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Except that a Google employee moving to someplace with a weaker economy has not reduced their leverage. These are people who have the power to simply move back

Except that a Google employee moving to someplace with a weaker economy has not reduced their leverage. These are people who have the power to simply move back.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
They absolutely have. It's much easier to switch jobs without moving than to get a job that requires a move. Their leverage isn't totally gone -- especially since full remote jobs are becoming more common -- but it's definitely reduced. When you move, it's not just the hassle and expense, but also the life changes. Especially if you have kids, those are big. Experienced software engineers in general are capable of moving to practically any major metro if they really want to. By your reasoning, all of them should possess the same pay scale, the same cost of labor.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  > Experienced software engineers in general are capable of moving to practically any major metro if they really want to. By your reasoning, all of them should possess the same pay scale, the same cost of labor. By Jove, I think you've got it!
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    But they don't, because they don't need to, and it's not how the market works.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      Worked. Past tense.
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        It may well change in the future, but it hasn't just yet.
  - machinebun 5y ago
    Yes, and the cost of labor in that case is not everyone getting an SF salary, it's everyone getting a much lower (but equal) salary. Part of the reason that SF salaries still exist is that the US has a very tough immigration system and artificially restricts the number of people who can claim one of those SF salaries (H1B quotas etc). Same thing for doctors (foreign doctors mostly can't practice medicine in U.S.), lawyers, etc. Believe me, there are Russian programmers earning 1/3 of a U.S. engineering salary that are much more technically competent - the only thing stopping them from capturing the true "value of their work" is that damn market (and U.S. immigration system...)
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      I never said the cost of labor was "everybody getting an SF salary." It's "everyone who could otherwise get an SF salary getting an SF salary."
      - machinebun 5y ago
        The SF salary is high because of high demand and low supply (of competent engineers). If you move remote, you increase the supply of competent engineers (there are likely people in middle-of-nowhere that are just as good as SF engineers but don't want to move because of other reasons - hence market inefficiency). Since you're increasing supply with the same demand, now the SF salary is going to drop (and establish a new market clearing price with the new supply & demand dynamics). I think in the long run the SF salary (for the average developer) will be a historical anomaly in a place and time - kind of like the California Gold Rush in the 19th century. (If your argument boils down to SF having more strictly more competent engineers than other places and that being the cause of the pay discrepancy, I strongly disagree)
        salawat 5y ago
        Google has problems money can't solve as a company. I personally won't, and I coach juniors to stay away from many of the big names purely because of their toxic influence in the tech sector. They are of course free to do as they like, but I have an alright success rate with getting people to pass on those jobs to do something somewhat more constructive elsewhere. It's like Fintech; a black hole of talent away from actually important work that needs to be done. You get that much capital condensed under one company, and it starts to channel itself against overall societal interests as it seeks to ensure it's own survival distributed across jurisdictions, fueled more by ignoramt adherence to past performance predicts future results amongst the capital management class implicitly picking winners through retarded capital overvaluations through overly aggressive M&A's and purging of the competitive landscape.
machinebun 5y ago
> Except that a Google employee moving to someplace with a weaker economy has not reduced their leverage. These are people who have the power to simply move back. A Google employee that moves away both changes the pool of options that employee has (only companies that offer remote or local ones in his new place of living - versus companies in (SF, NY, whatever)), and the alternative options that the employer has (he is now being compared against a much larger pool of people who can work remotely). That is indeed decreasing leverage.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Again, not true. That employee can simply... move. You've ignored that.
  - machinebun 5y ago
    > Again, not true. That employee can simply... move. You've ignored that. Well, yes, but we're arguing that they have the same leverage in their new place of residence as they did before the move. If they have to move back in order to exercise that leverage, their leverage is actually location-based, and they will have to choose between their old salary and old location and new salary and new location.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      Yes, and they exercise their leverage by applying to those SF or NYC companies from wherever they are. If they can exercise that leverage from anywhere, then how is that not having leverage? These companies are used to this sort of thing. Relocation costs are nothing compared to the cost of hiring. There is effectively no friction on the company's part. Yes, the employee needs to be willing to go through the process of moving, but, provided they're willing to pay those costs, their leverage in the situation is unchanged.
      - machinebun 5y ago
        Those frictional costs (of moving) are the whole problem. SF salaries are where they are at because of those frictional costs (people choosing not to move to SF, whether by personal choice or by way of visa restrictions etc). Yes, there is a subset of people that have disproportionate leverage no matter where they are at (by virtue of being really really good devs). But that represents only a minority of SF devs.

