6 ms·

I'm super curious how this will WFH Covid-era will play out for the Bay Area. I think the question I haven't figured out is job mobility. Pre-covid, even if you

I'm super curious how this will WFH Covid-era will play out for the Bay Area. I think the question I haven't figured out is job mobility. Pre-covid, even if you lost your job here as an engineer, finding another company thats interesting with the right pay isn't too hard which is one of the best appeals of SV. I wonder how this will play out in terms of this dynamic.

throwaway201103 6y ago
Should be even better? Now instead of finding another SV job you can find a job anywhere in the world.
monadic3 6y ago
Well presumably you'd have af least the same opportunities as before, they just won't require that you move to the bay.
flatline 6y ago
I'm curious what it will do to tech salaries as well. Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? Will smaller firms elsewhere have to raise salaries to compete with locals taking non-regional salaries?
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  You're looking at it from the wrong side. Developer supply for SV companies just expanded to include potentially everyone who for various reasons did not want to or was unable to relocate to SV. Tech salaries will fall for SV companies, though it might initially be a bump up from what those non-local developers could get in their local areas.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? Some will, some won't! Truth is, those who decide to offer compensation based on value added instead of a magic HR approved formula will get interest from everyone else. I expect some companies to use this CoL-based compensation as a way to let go underperformers and others to attract talent that was previously unavailable. > Will smaller firms elsewhere have to raise salaries to compete with locals taking non-regional salaries? They'll have to.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    > those who decide to offer compensation based on value added instead of a magic HR approved formula You're leaving out "what the candidate will accept"
- bcheung 6y ago
  Short term: People working remote in other locations will have higher salaries from SV companies since they are used to paying those salaries. People moving from SV to other locations should expect moderate drops (10-20%). In my own experience moving to a 0% state income tax state, it effectively canceled out the savings from CA tax but the cheaper housing more than made up for it. Longer term: Tech salaries will come down as employers hire from a larger talent pool that is cheaper on average. This will make it hard for people in SV to work remote as they won't be as competitive. This probably means SV will become more affordable. > be compensated the same as those in SV? Generally speaking no, compensation has an aspect of location. Companies are going to have a harder time paying SV rates if they know you are in a cheaper area.
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    I think the longer term will come to pass faster than many people realize, like 2-3 years fast for new college grads and people moving jobs. Big companies are already signally they will adjust pay based on location, and it's a small leap from there to "fix the glitch"
- filmgirlcw 6y ago
  > Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? No. At larger companies, they already have these types of adjustments and will just be making more of them. For smaller companies, they’ll very quickly start to implement these types of adjustments. Depending on where you go, the trade-off can still work in your favor, even with a lower salary. But COL calculators aren’t perfect and don’t change as often as the areas can. So you can be in a position where your COL rises but your salary, per the calculator does not. When I moved to Seattle from NYC, I got a lower salary because of COL differences, even though the real COL is the same (and in some ways, is higher than NYC). Yes, rent in Seattle is going to be lower when directly compared to New York City (so same type of area/amenities/size), but your options are lower too, which can push you towards a higher priced house or apartment than you might choose in New York. I pay a lot more in rent in Seattle than I did in NYC. It’s a nicer place and the