Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 277 posts

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#151

Post by nfriend »

Androider wrote: post #143

HN remote workers, does your company pay for your use of a coworking space? Or even fully manage it? I've noticed that companies I admire greatly like Basecamp, and also in yesterday's Who's Hiring thread, that they list a $200-$300 monthly stipend towards coworking space fees as an employee perk. That doesn't seem quite enough to fully cover a coworking space in NY or SF. I'm tasked with building a remote engineerin…

Yes, my company (GitLab) fully reimburses me for the coworking space I rent. They don't manage it for me - I just submit the rent as an expense each month.

More details on GitLab's coworking space policy here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/spending-company-money/. (Search the page for "Office space".)

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#153

Post by aantix »

Bartweiss wrote: post #106
dhd415 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly possible that Stripe is offering productivity as the reason for their embrace of remote work when it's really about cheaper labor, but I'm hopeful. I know there are other companies where those decisions are transparently about lowering costs, but if what you say about remote workers typically getting less equity is true, too, that's pretty disappointing.

Buffer (which has been remote-heavy for a long time) handled this by explicitly breaking their salary assessment into multiple elements. In addition to base salary-for-role and various experience adjustments, they have a public "price sheet" describing the cost of living adjustments they apply for different locations. It's not a perfect system, I'm sure. CoL is reduced to three fairly broad bands, and other pay eleme…

Why would the cost of living factor into salary at all?

I write the code. I offer architectural decisions. I'm working on the most demanded features by the customers, bringing more value to the product.

What if I pair program on a feature from a person in SF? My efforts are still paid less.

Who cares if I wrote the code from SF or Vietnam.

I wish more remote workers would stand up to these businesses looking for a way to lower their costs.

As for the engineers, the whole "midwest nice", "flyover feebleness", "sure is great to just have an opportunity to work remotely" mindset has to change. Don't let them discount your value.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#155

Post by kaikai »

incanus77 wrote: post #110

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "ev…

Also a former Mapbox employee, and the effort that you put in to making it a remote-friendly culture showed in huge ways. I've carried those lessons to other companies, and I'm really grateful for your work <3

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#156

Post by jaryd »

kaikai wrote: post #155
incanus77 wrote: post #110

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "ev…

Also a former Mapbox employee, and the effort that you put in to making it a remote-friendly culture showed in huge ways. I've carried those lessons to other companies, and I'm really grateful for your work <3

What were some of the key lessons or most impactful things?

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#157

Post by matchagaucho »

kweinber wrote: post #123
incanus77 wrote: post #110

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "ev…

"Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc." I am in this boat now. . . and find it really tough. Many others I know feel the same way but it is rarely talked about. How do you get over the social isolation of being remote?

When building remote teams, we've tried to hire within common geographic areas, so the regional team can meet once per week at a Starbucks or co-working space of their choosing.

The commute may be up to a 1 hour for some members, but it addresses the isolation challenge.

We also try to bring the entire company together in-person once per year an at annual tech conference.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#158

Post by Androider »

throwaway4721 wrote: post #33
dhd415 wrote: post #3

Great to see that a well-known company such as Stripe is embracing remote work because they've seen that remote workers are effective, not just as a mechanism to leverage locales with lower wages. Hopefully other companies follow suit.

I’m not sure this says anything about the wages being equal. The remote wages are anecdotally lower. Judging by the offers I’ve seen coming out of SF compared to some of their other hubs, it’s significantly lower. Not just in salary, but in equity as well.

Remote wages are surely lower than SF today, but so are non-remote wages everywhere as well.

From a non-Bay Area company point of view, it simply doesn't make any sense to hire remote employees that are in the Bay Area, when you can pay above market rates for top-talent employees in Chicago, Vancouver, Berlin, London, etc. and still pay less than half the going SF rate. I think this is also why Bay Area employees are still dismissive of remote, it's taking off everywhere else but the factors that are making SF the highest paid area are also what makes it the least attractive for remote hiring.

But I think what we'll see is, as SF companies themselves slowly start hiring remotely it will push up both remote and local wages globally. Non-SF and non-remote companies will have a harder time competing as their local employees now also have high-paying remote job opportunities from SF companies to consider.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#159

Post by ska »

komali2 wrote: post #39
drb91 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect remote to be less efficient? Working in an open office is incredibly distracting—of course there’s productivity gains from going remote.

My experience is that some people genuinely are less productive without the social pressure net of their co-workers around them, or literally the boss on-hand as a sort of "productivity enforcer." It's varied wildly from job to job, office culture to culture, and at an individual level, but I take all those experiences with me and it tints my perceptions of productivity as well. I remember when I was a recruiter it w…

   How could you be as productive as an office of hardcore recruiters with their managers setting excellent KPIs and tracking goals and establishing milestones and shouting "a bit quiet over there!" occasionally?
By separating the performance of "productivity" (i.e. nearly everything you mentioned) from actual productivity.

Not everyone does well with remote work. For those that do, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were nearly universally more productive...so long as the company is being serious about supporting it.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#160

Post by ska »

throwaway4721 wrote: post #33
dhd415 wrote: post #3

Great to see that a well-known company such as Stripe is embracing remote work because they've seen that remote workers are effective, not just as a mechanism to leverage locales with lower wages. Hopefully other companies follow suit.

I’m not sure this says anything about the wages being equal. The remote wages are anecdotally lower. Judging by the offers I’ve seen coming out of SF compared to some of their other hubs, it’s significantly lower. Not just in salary, but in equity as well.

Sometimes a driver is that you may pay lower wages than an in-office employee in, say SFBA, while still higher than average in the area the employee works in, so win-win. Similar to the logic that drives some remote/satellite offices to places they can grab some of the best local talent by paying above local-market, and still save quite a bit on salaries.
Post reply on HN