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Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

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Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#221

Post by balfirevic »

luminati wrote: post #166

Million dollar question - how are the remote stripes going to be compensated? Are they going to be compensated pegged on their geo-locale (which then just makes it like international offices without the office)? I'm pretty sure the dublin and singapore stripes are paid much lower than their sf counterparts. How are they going to resolve this for the remotes? Not poking at stripe, but generally as I think of remote wo…

Salary scales are based on equilibrium between several forces:

1) Value that employee brings to the company

2) Value that company brings to the employee (mostly, but not exclusively, salary)

3) Alternatives available for both the company and employee

I don't see a good reason to expect this (admittedly simplified) model to change with remote work arrangement.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#222

Post by codyb »

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?

At LightStep where I work we have company wide coffee chats which are fortnightly 30 minute randomly assigned groups of two or three with no agenda, a weekly “virtual water cooler” which is 30 minutes, and my team has a randomly assigned weekly one on one chat as well.

They’re super pleasant and a great way to break up the day and they really help me get to know the people I work with on a personal level.

I would really recommend setting something like that up with your teammates and coworkers or at least being an advocate for such a thing!

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#223

Post by zild3d »

camhenlin wrote: post #202
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…

No. I work for a fully remote company, and we decided that individuals within the company could pay for working a coworking space if they wanted, but giving them a stipend for doing so created a benefit for those employees that didn't exist for employees that optimized their home office for remote work. Personally I am in favor of more pay for every employee across the board at an organization rather than trying to c…

Tacking the would-be stipend onto base pay can remove the feeling of the benefit being provided at all.

e.g.

A: You get a salary and we also cover your gym membership

B: Your salary of $100k already includes a baked-in $50 a month for a gym

That said, definitely agree the stipend shouldn't only be for employees who choose a coworking space. Provide $X for either office space, or home internet & office expenses

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#224

Post by ticmasta »

sethhochberg wrote: post #169
aogl wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's not really remote if you have replaced the office with some other office that others expect you to be in all the time. The main reason I still don't work remote is because all the remote roles seem to pay so much less than my non-remote role(s). Is that common? Anyone else find that?

I've seen 3 general schools of thought on remote pay: - its a global talent pool, so in raw dollars everyone should be on a level playing field (ie, compete for SF Bay wages no matter where you are in the world since that is generally the top wage market) - market rate for your current location (ie, whenever you choose to reside, you get paid an amount that provides a comfortable standard of living there, somewhat in…

Remote as a cost-cutting measure is the same as offshore, with the same poor results. There is no emphasis on quality; you've traded that dimension for some balance of cost & functionality.

As soon as you move beyond trivial software projects the true effort is in the domain which depends on visibility and communication. You can do this with remote but I think it actually costs more outside of all but the highest tier labour markets.

We really need to work to define remote as a supply sourcing solution and kill the notion of a cost control solution, otherwise we'll never be able to build fully integrated delivery teams out of globally-distributed people.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#225

Post by austenallred »

balfirevic wrote: post #221
luminati wrote: post #166

Million dollar question - how are the remote stripes going to be compensated? Are they going to be compensated pegged on their geo-locale (which then just makes it like international offices without the office)? I'm pretty sure the dublin and singapore stripes are paid much lower than their sf counterparts. How are they going to resolve this for the remotes? Not poking at stripe, but generally as I think of remote wo…

Salary scales are based on equilibrium between several forces: 1) Value that employee brings to the company 2) Value that company brings to the employee (mostly, but not exclusively, salary) 3) Alternatives available for both the company and employee I don't see a good reason to expect this (admittedly simplified) model to change with remote work arrangement.

3) is pretty drastically different in a remote environment

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#226

Post by ticmasta »

hunter23 wrote: post #209
embwbam wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked remotely for most of the last 10 years. Don’t buy into the idea that work is your community or social life. That isolation can drive you to go places where people hang out after work (I met most of my friends at the climbing gym), get involved in clubs, etc. work sociality is a weak proxy for real community anyway. Also, I always work from coffee shops, because I like having humans around.

The truth is that almost half of our non-sleeping lives are spent in the workplace. We are inherently social animals (if not the most social animal on the planet). You've pointed out that there are lots of avenues for socializing outside of work, but I think it may be important for humans to socialize in the workplace too since we spend so much time there. It seems like we are wired to want to gather around the water…

one practical approach I actually learned from Stripe is to prioritize remote. This can be pretty superficial, like remote always goes first in our daily stand-up, to more material - they don't always get it, but I always consider them first for project assignment, team representation at inter-departmental meetings, etc. Maybe this "affirmative action" could be viewed as unfair, but it's way too easy to ignore and marginalize remote teammates if you don't continually fight the bias.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#227

Post by 0xDEFC0DE »

kossae wrote: post #205
robocat wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this. If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? USD200k is a good carrot where I live, so you would be able to attract the best engineers living here (with far less competition and far less churn). I get it that SF has network effects, but good remote engineers also tap…

> then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? Because they don't have to. Peoples' expectations of salary are likely in line with their local job markets, so even great developers living in a rural area will likely either accept the average base salary for their locale, or move to SF for the larger payday (and all of the expenses that come with it).

This should be reversing because the internet grants us easy access to this data, so market signals should be forming, but it isn't reversing, which is suspicious. Getting the data is harder, but we do already have data sets to compare to (and can apply inflation, CoL, other adjustments as time goes on).

The only real reason for zip-code adjustments would be some labor-related, CONUS, or state laws that I'd be unfamiliar with.

If I deliver the same business value as a Silicon Valley engineer, and you're paying me less, I'm getting arbitrage'd.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#228

Post by balfirevic »

austenallred wrote: post #225
balfirevic wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary scales are based on equilibrium between several forces: 1) Value that employee brings to the company 2) Value that company brings to the employee (mostly, but not exclusively, salary) 3) Alternatives available for both the company and employee I don't see a good reason to expect this (admittedly simplified) model to change with remote work arrangement.

3) is pretty drastically different in a remote environment

Yes, of course. I wanted to emphasize that the underlying forces are the same even if the results end up different.

That's why Bay Area companies don't usually offer Bay Area salaries for remote workers around the world. And also why Croatian companies don't hire remote workers in San Francisco :)

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#229

Post by hbosch »

robocat wrote: post #204
throwaway4721 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are compensated according to locale. Our Google sheet of offer anecdata contains a few entries for Stripe, some remote and some SF. I’ve seen a salary difference of 30%. I don’t know the people who entered them personally so I can’t speak to how well they performed during the interview, so take that with a grain of salt.

I just don't understand this. If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? USD200k is a good carrot where I live, so you would be able to attract the best engineers living here (with far less competition and far less churn). I get it that SF has network effects, but good remote engineers also tap…

> If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas?

If you're willing to buy a $2 million property in Palo Alto, would you pay $2 million for the exact same property in West Mississippi?

To a company an employee is a commodity investment only - no matter what the culture manifesto says. There are a lot of factors that determine who gets paid what.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#230

Post by hbosch »

ebg13 wrote: post #215
luminati wrote: post #166

Million dollar question - how are the remote stripes going to be compensated? Are they going to be compensated pegged on their geo-locale (which then just makes it like international offices without the office)? I'm pretty sure the dublin and singapore stripes are paid much lower than their sf counterparts. How are they going to resolve this for the remotes? Not poking at stripe, but generally as I think of remote wo…

What stops a person from lying (within a reasonable time difference) about where they live?

Their W-2.
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