equivalent in Williamsburg would be higher, but I’d have more options that were less than what I pay in NYC that still fit my needs and are close to the places I need to be. Food prices and cost of good are the same (sales tax is higher in Seattle and there are fewer food options for delivery). It’s the state income tax that is the differentiator. That’s 10% of my income a year I don’t lose as I did in New York. And that can be significant. If I left Washington for a place with LCOL, I’d need to calculate my lower salary against the real-world costs of the new place, plus any additional expenses (like owning a car and gas money and maintainable/insurance), and the tax implications of the new place. Going from California to Texas will be a big change tax wise, but going from Washington state to Iowa, which has a 9% state income tax and a LCOL, I’d need to calculate whether that lower salary would be a good enough deal for me to leave. And of course, you have to factor in the cost you personally value the place you live from a culture and opportunity point of view. I like big cities. Cities have suffered tremendously with COVID because all the things we love about cities have gone away. But I’m still (perhaps stupidly) bullish on cities. I grew up in the suburbs of a major city but haven’t lived outside of a major metropolitan area since I was 18 years old. I have no desire to live in suburbia, even if the housing prices are low and space is plentiful. That just isn’t my thing. So the trade-off to do that would be require a significant increase in compensation. But I don’t have children and I understand that lots of people don’t have the same affinity for big cities that I do. They are happy with those tradeoffs. To be able to buy a home or a condo for under $1 million. And for those workers, going from a $300k SF salary to something like $180k might be just fine. But anyone expecting to make that $300k in Montana or Texas is fooling themselves. There will always be outliers who will be compensated more or the same, regardless of where they live. But those are outliers. It’s not the norm. There are some that predict the move away from big cities will depress tech salaries in general. I think there might be some of that, but it just depends on how many people actually move. Part of the reason you have hubs in various industries like SF and Seattle and NYC and DC and Boston and LA is because that’s where a lot of the talent has decided to congregate. And talent!= company HQ. Atlanta probably does as much production work as LA does, but Hollywood and the film and television and streaming industries are still centered in Los Angeles. No studio executive is moving from Malibu to Buckhead (an actor or producer might buy a second house there, sure). For tech, maybe there will be a wide dispersion. But I don’t think it’s a guarantee.
davidw 6y ago
I'm curious about how it plays out... everywhere. I live in what's being called a "Zoom town", with lots of remote workers who seem to want a smaller town with more outdoor access (Bend, Oregon if you're curious). House prices are going through the roof. But Bend was already hot, and on people's radar. Yesterday I saw an article about housing heating up in Baker City Oregon. This is a small town of 10K people that is certainly in a nice area, but hasn't been known as much of a 'hip' place to be. https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/realestate/baker-county-real-estate-heats-up/article_5d5a3f64-c60b-5f46-99ca-c35bb1714ee1.html https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/realestate/baker-count... There are quite a few smaller towns here and there throughout the west. It'll be interesting to see if the dispersion to these kinds of places is fairly uniform, if people stick more to already 'hot' places, and of course what happens when the pandemic is mostly played out.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  If I was mayor of a small town I would be rolling out fiber like there is no tomorrow and zoning everything to allow for detached units like these [0]. Interests rates are at their lowest and the rise in property value should more than pay for it. [0] https://www.dwell.com/article/prefab-home-office-accessory-dwelling-units-efab1374 https://www.dwell.com/article/prefab-home-office-accessory-d...
