  - astura 6y ago
    Plus possibly criminal fraud.
  - pipework 6y ago
    The company needs to account for which state(s) my income taxes are to be paid towards if I'm w2'ing their situation, as a citizen of the United States, I give as little information as possible because then I'm not able to be 'wrong' or somehow incorrect. This leaves me with exactly two addresses for location, one for shipping things and one for "The state in which you reside". Residence is a legal thing, you can travel and be nomadic while maintaining your resident status within one or more particular states. I've been working remotely for 10+ years like the parent comment, and it would make a very interesting impact on my tax history if what you both are saying holds any water.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  I downvoted your suggestion because it's illegal (like, felony tax evasion and perjury illegal).
  - broth 6y ago
    Why is it illegal?
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    It's illegal to live in SF?
jandrewrogers 6y ago
Some people are competing with local labor. Others are competing with global labor. Which situation benefits you strongly depends on your ability to demonstrate value to the employer. It isn't just supply that is global but also demand. If you demonstrate exceptional value relative to supply globally, then buyers of your skills must also compete globally.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  >Some people are competing with local labor. Proximity might have been valued so highly that it felt like you were only competing locally, but I think this was just an illusion. You've always been competing with global labor.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flashgordon 6y ago
True that they cannot limit you. Except working at a FLiNG company what I have noticed is (sadly) they dont really think much of talent unless you are a brand name (creator of any obscure framework we are stuck with and cannot get out of). Reality is given the normalizing nature of our interviewing processes (leetcode puzzles) without a Brand, a dev (regardless of experience) in the bay area is qualitatively "same" as their counter parts outside - except BA ones are a fair bit costlier.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  What is FLiNG as opposed to FAANG? This is the first I've seen this version.
  - Hydraulix989 6y ago
    There’s only FAANG
  - petersellers 6y ago
    LinkedIn maybe? First time I've seen it too.
    - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
      Ah, yeah, that seems like a good guess.
  - TimonKnigge 6y ago
    Foursquare, Lidl, Nike, Globe and mail
  - flashgordon 6y ago
    Hah sorry yes. Li=LinkedIn. Purely a compensation thing rather than any suggestion of any "elitism". I still can't get over how much in the bay area folks feel that "technical pride" at the Big Cos.
    - 6y ago
rmrfstar 6y ago
Great sentiment, but it's just not a workable position. These guys have massive resources at their disposal, and they will crush a handful of 10x'ers if that's what it takes to get what they want. For goodness sake, Facebook has a bolo list complete with real-time location tracking. Writing "F--- you, Mark" will land you on that list [1]. They view themselves as a quasi-government [2]. If we don't act through Congress to control powerful groups like Facebook, our personal and professional lives will be less free and less fulfilling. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/facebooks-security-team-tracks-posts-location-for-bolo-threat-list.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/facebooks-security-team-trac... [2] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/9/17214752/zuckerberg-facebook-power-regulation-data-privacy-control-political-theory-data-breach-king https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/9/17214752/zuckerber...
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  This is only a problem for you if you really want to work at Facebook for some reason.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    I'm with you, but FAAMG sets the tone for the industry. There is a corporate Overton window, and Facebook is an important "thought leader".
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      I used to feel like I was limited by those "thought leaders" too. Except I lived in an low COL area, where the inertia is towards a lower salary. Once I started working remotely, I learned I wasn't bound by those ideas anymore.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        Considering your name is "Consultant32452" - and not "RegularEmployee32452" - I presume you do consulting. How much are you earning? You said you're not bounded - so I am presuming you're at like $400k+/yr as many FAANG engineers are. Would you still get that if you turned into a regular IC instead of a consultant? I don't think everyone who goes remote wants to be a consultant (or can be).
chris11 6y ago