Except that a Google employee moving to someplace with a weaker economy has not reduced their leverage. These are people who have the power to simply move back.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

They absolutely have. It's much easier to switch jobs without moving than to get a job that requires a move. Their leverage isn't totally gone -- especially since full remote jobs are becoming more common -- but it's definitely reduced. When you move, it's not just the hassle and expense, but also the life changes. Especially if you have kids, those are big. Experienced software engineers in general are capable of moving to practically any major metro if they really want to. By your reasoning, all of them should possess the same pay scale, the same cost of labor.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
> Experienced software engineers in general are capable of moving to practically any major metro if they really want to. By your reasoning, all of them should possess the same pay scale, the same cost of labor. By Jove, I think you've got it!
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  But they don't, because they don't need to, and it's not how the market works.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Worked. Past tense.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      It may well change in the future, but it hasn't just yet.
- machinebun 5y ago
  Yes, and the cost of labor in that case is not everyone getting an SF salary, it's everyone getting a much lower (but equal) salary. Part of the reason that SF salaries still exist is that the US has a very tough immigration system and artificially restricts the number of people who can claim one of those SF salaries (H1B quotas etc). Same thing for doctors (foreign doctors mostly can't practice medicine in U.S.), lawyers, etc. Believe me, there are Russian programmers earning 1/3 of a U.S. engineering salary that are much more technically competent - the only thing stopping them from capturing the true "value of their work" is that damn market (and U.S. immigration system...)
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    I never said the cost of labor was "everybody getting an SF salary." It's "everyone who could otherwise get an SF salary getting an SF salary."
    - machinebun 5y ago
      The SF salary is high because of high demand and low supply (of competent engineers). If you move remote, you increase the supply of competent engineers (there are likely people in middle-of-nowhere that are just as good as SF engineers but don't want to move because of other reasons - hence market inefficiency). Since you're increasing supply with the same demand, now the SF salary is going to drop (and establish a new market clearing price with the new supply & demand dynamics). I think in the long run the SF salary (for the average developer) will be a historical anomaly in a place and time - kind of like the California Gold Rush in the 19th century. (If your argument boils down to SF having more strictly more competent engineers than other places and that being the cause of the pay discrepancy, I strongly disagree)
      - salawat 5y ago
        Google has problems money can't solve as a company. I personally won't, and I coach juniors to stay away from many of the big names purely because of their toxic influence in the tech sector. They are of course free to do as they like, but I have an alright success rate with getting people to pass on those jobs to do something somewhat more constructive elsewhere. It's like Fintech; a black hole of talent away from actually important work that needs to be done. You get that much capital condensed under one company, and it starts to channel itself against overall societal interests as it seeks to ensure it's own survival distributed across jurisdictions, fueled more by ignoramt adherence to past performance predicts future results amongst the capital management class implicitly picking winners through retarded capital overvaluations through overly aggressive M&A's and purging of the competitive landscape.

machinebun 5y ago

> Except that a Google employee moving to someplace with a weaker economy has not reduced their leverage. These are people who have the power to simply move back. A Google employee that moves away both changes the pool of options that employee has (only companies that offer remote or local ones in his new place of living - versus companies in (SF, NY, whatever)), and the alternative options that the employer has (he is now being compared against a much larger pool of people who can work remotely). That is indeed decreasing leverage.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
Again, not true. That employee can simply... move. You've ignored that.
- machinebun 5y ago
  > Again, not true. That employee can simply... move. You've ignored that. Well, yes, but we're arguing that they have the same leverage in their new place of residence as they did before the move. If they have to move back in order to exercise that leverage, their leverage is actually location-based, and they will have to choose between their old salary and old location and new salary and new location.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Yes, and they exercise their leverage by applying to those SF or NYC companies from wherever they are. If they can exercise that leverage from anywhere, then how is that not having leverage? These companies are used to this sort of thing. Relocation costs are nothing compared to the cost of hiring. There is effectively no friction on the company's part. Yes, the employee needs to be willing to go through the process of moving, but, provided they're willing to pay those costs, their leverage in the situation is unchanged.
    - machinebun 5y ago
      Those frictional costs (of moving) are the whole problem. SF salaries are where they are at because of those frictional costs (people choosing not to move to SF, whether by personal choice or by way of visa restrictions etc). Yes, there is a subset of people that have disproportionate leverage no matter where they are at (by virtue of being really really good devs). But that represents only a minority of SF devs.