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    You also have to be in reasonable distance to an airport, Trader Joes/Costco/REI/restaurants/breweries/etc other stores the higher income crowds like, and outdoor activities. Bend happened to have all of these. Although Bend's internet offerings are extremely sad, and I'm surprised the political power of the tech crowd hasn't forced municipal fiber to be a thing yet.
    - davidw 6y ago
      For me a bike shop and brewery would be the 'minimum viable amenities'. Even Lakeview has a bike shop. Baker City has both - and the beer is supposed to be pretty good: http://www.barleybrownsbeer.com/ http://www.barleybrownsbeer.com/ . I think some people are more comfortable with less of that stuff. I could get by without Costco and REI.
danielrhodes 6y ago
I have heard that a large chunk of the employable software engineers in the United States are located in the Bay Area. Because of this, it is almost a requirement that if you are a company in a hyper-growth phase, you need to be in the Bay Area, otherwise you will struggle to hire enough people. Maybe that will change post-COVID, but I doubt it. Certainly we can expect more companies to be supportive of remote work, and I think that's a good thing.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  That seems kinda unlikely to me, do you have a source perchance?
jldugger 6y ago
If rents and prices fall to 2014 levels, would anyone notice?
nemo44x 6y ago
Me too. In my opinion the Bay Area has nearly nothing going for it except the abundance of high paying jobs and all the effects of that line networking, visibility to early stage investors, etc. The weather is nice. Which is a lot. A whole lot. But if it becomes apparent you don’t need to be there to start a technology company (or rather there aren’t as many advantages) or to reliably find the best jobs due to the open location policy companies could move to, it begins to lose that. NYC is still NYC for example. It will suffer for awhile but people will continue to want to be there because being there is different than anywhere else. It doesn’t rely on an industry or on locality of an industry. It will rise as it has many times before as a capital city of the world. The surrounding suburbs in NJ and CN are well served by trains which the Bay Area can’t really say. The Bay Area is just another sprawl of highways, strip malls, and parking lots. You could be anywhere if it did t happen to be there. I think there will remain a certain prestige in the Bay Area though. But maybe not a monopoly like today. Sort of like how Wall St. is more a legacy than an actual locality that matters in the finance world.
- briandear 6y ago
  > The weather is nice. Which is a lot. A whole lot. Except when the annual wildfires make the air unbreathable for days or weeks at a time.
  - muzz 6y ago
    This was not a regular occurrence before 2017. Climate change is coming at us fast.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    Not just the weather - the money part too. Especially that.
houseofzeus 6y ago
Depends where you go, it's not like there are no other tech companies in Austin for example.
jennyyang 6y ago
Companies will say "Everyone can work remote!" for a year or so, but small startups will work together in an office, and they will be more productive. As they make progress and competition increases, all other companies will drop WFH and enforce going into the office. There's a large swath of people who want to work in an office for many different reasons. I don't think it's going away.
karmasimida 6y ago
I am interested and don't yet want to pick a side yet. I love to see my colleagues face to face but I also hate the commute time to the core. I think there are many people who are in the same shoe as I am. If the COVID situation brings the whole corporate world to accept a level of flexibility, where proximity to the team is encouraged but not necessary, that would be a win for everyone, IMO.
vineyardmike 6y ago
I'm sure it's also easier to hire/lay-off people when they're just remote "zoom employees". Virtual employees seem way more disposable. My team hired college-grad engineers since march and managers still don't actually know their names. Once its safe, you can be sure I'll be going into the office every day getting IRL "facetime" with managers.