How do you handle promotions and negotiating raises? I'd be concerned about the long term effect if I went remote. The bay area is expensive, but a 50% or 100% increase in compensation seems possible. That only seems possible in areas like the bay, Seattle, or NYC.
- supportlocal4h 6y ago
  Please don't take this as rude, but this comment seems incredibly naive. Bay area is easily twice as expensive as many other locations. A 50% or even 100% increase in compensation seems like a very bad deal. You might more successfully argue the benefits of bay area weather. But those arguments are harder for Seattle or NYC.
  - taneq 6y ago
    If you double your salary but double your expenses, that's still a good deal because you've doubled your disposable income (ie. the gap between the two).
  - chris11 6y ago
    I'm not offended. I'll give you housing. I'm nowhere close to being able to afford a home. But I'm fine with an apartment. Doing a rough estimate of housing in places I might consider moving to, I might be able to save 5k-10k/yr. I could save more after actually looking, and maybe get a nicer place. But I don't think saving that money would be worth the long term cost of moving to a place where I would be overpaid for my experience level. I might get lower raises, and I think I would have a hard time getting a competitive offer as a remote worker. The calculations would change if I had a family. I'd be be able to afford a really nice house in the state where I went to school.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  I don't really consider promotions or raises. If I take a job, after 1 year I take a hand full of interviews even if I love my job. Then I repeat every 6 months. This improves my ability to interview and keeps me aware of what skills are being required as well as what compensation is being offered. If I get an offer substantially better than my current one, I take it.
esoterica 6y ago
> Live wherever you want and demand whatever salary you think you're producing at. If FB wants to leave high productivity labor on the table, let them. You need leverage to make demands and the best way to have leverage is to have competing offers with similar or higher numbers. If more higher paying companies are open to remote work, then you can play that game, but if your only competing offers are from local companies who pay crappy non-tech-hub salaries then Facebook is just going to call your bluff when you ask for more money. It's still an open question how the future is going to pan out.
golergka 6y ago
Where I live, even $15 per hour is considered a decent salary for a mid-senior engineer. I know for a fact that I'm on the same level as engineers in the valley, both in hard and social skills, up to the accent and culture tropes – but I'm still here because I never wanted the H1B hassle (especially without a degree). Every time I read comments like yours on HN, I become more and more hopeful about my future. I'm not in a bad place right now, that's for sure – but it looks like it's going to get a lot better.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Allow me to boost your hope a little more. I'm a college dropout, don't work for a FAANG, and will make about $400k this year. I hope you make it big.
  - golergka 6y ago
    You sound inspirational, but an outlier. I hope to become one as well, but rely more on trends.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      Everyone who makes $400k/yr is an outlier to some degree, regardless of their pedigree or employer. The key to my success is a skill stack, rather than a skill. I'm a pretty good programmer but I am really good at taking really complicated things and explaining them to non-technical people without using jargon. That makes me valuable where I am. But the thing that opened doors for me is the third leg of my skill stack: teaching. Every opportunity I have to teach something, I do it. It can be teaching my entire team about unit testing and mocks, how to transition from one source control system to another, or taking a junior programmer and teaching them to think like a programmer. Especially the latter group, those people who you teach to improve their own careers really remember it. Because employers suck at giving major raises/promotions when people grow, those people usually leave. And then every opportunity of theirs suddenly becomes your opportunity too. As soon as there's another opening, they want you on their team. In a way, you increase your own luck by increasing the luck of others. Of course it's not 100% guaranteed, and if you acted as if people you mentored owed you something they would just resent you anyways. To butcher a metaphor, when I changed from being a shooting star super-developer to a rising tide that raises all ships, that's when my income and opportunities really took off. When I stopped caring about getting credit for everything I touched. When I started doing everything I could to help others in their career, mine really took off.

