6 ms·

cannot get work... at the price they want. Plenty of low-paying remote jobs out there

by Invictus0 3y ago

bamfly 3y ago
> low-paying For high values of "low paying". $150-250k TC, instead of $300-500k.
- baristaGeek 3y ago
  Exactly! It just makes the job market much more perfect. $500k at scale is an economic squander.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    To be clear, I'm not complaining about FAANG/finance comp rates. Anyone taking a bigger paycheck instead of that money going to capital is doing god's work (plus, building a foundation for future capital innovation, if you want the pro-capitalism slant on it—more people with investable capital and more people with cushion to try to build a business is very good). You should absolutely take every dollar you can wring out. They wanna spend stupid-money, see if they'll give you "stupid + $1". All day long. Just putting things in perspective. "Bad" developer pay is still really good. (of course, there's a worse tier of pay for developers and sysadmins under that one, but I don't think there's a lot of remote work in that tier that isn't also offshored work—in-person, though, yes)
- coryrc 3y ago
  This useless administrator[0] who failed King County completely is hired by Seattle for $250/hr. Paying SWEs $150k-250k is low. [0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessness-authority-and-former-ceo-move-on-after-breakup/#comments https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessn...
tayo42 3y ago
Companies are being cheap. Software engineers are only providing 200k dollars worth of value? I find that hard to believe.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  Compensation isn't proportional to the value you produce. It never was. The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. The value you produce only sets an upper limit on your compensation because companies don't want to lose money by employing people.
  - tayo42 3y ago
    yeah sure its a market, the money is there though to get. that doesn't change companies are being cheap. nothing wrong trying to extract as much as you can. companies that pay low are signaling they don't value their workers.
  - mempko 3y ago
    It's a market but not that great of a market. No transparent price discovery. Huge market manipulation by the big guys making deals with each other to suppress wages (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/what-the-apple-wage-collusion-case-says-about-silicon-valleys-labor-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...) Yes, wages are high relative to other industries but the large tech companies are immensely profitable. Wages can be even higher without market manipulation. So yes, it's a market but a really really bad one in ways we value markets to be good.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    > The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. Demand for software engineers is partially explained by the value software engineers generate. The value a job creates is obviously a factor. Imagine a job that creates absolutely no value but has a limited supply of qualified people. It wont even exist let alone pay anything.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
shmatt 3y ago
Im not sure why this is even getting downvoted. Top pay of market has significantly shifted to hybrid. Even once a week in office means you can't live anywhere in the country you'd like. Though i'm not sure if the original article counts hybrid as remote in this case There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation
- oofta-boofta 3y ago
  [dead]
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I agree with the parent and grandparent comments. For me personally, the question is how long I hold out for a job that will pay the bills. E.g., without my kids needing to take out big college loans. For one thing, I don't want to screw over an employer by taking a job that I know I'll leave as soon as something better-paying becomes available. Hopefully I'll find a decent job before I get that desparate.
- zer8k 3y ago
  Honestly, I'd take 100k TC for a position to keep remote. One caveat, I will be working at 20% of my actual mental capacity. Frequent vacations, using sick time as often as possible, etc. I would not take on anything resembling pagerduty and I wouldn't try to lead anything. Then I'll leave for any job with higher TC. Malicious compliance is the best kind of compliance and is the only way to respond to a lop-sided negotiation. Companies are exploiting the rift in labor due to inflation, COVID, etc right now. For 2 years the power was in the hands of employees. This left a very bad taste in the mouths of management. What companies want is top-tier labor for bottom-tier pricing. It won't happen. If it does, you'll have a bunch of people with 1.5 feet out the door coasting at work.
  - addisonl 3y ago
    And people wonder why companies don’t like remote work…
yieldcrv 3y ago
in my experience, the process is the same at any salary or compensation package it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too
- shmatt 3y ago
  It is significantly easier to get a $100k offer than a $600k one as a senior software engineer. Companies who offer lower pay fully understand they aren't poaching anyone from Meta or Netflix any time soon, and lower their bar in terms of how hard the interview is In other words getting an offer for "tech in a non-tech company" is pretty easy. Getting the Meta offer in 1-shot of 6 back to back interviews, not so much
  - solarmist 3y ago
    The bar may be lower but their risk aversion is just as high, so they're also doing 7 round interviews where a single 'meh' ends the process.
- bamfly 3y ago
  > it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too The trick is not to job-shop in bad markets. "Expensive" and "risky" to a startup in, I dunno, Billings, is "holy shit, what a bargain!" in a lot of cities—and not even the top markets, but tier two and three cities. Or to established, larger companies. Be wary of small companies scraping by in cheap cities. If the pay's non-shit, they'll expect you to be a literal wizard, performing actual supernatural feats, for pay that's still probably on the low side.
- zer8k 3y ago
  The lowest end TC still requires you to do a 7 stage interview + colonoscopy. They're doing this to age-out a large portion of the industry. No other reason.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  What you say is true to an extent but its still easier because there are less or less qualified candidates.
nsxwolf 3y ago
Anecdotal, I am not seeing any difference with the low paying jobs.

