Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations • Hacker News Board

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#231

Post by illegalFallacy » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:59 PM UTC

TrickzOnU wrote: post #75

vonmoltke wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you say about the economics of the situation, but ours is the omly industry I know of where inability to make enough money to pay for a sufficient workforce translates into a workforce shortage. A cattle rancher isn't going to compalain about a "ranchhand shortage" if she can't afford to pay enough to attract them.

It is not. The rancher would just hire an illegal immigrant often and it happens all the time on farms and restaurants. It doesn't fly in office environments and in positions where the salary cant just disappear in the books. Secondly, only the technology industry has a massive pipeline of overseas workers available...so naturally there is constantly a "shortage" as a means to increase the pipeline of overseas worker…

>It doesn't fly in office environments

This is untrue in my experience as the equivalent in an office environment to hiring an illegal immigrant would be subcontracting a 'job' to either a staffing agency whose H1B employees get paid piecemeal and billed out for different amounts. I've also worked with independent contractors who if you added up their low pay on the level, wouldn't be making adequate pay.

Heck, I've worked contract jobs through staffing agencies trying to make end meets and had the job location charge for parking which would be reimbursed 3 months later. Good luck getting ur money if you are working the next job and can't afford the time to follow up for that check.

There are plenty of ways companies dance around the same entity of illegal immigrant wages.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#232

Post by sytse » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

jxm262 wrote: post #56

sytse wrote: post #12

"Fast forward 5 years, now more than 20% of the positions there are open remote work! " At GitLab we think that remote only is the logical conclusion of this http://www.remoteonly.org/ "High speed Internet." apart from that the tools (video calling, etc.) are also getting better. BTW I think the rise of English is really interesting, I added that https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-remoteonly-org/commit/4bff...

Thanks for sharing that link, as I've never seen this Manifesto before. This puts into words so much better than the explanations I give people for why I prefer remote. It's interesting to see some of these on the list - -written down processes over verbal -async communication -formal communication over informal We often hear alot about enlarging your net of potential talent (#1) and flexible work hours, but there's…

Thanks for your kind response. I can't imagine commuting for 2 hours pay day either.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#233

Post by timv » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 1:09 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #160

MichaelGG wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I was thinking remote as in outside the US. I suppose handling benefits and payroll across state boundaries can get tricky.

Outside the US is actually easier in some respects if the person is willing to set up a company in their own country, but I suspect in many countries it is as complicated as setting one up here in the states, and I wouldn't have the expertise to help them. I suspect a job listing that says "remote anywhere in the world as long as you set up your own corporate entity with a foreign registration in the United States" w…

> if the person is willing to set up a company in their own country

I can't speak for other countries, but in Australia this is far simpler than most people realise.

There's a range of companies that will do all that for you. They set up and operate the company, they do payroll & taxes, they handle insurance.

When I worked remotely for a US company, I was technically a contract employee of an Australian company that existed purely to handle the contact work. I paid them something like $1-$2 per hour (that I worked) to handle all of that, including indemnity insurance, etc.

The only hard part was that the people that handled it weren't set up to easily handle foreign currency, and I was being paid in (and invoicing in) USD.

Other than that it was easy - in fact it was even better than when I contracted to Australian companies because I didn't need to charge sales tax, so more money went in to my pocket.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#234

Post by devdas » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 8:30 AM UTC

happyslobro wrote: post #60

slantedview wrote: post #50

We embrace technology for every stupid purpose imaginable, yet remote work facilitated by technology is generally viewed with disdain. It makes no sense, which is why remote work will continue to rise into the future. The dramatic centralization of our industry into a few locations also doesn't help with the crush of housing costs.

Putting a laptop on a cart, keeping it at just the right position relative to the whiteboard wall, and jotting down notes and diagrams for the guys on the other end, is frustrating. Repeating ~10% of the statements in a meeting because of audio issues is frustrating. There are a lot more technologies that need to be brought to market, or improved, in order to eliminate the drawbacks of remote work. Right now, I find…

Have you thought about working in a shared screen session for code editing, with a parallel chat client for interactivity. Voice is just too low SNR for code.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#235

Post by progressive_dad » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #191

climb12 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less 3k a month is in solid 1 bedroom territory for those neighborhoods these days. Around ~$2700 is what I'm seeing in my search for decent 1bedrooms in good SF neighborhoods.

That's still pretty crazy though. What if you had a kid(s)? That's $2700 a month that could be building equity somewhere else. From what I have seen the salary spread between say SF and NYC is not enough to compensate for the higher rental costs in SF.

I don't know why you got down voted. You're absolutely right. Most everyone will tell you, "Its about maxing total compensation as much as you can to boost your overall earnings!"

Good luck with burning out at 35 with no passive income streams. I'd rather build equity, and even have a couple of rental properties from being a top 10% earner in a smaller area. That's a million dollar piggy bank being filled by someone else AND a passive income stream on which to retire.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#236

Post by happyslobro » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

devdas wrote: post #234

happyslobro wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting a laptop on a cart, keeping it at just the right position relative to the whiteboard wall, and jotting down notes and diagrams for the guys on the other end, is frustrating. Repeating ~10% of the statements in a meeting because of audio issues is frustrating. There are a lot more technologies that need to be brought to market, or improved, in order to eliminate the drawbacks of remote work. Right now, I find…

Have you thought about working in a shared screen session for code editing, with a parallel chat client for interactivity. Voice is just too low SNR for code.

Shared screen session? Are you referring to GNU screen, and suggesting that we collaborate on some sort of mainframe setup? That sounds like a really interesting idea, like that crazy shared tabletop interface the Wayland guys have been promising.

Right now, my setup is: watch the loudest person's screenshare on my small screen (1080p) and do everything else on the main screen (4K). Git push to a WIP branch every few minutes. It makes for an interesting git history, for sure.

Re: Hacker News' “Who is Hiring?” thread, part 2, remote and locations

#237

Post by drumdance » Sat, Jul 16, 2016, 3:24 AM UTC

BadassFractal wrote: post #57

ryandrake wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the tired old "Shortage of Engineers" meme is bound to come up in any discussion about tech hiring that ignores compensation. Saying there is a shortage of something in a market only makes sense given a price. Sure, there is probably a shortage of Bay Area engineers if you're paying $70K, but I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $400K.

Would you be the CEO that decides to pay your employees 2-3x market rate? I'd love to watch that experiment from the sidelines.

Back in the day Google completely changed the game by giving out an enormous amount of perks. Now they've become the norm in SV.