Spivak 6y ago

Yep! FB can’t pull this shit once you have other offers.

bevacqua 6y ago

So much this. There's companies out there that value output at what you're worth, regardless of where you live at. I'm almost certain that Facebook is one of those companies — when it comes to high output employees. Negotiate.

bevacqua 6y ago
Think about it from the angle of consulting rates as a remote developer. Would you charge a different rate to companies that operate in the same markets based on where you are at? Why would you accept a different rate as a FTE, then? You charge what you're worth, not where
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
RHSeeger 6y ago
The counter to that is that there's people that live in cheaper areas that are willing to accept less _because_ their cost of living is lower. If a company can hire them instead of someone )with the same productivity) basing their expected salary on what people make in SV, then why wouldn't they? Following that logic, people living SV should start making less while people living in inexpensive areas should start making more; it should even out to some extent.
- Retric 6y ago
  That ignores why SV has a cost premium in the first place. High cost of living is pushed up because of the workforce not the other way around.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    SF, and much of the rest of the Bay Area to a lesser (or greater, on the case of Marin) extent had a notoriously high cost of living before “Silicon Valley” was more than a small part of the South Bay. It's more than tech work that has drawn people to SF, and that combined with supply restrictions that also aren't driven by the tech workforce have kept prices high since before the tech workforce showed up.
    - Retric 6y ago
      Going back to say 1950’s and it was still the workforce pushing up cost of living. Who those people are and what they are doing is a function of the time period, but people want to live there in large part due to the weather etc.
- bevacqua 6y ago
  I don't see that as a counter. Yes, this might be bad long term for people staying in SF, and good long term for people outside of SF/the US. But individually you can look for opportunities in your own local market and get local market rates, or break that paradigm and look at other markets, just like companies are waking up to hiring employees in cheaper markets (beyond hiring consulting firms). Like everything in markets, there's always opportunities for the wise to take advantage of, on both sides
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    If demand for labor goes down in SF, and wages go down in SF, so will the COL.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
esoterica 6y ago
> There's companies out there that value output at what you're worth In any auction the selling price is not the value of the item to the winning bidder, it's the second highest bid plus $1. If you move to a LCOL area the competing offers are all going to be garbage unless you can find a second high-paying company to extend you a remote offer (which may or may not happen, depending on how widespread remote work becomes). Facebook has no reason to unilaterally raise their bids unless you can secure good competing offers as leverage.
war1025 6y ago
The trouble is there are people who are highly paid because they are legitimately good at what they do. And then there are people who are highly paid because they live in an area where high pay is the norm. The former are going to be fine either way. The latter are in for a rude awakening.
- chii 6y ago
  so how do you differentiate if you are good at what you do, or is just highly paid because of where you live and worked?
  - chrischen 6y ago
    Easy! If you live in The Bay Area it probably applies! Many companies have a hiring restriction that requires candidates to live near their offices so that they can physically appear for work. This of course constrains the labor pool which artificially inflates salaries. This is of course exacerbated by the fact that in The Bay Area housing itself is also constrained, which multiplies the cost increase on local talent.

xeromal 6y ago

Why not just live in SF?

bestnameever 6y ago
> the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. And you're potentially causing yourself a nice future tax issue.
- astura 6y ago
  Plus possibly criminal fraud.
- pipework 6y ago
  The company needs to account for which state(s) my income taxes are to be paid towards if I'm w2'ing their situation, as a citizen of the United States, I give as little information as possible because then I'm not able to be 'wrong' or somehow incorrect. This leaves me with exactly two addresses for location, one for shipping things and one for "The state in which you reside". Residence is a legal thing, you can travel and be nomadic while maintaining your resident status within one or more particular states. I've been working remotely for 10+ years like the parent comment, and it would make a very interesting impact on my tax history if what you both are saying holds any water.
CydeWeys 6y ago
I downvoted your suggestion because it's illegal (like, felony tax evasion and perjury illegal).
- broth 6y ago
  Why is it illegal?
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  It's illegal to live in SF?

jandrewrogers 6y ago

Some people are competing with local labor. Others are competing with global labor. Which situation benefits you strongly depends on your ability to demonstrate value to the employer. It isn't just supply that is global but also demand. If you demonstrate exceptional value relative to supply globally, then buyers of your skills must also compete globally.

Consultant32452 6y ago
>Some people are competing with local labor. Proximity might have been valued so highly that it felt like you were only competing locally, but I think this was just an illusion. You've always been competing with global labor.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

flashgordon 6y ago

True that they cannot limit you. Except working at a FLiNG company what I have noticed is (sadly) they dont really think much of talent unless you are a brand name (creator of any obscure framework we are stuck with and cannot get out of). Reality is given the normalizing nature of our interviewing processes (leetcode puzzles) without a Brand, a dev (regardless of experience) in the bay area is qualitatively "same" as their counter parts outside - except BA ones are a fair bit costlier.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
What is FLiNG as opposed to FAANG? This is the first I've seen this version.
- Hydraulix989 6y ago
  There’s only FAANG
- petersellers 6y ago
  LinkedIn maybe? First time I've seen it too.
  - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
    Ah, yeah, that seems like a good guess.
- TimonKnigge 6y ago
  Foursquare, Lidl, Nike, Globe and mail
- flashgordon 6y ago
  Hah sorry yes. Li=LinkedIn. Purely a compensation thing rather than any suggestion of any "elitism". I still can't get over how much in the bay area folks feel that "technical pride" at the Big Cos.
  - 6y ago

rmrfstar 6y ago

Great sentiment, but it's just not a workable position. These guys have massive resources at their disposal, and they will crush a handful of 10x'ers if that's what it takes to get what they want. For goodness sake, Facebook has a bolo list complete with real-time location tracking. Writing "F--- you, Mark" will land you on that list [1]. They view themselves as a quasi-government [2]. If we don't act through Congress to control powerful groups like Facebook, our personal and professional lives will be less free and less fulfilling. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/facebooks-security-team-tracks-posts-location-for-bolo-threat-list.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/facebooks-security-team-trac... [2] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/9/17214752/zuckerberg-facebook-power-regulation-data-privacy-control-political-theory-data-breach-king https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/9/17214752/zuckerber...

