Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#201

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

davidf560 wrote: post #131

ghaff wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that if (even just keeping the discussion to the US) a company pays, say, Chicago wages everywhere, that means they effectively probably can't hire anyone in the Bay Area for example. Of course, a lot of companies already basically don't try to salary match the hire who has an offer from Facebook or Google in SV and wants to work there.

Maybe this is overly simplistic, but won't this all work itself out over time? More companies refuse to pay inflated SV salaries (note: most companies in the world already do not employ people there anyway), so some of the concentrated SV talent leaves for other places like Chicago where they can still get a sufficient wage relative to the cost of living. This continues for a while and eventually the COL in SV will s…

Proximity to a major city still has advantages like access to cultural events, good healthcare, etc. even if you don't need to go into the city for work. And, indeed, historically tech companies were in the suburbs rather than the city itself. Boston basically didn't have any major tech employers within the city limits for a period even though there were many in the suburbs. So even people who may not want to actually live in a major city might still want to be within an hour or two of one.

I'd argue it sort of has played out. A handful of companies are willing to pay almost anything for the people they want, especially if they're located in SV. Pretty much everyone else has shrugged their shoulders and moved on. And it works because 1.) Hiring is a very inexact process and 2.) Not everyone want to work for one of the big tech companies for various reasons.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#202

Post by freetime2 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #143

MattGaiser wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a evil theory. Geopay will act like as an assumed filter. Top go getter types who are the future leaders will (in theory) come to the office and get the high pay. The less ambitious but still capable workers will move to cheaper places and earn less and be more easily replaceable.

There's an old pg essay about what the dotcom got right. I don't quite remember the details, but I remember that I did take away a "correct but early" interpretation of the whole thing. "First movers takes the whole pie" was taken too literally, eventually dominant online businesses did build unbreachable moats. E Commerce is eating retail. The dotcom was just 5-10 years ealy in its predictions. Anyway... WFH and out…

Timezones are still going to matter when it comes to remote work. I work on a team that was historically distributed in the US West and JAPAC regions. Communication was fine, because there was enough overlap that we could easily schedule meetings with everyone. But once we started adding team members in Europe, communication became significantly more challenging.

There may also be legal reasons for companies to hire within a certain country. For example, government contracts might stipulate that only US citizens are allowed to have access to production servers.

So while I definitely think that adoption of remote work will result in more opportunities for people living outside of traditional tech hotspots, I think we will still continue to see individual companies preferring to hire within certain countries and regions.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#203

Post by SkyPuncher » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #3

The really interesting thing here is the possibility of part-time work. I recently switched from full-time work to independent contracting, and have a single part-time contract while looking for a second. Honestly, part-time contracting work is really, really nice. The pay is more than enough to live on and I have a ton of free time which I am devoting to rock climbing, finally writing a bunch of blog posts, and lear…

Roughly 30 hours/week is my personal sweet spot.

I did it on a contract for a while. I'm not sure my productivity was significantly impacted. It's really hard to actually sit down and focus for more than 6 hours productively.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#204

Post by 908B64B197 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

davidf560 wrote: post #138

w0utert wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A policy like this is basically saying 'we only pay you as much as necessary to compete with your other employment options', which are currently still mostly those near where you are living. If more companies allow remote work and they don't all do the same thing, this kind of 'geopay' policy will have to be abandoned. But I agree it's completely backwards, you should be paid according to the value you create for the…

> you should be paid according to the value you create for the company, and nothing else But, you need to subtract your pay from the value you create. If you create $1MM value but cost $500K, and someone in the Midwest can create that same $1MM value for only $150K, it's pretty obvious what most companies will choose. FAANG companies somehow convinced themselves that paying $500K for talent in SV made sense even if t…

> FAANG companies somehow convinced themselves that paying $500K for talent in SV made sense even if they could get similar talent basically anywhere else in the US for less

Could they? The market for 500K engineers is very different than 60K or 100K.

With remote work, you'll see a handful of organizations getting the top talent across all locales, and the local companies who won't be able to compete be stuck with the rest. It's a winner-takes-all situation that will now happen on a global scale.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#205

Post by JoblessWonder » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

JauntTrooper wrote: post #152

popotamonga wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.

