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Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#411

Post by esoterica »

echelon wrote: post #399
fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

I live in Atlanta and make over $200k total comp. As do my coworkers. I think your perception about salaries outside of the valley is skewed.

You can make far, far more than $200k in the bay area. An E6 at Facebook (not an extremely senior position) can make $600k+.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#412

Post by chrismarlow9 »

For me too many companies use the "family" aspect of things too much. No, we're not a family. My family would let me sleep on their couch if I got fired or lost my home. Does the company plan to let me live in the office if they let me go? Are we still doing Thanksgiving? What about a family tree, whos going to keep that up after I die?

But seriously, after seeing some nasty employee outcomes over a few jobs it kind of raises the "sleezy car salesman" flags when I hear it now. Like my emotional triggers (family) are being used to get me to comply (dont quit the company, sign the offer, work 80 hours with no overtime). It irks me even more when I see people new to the industry eat it up.

I saw a bunch of it recently in social media from college graduates. Lots of companies who signed new talent promising the offers are just on pause and telling candidates they have a start date in 3 months. And then watching people actually believe it because they've been brainwashed in the interview by the "family" mentality. It just made me really sad about how manipulative workplaces can be.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#413

Post by acid__ »

jedberg wrote: post #375
gregkerzhner wrote: post #356

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

The "chit chat" is a basic part of human interaction. Even for remote companies it still happens.

Agreed, I'm always surprised to see comments like the one you're replying to, and how often they're upvoted. I suppose HN tends to attract a slice of humanity that tends to appreciate casual social interaction a little less, even when compared to the tech sector as a whole. But in my experience transitioning from a very awkward asocial teenager (who would have shared such a view) to a slightly less awkward adult, I've come to really appreciate the trust and camaraderie you can develop even in the workplace setting. After all, humans have evolved to be social creatures and it's not random happenstance. There's tremendous value in being able to really know your teammates, to be able to rely on them, and to have them also be able to trust and rely on you in return. And a lot of that flows from basic social interactions that could be described as "chit chat."

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#414

Post by bhupy »

daenz wrote: post #247
fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

I've had a related thought: is it ethical to pay a person less based purely on where they live? I understand that there are different cost of living factors for different places, but that's on the employee's side and should be none of the employer's business. If they employer can pay $200k/yr for a remote employee, it shouldn't matter where they live, and so scaling that value seems discriminatory to me. Anyone have…

What if we took that thinking and turned it around:

The minimum wage for a McDonalds cashier in NYC is $15/hour.

McDonalds also operates in India, and hires cashiers that do essentially the same work. If the employe was able to pay $15/hour for the same type of work in NYC, then shouldn't they pay the Indian cashier INR 1,125 / hour? Or what about the other way around, why shouldn't the NYC cashier get paid at the Indian cost-of-living?

And forget wages, how about the cost of goods and services? A 4BR house in Columbus, OH can cost about $300,000 — but the same house might cost about $3M in Palo Alto. Is this unfair / discriminatory? The house itself might be identical.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#415

Post by esoterica »

epylar wrote: post #337
apengwin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the rate the market dictates.

The thing is, if more people are remote, the market includes people -outside- of SV.

The market already included people outside of SV (big companies have many satellite offices). That hasn't depressed SV compensation because the best engineers cost a lot of money anywhere you look.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#416

Post by smileysteve »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #283

In person teams are easy, and fully remote teams are easy too. A blend is extremely hard to get right. If you are in a meeting and some people are in the room while others are beamed in via a projector, the remote folks will always feel like second hand citizens. Depending on what kind of person you are, you might have enough skill to still participate in the discussion, but it will always be harder than just being i…

I find these points definitely true;

- "conference rooms" are inferior to an individual at an individual laptop with a headset on.

- If any collection of people are at a conference room together they're exchanging looks off camera or notes before or after the meeting.

- Being fully remote makes you think about online documentation first, not copying it later.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#417

Post by gen220 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #118
fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

Bingo! I often talk about how you can rent a 3BR apartment in my home town (Nowhere, Michigan) for like $900. This is true -- I've verified it recently. The drawback is that you have to live in my home town. I can certainly see companies wanting to pay less based on CoL simply to make the bottom line better. Given the way capitalism works, I'd say this is a near inevitability. The end result will probably be that the…

If the scenario you're describing happens, some startups will appear and pay SWEs 160k/year to live wherever they want, and the good engineers will leave to work at those startups.

The fundamental problem (for the cost-cutting employer) is that good engineering orgs really do generate that much value.

This happened with the wage-collusion attempts in the valley. Facebook was willing to give more raises than Google or Apple. In the latest roll of the dice, AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, and friensd were willing to pay more. It's the cycle of business.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#418

Post by meerita »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #356

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

I miss my mixed office/work from home life. It was the best.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#419

Post by GuiA »

jedberg wrote: post #377
gregkerzhner wrote: post #356

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

> I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial" Not all cultures are like this. I had a German coworker who would always complain about how much time we spend socializing at work (while socializing with us). He would tell us, "In Germany, we come to work, we put our heads down for seven hours and work, then we all go out and spend two hours drinking beer…

To contrast with:

British work culture: spend 7 hours at work socializing, 2 hours at the pub after

French work culture: spend 2 hours at work socializing

Japanese work culture: spend 12 hours at work with your head down not working, then 5 hours at the pub

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#420

Post by tibiahurried »

TBH I have really enjoyed working from home. I don't miss a bit the office and my co-workers. I go to work to get things done and then go back to my life. I don't enjoy spending time at the office with my co-workers in social events. Work is work and I keep it extremely professional.

I prefer finish work asap and go back and spend time with my family and friends.

I wish companies would one day understand this. and at least in tech remote work should be the norm. No need for offices!

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