Consultant32452 6y ago
This is only a problem for you if you really want to work at Facebook for some reason.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  I'm with you, but FAAMG sets the tone for the industry. There is a corporate Overton window, and Facebook is an important "thought leader".
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    I used to feel like I was limited by those "thought leaders" too. Except I lived in an low COL area, where the inertia is towards a lower salary. Once I started working remotely, I learned I wasn't bound by those ideas anymore.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Considering your name is "Consultant32452" - and not "RegularEmployee32452" - I presume you do consulting. How much are you earning? You said you're not bounded - so I am presuming you're at like $400k+/yr as many FAANG engineers are. Would you still get that if you turned into a regular IC instead of a consultant? I don't think everyone who goes remote wants to be a consultant (or can be).

chris11 6y ago

How do you handle promotions and negotiating raises? I'd be concerned about the long term effect if I went remote. The bay area is expensive, but a 50% or 100% increase in compensation seems possible. That only seems possible in areas like the bay, Seattle, or NYC.

supportlocal4h 6y ago
Please don't take this as rude, but this comment seems incredibly naive. Bay area is easily twice as expensive as many other locations. A 50% or even 100% increase in compensation seems like a very bad deal. You might more successfully argue the benefits of bay area weather. But those arguments are harder for Seattle or NYC.
- taneq 6y ago
  If you double your salary but double your expenses, that's still a good deal because you've doubled your disposable income (ie. the gap between the two).
- chris11 6y ago
  I'm not offended. I'll give you housing. I'm nowhere close to being able to afford a home. But I'm fine with an apartment. Doing a rough estimate of housing in places I might consider moving to, I might be able to save 5k-10k/yr. I could save more after actually looking, and maybe get a nicer place. But I don't think saving that money would be worth the long term cost of moving to a place where I would be overpaid for my experience level. I might get lower raises, and I think I would have a hard time getting a competitive offer as a remote worker. The calculations would change if I had a family. I'd be be able to afford a really nice house in the state where I went to school.
Consultant32452 6y ago
I don't really consider promotions or raises. If I take a job, after 1 year I take a hand full of interviews even if I love my job. Then I repeat every 6 months. This improves my ability to interview and keeps me aware of what skills are being required as well as what compensation is being offered. If I get an offer substantially better than my current one, I take it.

esoterica 6y ago

> Live wherever you want and demand whatever salary you think you're producing at. If FB wants to leave high productivity labor on the table, let them. You need leverage to make demands and the best way to have leverage is to have competing offers with similar or higher numbers. If more higher paying companies are open to remote work, then you can play that game, but if your only competing offers are from local companies who pay crappy non-tech-hub salaries then Facebook is just going to call your bluff when you ask for more money. It's still an open question how the future is going to pan out.

golergka 6y ago

Where I live, even $15 per hour is considered a decent salary for a mid-senior engineer. I know for a fact that I'm on the same level as engineers in the valley, both in hard and social skills, up to the accent and culture tropes – but I'm still here because I never wanted the H1B hassle (especially without a degree). Every time I read comments like yours on HN, I become more and more hopeful about my future. I'm not in a bad place right now, that's for sure – but it looks like it's going to get a lot better.

Consultant32452 6y ago
Allow me to boost your hope a little more. I'm a college dropout, don't work for a FAANG, and will make about $400k this year. I hope you make it big.
- golergka 6y ago
  You sound inspirational, but an outlier. I hope to become one as well, but rely more on trends.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Everyone who makes $400k/yr is an outlier to some degree, regardless of their pedigree or employer. The key to my success is a skill stack, rather than a skill. I'm a pretty good programmer but I am really good at taking really complicated things and explaining them to non-technical people without using jargon. That makes me valuable where I am. But the thing that opened doors for me is the third leg of my skill stack: teaching. Every opportunity I have to teach something, I do it. It can be teaching my entire team about unit testing and mocks, how to transition from one source control system to another, or taking a junior programmer and teaching them to think like a programmer. Especially the latter group, those people who you teach to improve their own careers really remember it. Because employers suck at giving major raises/promotions when people grow, those people usually leave. And then every opportunity of theirs suddenly becomes your opportunity too. As soon as there's another opening, they want you on their team. In a way, you increase your own luck by increasing the luck of others. Of course it's not 100% guaranteed, and if you acted as if people you mentored owed you something they would just resent you anyways. To butcher a metaphor, when I changed from being a shooting star super-developer to a rising tide that raises all ships, that's when my income and opportunities really took off. When I stopped caring about getting credit for everything I touched. When I started doing everything I could to help others in their career, mine really took off.