throwaway201103 6y ago

Should be even better? Now instead of finding another SV job you can find a job anywhere in the world.

monadic3 6y ago

Well presumably you'd have af least the same opportunities as before, they just won't require that you move to the bay.

flatline 6y ago

I'm curious what it will do to tech salaries as well. Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? Will smaller firms elsewhere have to raise salaries to compete with locals taking non-regional salaries?

throwaway201103 6y ago
You're looking at it from the wrong side. Developer supply for SV companies just expanded to include potentially everyone who for various reasons did not want to or was unable to relocate to SV. Tech salaries will fall for SV companies, though it might initially be a bump up from what those non-local developers could get in their local areas.
908B64B197 6y ago
> Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? Some will, some won't! Truth is, those who decide to offer compensation based on value added instead of a magic HR approved formula will get interest from everyone else. I expect some companies to use this CoL-based compensation as a way to let go underperformers and others to attract talent that was previously unavailable. > Will smaller firms elsewhere have to raise salaries to compete with locals taking non-regional salaries? They'll have to.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  > those who decide to offer compensation based on value added instead of a magic HR approved formula You're leaving out "what the candidate will accept"
bcheung 6y ago
Short term: People working remote in other locations will have higher salaries from SV companies since they are used to paying those salaries. People moving from SV to other locations should expect moderate drops (10-20%). In my own experience moving to a 0% state income tax state, it effectively canceled out the savings from CA tax but the cheaper housing more than made up for it. Longer term: Tech salaries will come down as employers hire from a larger talent pool that is cheaper on average. This will make it hard for people in SV to work remote as they won't be as competitive. This probably means SV will become more affordable. > be compensated the same as those in SV? Generally speaking no, compensation has an aspect of location. Companies are going to have a harder time paying SV rates if they know you are in a cheaper area.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  I think the longer term will come to pass faster than many people realize, like 2-3 years fast for new college grads and people moving jobs. Big companies are already signally they will adjust pay based on location, and it's a small leap from there to "fix the glitch"
filmgirlcw 6y ago
> Will developers working remotely for SV companies from LCOL areas be compensated the same as those in SV? No. At larger companies, they already have these types of adjustments and will just be making more of them. For smaller companies, they’ll very quickly start to implement these types of adjustments. Depending on where you go, the trade-off can still work in your favor, even with a lower salary. But COL calculators aren’t perfect and don’t change as often as the areas can. So you can be in a position where your COL rises but your salary, per the calculator does not. When I moved to Seattle from NYC, I got a lower salary because of COL differences, even though the real COL is the same (and in some ways, is higher than NYC). Yes, rent in Seattle is going to be lower when directly compared to New York City (so same type of area/amenities/size), but your options are lower too, which can push you towards a higher priced house or apartment than you might choose in New York. I pay a lot more in rent in Seattle than I did in NYC. It’s a nicer place and the equivalent in Williamsburg would be higher, but I’d have more options that were less than what I pay in NYC that still fit my needs and are close to the places I need to be. Food prices and cost of good are the same (sales tax is higher in Seattle and there are fewer food options for delivery). It’s the state income tax that is the differentiator. That’s 10% of my income a year I don’t lose as I did in New York. And that can be significant. If I left Washington for a place with LCOL, I’d need to calculate my lower salary against the real-world costs of the new place, plus any additional expenses (like owning a car and gas money and maintainable/insurance), and the tax implications of the new place. Going from California to Texas will be a big change tax wise, but going from Washington state to Iowa, which has a 9% state income tax and a LCOL, I’d need to calculate whether that lower salary would be a good enough deal for me to leave. And of course, you have to factor in the cost you personally value the place you live from a culture and opportunity point of view. I like big cities. Cities have suffered tremendously with COVID because all the things we love about cities have gone away. But I’m still (perhaps stupidly) bullish on cities. I grew up in the suburbs of a major city but haven’t lived outside of a major metropolitan area since I was 18 years old. I have no desire to live in suburbia, even if the housing prices are low and space is plentiful. That just isn’t my thing. So the trade-off to do that would be require a significant increase in compensation. But I don’t have children and I understand that lots of people don’t have the same affinity for big cities that I do. They are happy with those tradeoffs. To be able to buy a home or a condo for under $1 million. And for those workers, going from a $300k SF salary to something like $180k might be just fine. But anyone expecting to make that $300k in Montana or Texas is fooling themselves. There will always be outliers who will be compensated more or the same, regardless of where they live. But those are outliers. It’s not the norm. There are some that predict the move away from big cities will depress tech salaries in general. I think there might be some of that, but it just depends on how many people actually move. Part of the reason you have hubs in various industries like SF and Seattle and NYC and DC and Boston and LA is because that’s where a lot of the talent has decided to congregate. And talent!= company HQ. Atlanta probably does as much production work as LA does, but Hollywood and the film and television and streaming industries are still centered in Los Angeles. No studio executive is moving from Malibu to Buckhead (an actor or producer might buy a second house there, sure). For tech, maybe there will be a wide dispersion. But I don’t think it’s a guarantee.

davidw 6y ago

I'm curious about how it plays out... everywhere. I live in what's being called a "Zoom town", with lots of remote workers who seem to want a smaller town with more outdoor access (Bend, Oregon if you're curious). House prices are going through the roof. But Bend was already hot, and on people's radar. Yesterday I saw an article about housing heating up in Baker City Oregon. This is a small town of 10K people that is certainly in a nice area, but hasn't been known as much of a 'hip' place to be. https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/realestate/baker-county-real-estate-heats-up/article_5d5a3f64-c60b-5f46-99ca-c35bb1714ee1.html https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/realestate/baker-count... There are quite a few smaller towns here and there throughout the west. It'll be interesting to see if the dispersion to these kinds of places is fairly uniform, if people stick more to already 'hot' places, and of course what happens when the pandemic is mostly played out.

