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> In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Ahhmm, no. Where does negotiation power stem from? Is it a skill? No. You are a produc
by gtsop 6y ago
> In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power.
Ahhmm, no. Where does negotiation power stem from? Is it a skill? No. You are a product much like eveything else in this economy and you price is a function of how much you cost (living cost, heavily depedent on location) + supply/demand trends. Yes, your attitude and negotiation skills can impact your salary but only by a bit. You can't get your salary to tripple by negotiation. Why? What is the force that doesn't allow that? Supply and demand of other people who will do the same for less.
Thus I argue the trend will be a big decline in salaries for remote jobs in places like SF or London, but a very slight increase in salaries in places like india. The market of remote workers is going global, thus the price for this product will adjust accordingly. There will still be some variation in the salary depending on where you are, but the global min-max difference will decrease
- golemotron 6y agoThe lesson is: don't be a commodity.
- gtsop 6y agoHonestly interested in hearing your opinion on how to do that.
- pc86 6y agoAddress business concerns, don't just write code. Almost anyone can write some spaghetti Java and get it to build, but most people who can do that can't operate well in a business environment dealing with executives and C-level people. If you can do both, you're no longer a commodity.
- gtsop 6y agoEven those people have specific salary ranges. They still are commodities or as the corp-speak put it: "assets". More expensive ones, for sure, but still the same rules apply. My living cost will be a hugr factor of my salary even in these positions. Speaking from experience. However, even if that wasn't the case, even if what you say is valid, these are inherently limited jobs so it's not a solution everyone can apply.
- golemotron 6y agoFind a niche or make one. There's no algorithm so it can be hard, but it is a strategy.
- dionidium 6y ago> Ahhmm, no. Where does negotiation power stem from? Is it a skill? No. > You can't get your salary to tripple by negotiation. Why? What is the force that doesn't allow that? I can't triple the speed at which I can throw a baseball, either, because of physics, but it's obviously a skill I can improve relative to other throwers of baseballs.
- gtsop 6y agoThat is why i explicitly said > Yes, your attitude and negotiation skills can impact your salary but only by a bit
- woah 6y agoWorking across a lot of time zones is a huge barrier and leads to all kinds of miscommunication. You can avoid some issues by focusing on written asynchronous communication, and maybe modularizing the work so that different time zones are working on different things, but this tends to calcify and slow down a product development process.
- gtsop 6y agoCorrect, but what are the long term gains/damages of a company paing half the salaries while being slowed down? That's something to be explored before we can conclude the slow down yields worse oveeall results