cannot get work... at the price they want. Plenty of low-paying remote jobs out there

bamfly 3y ago

> low-paying For high values of "low paying". $150-250k TC, instead of $300-500k.

baristaGeek 3y ago
Exactly! It just makes the job market much more perfect. $500k at scale is an economic squander.
- bamfly 3y ago
  To be clear, I'm not complaining about FAANG/finance comp rates. Anyone taking a bigger paycheck instead of that money going to capital is doing god's work (plus, building a foundation for future capital innovation, if you want the pro-capitalism slant on it—more people with investable capital and more people with cushion to try to build a business is very good). You should absolutely take every dollar you can wring out. They wanna spend stupid-money, see if they'll give you "stupid + $1". All day long. Just putting things in perspective. "Bad" developer pay is still really good. (of course, there's a worse tier of pay for developers and sysadmins under that one, but I don't think there's a lot of remote work in that tier that isn't also offshored work—in-person, though, yes)
coryrc 3y ago
This useless administrator[0] who failed King County completely is hired by Seattle for $250/hr. Paying SWEs $150k-250k is low. [0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessness-authority-and-former-ceo-move-on-after-breakup/#comments https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessn...

tayo42 3y ago

Companies are being cheap. Software engineers are only providing 200k dollars worth of value? I find that hard to believe.

Aurornis 3y ago
Compensation isn't proportional to the value you produce. It never was. The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. The value you produce only sets an upper limit on your compensation because companies don't want to lose money by employing people.
- tayo42 3y ago
  yeah sure its a market, the money is there though to get. that doesn't change companies are being cheap. nothing wrong trying to extract as much as you can. companies that pay low are signaling they don't value their workers.
- mempko 3y ago
  It's a market but not that great of a market. No transparent price discovery. Huge market manipulation by the big guys making deals with each other to suppress wages (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/what-the-apple-wage-collusion-case-says-about-silicon-valleys-labor-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...) Yes, wages are high relative to other industries but the large tech companies are immensely profitable. Wages can be even higher without market manipulation. So yes, it's a market but a really really bad one in ways we value markets to be good.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. Demand for software engineers is partially explained by the value software engineers generate. The value a job creates is obviously a factor. Imagine a job that creates absolutely no value but has a limited supply of qualified people. It wont even exist let alone pay anything.
- dv_dt 3y ago

shmatt 3y ago

Im not sure why this is even getting downvoted. Top pay of market has significantly shifted to hybrid. Even once a week in office means you can't live anywhere in the country you'd like. Though i'm not sure if the original article counts hybrid as remote in this case There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation

oofta-boofta 3y ago
[dead]
CoastalCoder 3y ago
I agree with the parent and grandparent comments. For me personally, the question is how long I hold out for a job that will pay the bills. E.g., without my kids needing to take out big college loans. For one thing, I don't want to screw over an employer by taking a job that I know I'll leave as soon as something better-paying becomes available. Hopefully I'll find a decent job before I get that desparate.
zer8k 3y ago
Honestly, I'd take 100k TC for a position to keep remote. One caveat, I will be working at 20% of my actual mental capacity. Frequent vacations, using sick time as often as possible, etc. I would not take on anything resembling pagerduty and I wouldn't try to lead anything. Then I'll leave for any job with higher TC. Malicious compliance is the best kind of compliance and is the only way to respond to a lop-sided negotiation. Companies are exploiting the rift in labor due to inflation, COVID, etc right now. For 2 years the power was in the hands of employees. This left a very bad taste in the mouths of management. What companies want is top-tier labor for bottom-tier pricing. It won't happen. If it does, you'll have a bunch of people with 1.5 feet out the door coasting at work.
- addisonl 3y ago
  And people wonder why companies don’t like remote work…

yieldcrv 3y ago

in my experience, the process is the same at any salary or compensation package it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too

shmatt 3y ago
It is significantly easier to get a $100k offer than a $600k one as a senior software engineer. Companies who offer lower pay fully understand they aren't poaching anyone from Meta or Netflix any time soon, and lower their bar in terms of how hard the interview is In other words getting an offer for "tech in a non-tech company" is pretty easy. Getting the Meta offer in 1-shot of 6 back to back interviews, not so much
- solarmist 3y ago
  The bar may be lower but their risk aversion is just as high, so they're also doing 7 round interviews where a single 'meh' ends the process.
bamfly 3y ago
> it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too The trick is not to job-shop in bad markets. "Expensive" and "risky" to a startup in, I dunno, Billings, is "holy shit, what a bargain!" in a lot of cities—and not even the top markets, but tier two and three cities. Or to established, larger companies. Be wary of small companies scraping by in cheap cities. If the pay's non-shit, they'll expect you to be a literal wizard, performing actual supernatural feats, for pay that's still probably on the low side.
zer8k 3y ago
The lowest end TC still requires you to do a 7 stage interview + colonoscopy. They're doing this to age-out a large portion of the industry. No other reason.
nonethewiser 3y ago
What you say is true to an extent but its still easier because there are less or less qualified candidates.

nsxwolf 3y ago

Anecdotal, I am not seeing any difference with the low paying jobs.