908B64B197 6y ago
If I was mayor of a small town I would be rolling out fiber like there is no tomorrow and zoning everything to allow for detached units like these [0]. Interests rates are at their lowest and the rise in property value should more than pay for it. [0] https://www.dwell.com/article/prefab-home-office-accessory-dwelling-units-efab1374 https://www.dwell.com/article/prefab-home-office-accessory-d...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  You also have to be in reasonable distance to an airport, Trader Joes/Costco/REI/restaurants/breweries/etc other stores the higher income crowds like, and outdoor activities. Bend happened to have all of these. Although Bend's internet offerings are extremely sad, and I'm surprised the political power of the tech crowd hasn't forced municipal fiber to be a thing yet.
  - davidw 6y ago
    For me a bike shop and brewery would be the 'minimum viable amenities'. Even Lakeview has a bike shop. Baker City has both - and the beer is supposed to be pretty good: http://www.barleybrownsbeer.com/ http://www.barleybrownsbeer.com/ . I think some people are more comfortable with less of that stuff. I could get by without Costco and REI.

danielrhodes 6y ago

I have heard that a large chunk of the employable software engineers in the United States are located in the Bay Area. Because of this, it is almost a requirement that if you are a company in a hyper-growth phase, you need to be in the Bay Area, otherwise you will struggle to hire enough people. Maybe that will change post-COVID, but I doubt it. Certainly we can expect more companies to be supportive of remote work, and I think that's a good thing.

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
That seems kinda unlikely to me, do you have a source perchance?

jldugger 6y ago

If rents and prices fall to 2014 levels, would anyone notice?

nemo44x 6y ago

Me too. In my opinion the Bay Area has nearly nothing going for it except the abundance of high paying jobs and all the effects of that line networking, visibility to early stage investors, etc. The weather is nice. Which is a lot. A whole lot. But if it becomes apparent you don’t need to be there to start a technology company (or rather there aren’t as many advantages) or to reliably find the best jobs due to the open location policy companies could move to, it begins to lose that. NYC is still NYC for example. It will suffer for awhile but people will continue to want to be there because being there is different than anywhere else. It doesn’t rely on an industry or on locality of an industry. It will rise as it has many times before as a capital city of the world. The surrounding suburbs in NJ and CN are well served by trains which the Bay Area can’t really say. The Bay Area is just another sprawl of highways, strip malls, and parking lots. You could be anywhere if it did t happen to be there. I think there will remain a certain prestige in the Bay Area though. But maybe not a monopoly like today. Sort of like how Wall St. is more a legacy than an actual locality that matters in the finance world.

briandear 6y ago
> The weather is nice. Which is a lot. A whole lot. Except when the annual wildfires make the air unbreathable for days or weeks at a time.
- muzz 6y ago
  This was not a regular occurrence before 2017. Climate change is coming at us fast.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  Not just the weather - the money part too. Especially that.

houseofzeus 6y ago

Depends where you go, it's not like there are no other tech companies in Austin for example.

jennyyang 6y ago

Companies will say "Everyone can work remote!" for a year or so, but small startups will work together in an office, and they will be more productive. As they make progress and competition increases, all other companies will drop WFH and enforce going into the office. There's a large swath of people who want to work in an office for many different reasons. I don't think it's going away.

karmasimida 6y ago

I am interested and don't yet want to pick a side yet. I love to see my colleagues face to face but I also hate the commute time to the core. I think there are many people who are in the same shoe as I am. If the COVID situation brings the whole corporate world to accept a level of flexibility, where proximity to the team is encouraged but not necessary, that would be a win for everyone, IMO.

vineyardmike 6y ago

I'm sure it's also easier to hire/lay-off people when they're just remote "zoom employees". Virtual employees seem way more disposable. My team hired college-grad engineers since march and managers still don't actually know their names. Once its safe, you can be sure I'll be going into the office every day getting IRL "facetime" with managers.