If you want to attract talent outside the Bay Area, pay better. Even with the insane cost of living, I still end up ahead financially when I've compared to other places.
A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
211–220 of 232 posts
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#212Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#213As someone who works remotely and who posts remote-friendly openings for his team in the Who's Hiring HN thread, it's kind of amazing to me that more people aren't actively looking to get out. I live and work in a small midwestern town because my wife's military job has us here. If I was single, however, I would make the most of my remoteness and try working from a variety of towns. Here's some places that I would tr…
I lived in Denver for 2 years, and now Portland. Bend, SLC/Sandy, Jackson, Durango, Steamboat, the list goes on. edit: I'm CEO at Aptible, where we recruit for remote. Personal freedom is a nice perk.
That's awesome. What are the challenges you've faced as a remote employer?
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#214Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, 8 months out of the year it will be very windy and ~60 degrees. Even if the rest of the bay has good weather on a particular day, there's a good chance it's foggy over much of the peninsula.
This isn't my experience. I've lived in the bay area for a while now. It's very warm and sunny most of the year. The peninsula gets too much sun if anything. It's getting over 95F too many days of the year now. Fog is really only a thing to Pacifica/San Bruno. After that, fog doesn't really occur that much.
Look west. Are there substantial mountains between you and the Pacific? No fog. No mountains? Fog.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should be putting away a small percentage of your salary per month. Or else you are living above your means. So 5% of a high salary is larger than 5% of a lower. Or can be even higher than 10% of another area.
I don't think it's reasonable to say you should be putting away a percentage of your gross. You have taxes and expenses, and your savings comes out of what's left. My point was that "what's left" part can be larger even with a smaller salary, depending on where you live.
For jobs in this industry salaries everywhere are sufficient that a person should be saving the maximum percentage his company will match away in a 401k as a minimum (it's free money, more or less), if it's offered. Personally, I put 50% over the minimum in my 401k and then have after-tax allocations to savings and conservative stock (dividend paying) investments. If a 401k isn't offered, there are plenty of other ways to save some (smaller) post-tax amount.
Here's the thing: for tech jobs in these low CoL areas the salary is also lower, so the 401k contribution is lower and one is more likely to have to contribute a smaller percentage because a greater percentage of the gross is spent on living expenses.
The only cost of living item that is grossly out of whack with reason in the Bay Area is housing. It's not out of whack to the point that the entire boost in salary is consumed by housing expense.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you paid Bay Area wages and offered something more than at-will style job security you'd probably see more people wanting to get out. For me I've yet to see a remote position that wasn't fraught with the same risk as any other company, or that pays anything like a reasonable salary.
I can't speak for other companies but we make salary offers based on the candidate's experience and role, not their location. However, the job security is an interesting point. I suspect that Zapier gains huge leverage over it's relocated employees because they're now dependent on their Zapier job, another hard-to-find remote gig elsewhere, or funding their own move back to a tech hub. I don't know what Zapier's pay…
Yes, and that is an unhealthy way to manage churn in most cases. Perhaps Zapier is different but I'm skeptical. I think it's more likely that a higher than typical fraction of their workers are dissatisfied but locked in for reasons you note.
As for wages, the concept of "cost of living adjustment" is just a way for owners to keep more of the profits at the expense of employees. If web/mobile app shop X in the Bay can pay $120k for a freshly minted BS grad, they can pay that for a remote dev living in Milwaukee or eastern Europe, and it's very likely a company based in Milwaukee could do the same. They don't because of the leverage, though.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#218Anyone who owns a home in the bay area is going to pay 5-6% in fees to sell their home. $10k isn't going to cover that loss. The ultimate perk (which is often provided by big corporations in a relocation) is to cover the real estate fees.
What percentage of developers own a home in the bay area? Its probably low enough to not matter in this case.
Senior Engineers? Developers over the age of 30? People with kids? Plenty own property.
This comes across as another form of Zuckerberg-esque ageism.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it is separate. At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated
> At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated Um, wow. Yet another reason not to work at Amazon. How does Amazon still get employees when they just seem to pile these kinds of irritating, anti-employee behaviors up one after another?
I've had similar repayment terms on every signing bonus I've gotten.
Especially at large public companies, a huge chunk of your comp is either a bonus at year end or stock on a vesting schedule with a 1 year cliff. When switching companies, it's fairly common to get a sizeable signing bonus to compensate for the reduced cashflow for the first 12 months.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated Um, wow. Yet another reason not to work at Amazon. How does Amazon still get employees when they just seem to pile these kinds of irritating, anti-employee behaviors up one after another?
The bonuses are quite high, is the reason. Amazon pays competitive salaries. They are probably a bit below Google or Facebook salaries, but compared to an average SF startup, they pay literally 50-100% more. (the offer I just got from them was 80% more than my SF startup salary). Some of their behavior is indeed "annoying" ie they have a weird stock options vesting schedule, but if you actually do the math, and think…
> 80% more than my SF startup salary
Were you making 100k or something? Or are you looking at total comp?