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Let’s flip this around. If [anyone] can take [your] job, then it stands to reason that remote work means I can take someone else’s job. But what would this mea
by mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Let’s flip this around. If [anyone] can take [your] job, then it stands to reason that remote work means I can take someone else’s job.
But what would this mean for me? First off it would mean doing all the same work to prepare myself as a candidate. Take Machine Learning for example, which is my area. I need to prepare my resume based on my current projects. I need to brush up for nauseating leet-code hazing trivia dumb shit (probably on a virtual whiteboard now). I need to research companies that have roles I’d be interested in.
Now I do all that, let’s say I do well in the interview.
Am I going to take less money to take the job? No. In fact, I’ll probably want more money than I am earning now if I am going to risk switching jobs.
Am I going to accept my salary to be adjusted by geographic region or cost of living data? No. My compensation is about the value I add to your company. It has nothing to do with where I live.
If I want to do lifestyle arbitrage on my high salary, that’s purely my business and is a private matter my employer does not get to know about or consider.
Given this, how many employers are really likely to want to hire me? I’m going to demand a NYC salary no matter where I live. They won’t get to replace their existing NYC-salary-person with a cheaper competitor, because nobody is cheaper, and a lot of people are more expensive.
In essence, supply went up if you can hire from anywhere, but the price for that supply did not go down, it’s just permanently higher.
I think if companies are looking to trade employees for a cheaper model, they are going to be surprised that hiring remote doesn’t facilitate this at all. The people from rural Kansas who can do the same job are not idiots happy to take 1/2 the pay because of where they live. It’s stupid to expect they would be.
- colinmhayes 6y agoMaybe the people in Kansas won't be taking a pay cut, but workers who were previously limited by immigration laws would definitely be happy to. Indians speak english, Mexico and a handful of other central/south american countries are in the same time zone as the us. People in those situations would be incredibly happy to work for half of what you make now. There are definitely problems with hiring those people, but your argument that supply won't expand is incredibly naive.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoNo, you are just wrong. People from around the world are not dumb! If they are worth $X they will demand $X. This mythical idea that they won’t research & understand their worth is so foolish. If you’re smart enough to write complex software or do complex math, you’re smart enough to ask basic first-order questions about how you will be compensated according to the value you bring to the table. This dismissive idea that globalizing advanced software jobs leads to vastly cheaper labor is silly. It boils down to literally just assuming foreign people are dumb, don’t value themselves and don’t do basic research. I don’t know about you, but that sure doesn’t describe the huge cohort of software engineers that I know - from _anywhere_.
- colinmhayes 6y agoIf there are suddenly 10 times as many people fighting for the same number of positions salaries will drop. That's just basic supply and demand.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoBasic supply and demand is a very poor economic model. It’s cited all the time by armchair commenters, but rarely reflects reality.
- colinmhayes 6y agoSource?
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoPlease don’t write comments like this. It immediately indicates you are not open to considering other points of view and you believe the burden of effort for improving your beliefs rests on other people instead of yourself, and that you think this is a valid rhetorical tactic in conversation. This point is so far beyond indisputable with massive available confirmatory data as well as economic theory that to engage a lazy “citation needed” type of response does more harm than good, worse than a “let me google that for you” situation by a wide margin.
- johnward 6y ago> I need to brush up for nauseating leet-code hazing trivia dumb shit I know this isn't your main point but as someone who is interviewing this really hits at home. These leetcode interviews kill me.