To add another US data point, for my family of 4 I pay $770 per month for health insurance and my employer pays an additional $1,370 per month. My health insurance is through my employer, a large publicly-traded company. My insurer is one of the large well known providers. Our insurance is very mediocre. We pay the first $3,000 out of pocket and 20% of the cost beyond that, but that's only if a doctor is "in network"…

This is kind of off topic... but if something were to happen and you were unable to work for a medical reason (disability), you would be able to claim Medicare at any age, correct?

[I am a US citizen and also have the ability to google this, but just wanted to ask another human being...]

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#206

Post by jjav » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

Sytten wrote: post #74

ahelwer wrote: post #3

The really interesting thing here is the possibility of part-time work. I recently switched from full-time work to independent contracting, and have a single part-time contract while looking for a second. Honestly, part-time contracting work is really, really nice. The pay is more than enough to live on and I have a ton of free time which I am devoting to rock climbing, finally writing a bunch of blog posts, and lear…

I agree with this so much. I have been working part time for almost a year now to rebuild a house and it has been very nice. It always seemed weird to me that people make such high salaries in tech but just don't value time as the main commodity of our lives. The reality is that if you move to a low CoL area and work part-time you will almost certainly be happier. But this doesn't mean you are idle the rest of the ti…

> It always seemed weird to me that people make such high salaries in tech but just don't value time as the main commodity of our lives.

It's not about valuing it, the problem is that finding jobs which allow part-time work is just about impossible. I'd give anything for a job where I can work 40% time for 40% salary, but those don't exist.

My wife has managed to arrange 80% time for 80% pay at the G of FAANG for a couple years, but the company absolutely hates the arrangement and tries every opportunity to sabotage it so it's not that great. Also, management demands 40 hours of work for that 80% pay with the explanation that full-time employees are expected to work for a lot more than 40 hours.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#207

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #196

netcan wrote: post #104

The geopay stuff seems unstable as a norm... if that's the way we're going. It makes sense atm, maybe, for tech companies. The tech companies, currently, are extremely flush with cash. They don't need to be all that ruthless. This takes off a lot of pressure. But as things go on, "geopay" is going to become an optimizable cost structure. There will be uncomfortable conversations as people move to higher geopay places…

I think we'll see a lot of people try to game it: * Not updating their address with their company after moving to a new, lower-cost location * Using the address of family or friends in a higher-cost area * Renting a PO Box or cheap room or studio in a high-cost area, but spending most time elsewhere I'd imagine we'll see companies pop up offering address verification services - physically and/or digitally tailing emp…

I'd expect to see this too, but I think anyone planning to do these tactics is walking an extremely thin line between "gaming the system" and fraud. Not to be Debbie Downer, but if someone is thinking about getting a PO box in SF and funneling all their work connections through a silicon valley VPN, they should think about how it will look in front of a judge when their company goes after them.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#208

Post by JoblessWonder » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

jrumbut wrote: post #31

x87678r wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

health insurance is my big wish. 20 hrs/wk with health insurance I'd work for 1/3rd my salary. EDIT: I have a family like most people. EDIT2: I'm thinking about how insurance isn't as expensive as giving up more than that in salary, but maybe I need the security of steady work on the resume, sick leave and a job to lean on if things get tough.

Check out college/grad school. You can do a couple classes and get excellent coverage for cheap. When I did it it worked out to paying $3k for an MS, but I bet you could look harder and get the degree and a discount over just buying a high quality plan.

Wait... you paid $3,000 for a MS program?

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#209

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

gregkerzhner wrote: post #179

ahelwer wrote: post #3

The really interesting thing here is the possibility of part-time work. I recently switched from full-time work to independent contracting, and have a single part-time contract while looking for a second. Honestly, part-time contracting work is really, really nice. The pay is more than enough to live on and I have a ton of free time which I am devoting to rock climbing, finally writing a bunch of blog posts, and lear…

I think for part time to be successful it has to be the right environment. Contract work seems perfect - you are focused and have a singular mission. I can also totally see working on a personal project 20 hours a week and being super productive. However, working part time for a large organization seems tricky. There are so many meetings, distractions, and responsibilities other than just coding that it seems like yo…

There would definitely have to be coordination at the organizational level. Say, no meetings on Mondays and Friday and individuals can choose to work individually or not on those days. But that starts to get inefficient for the people who do want to work and it reduces the flexibility of those who want to work part-time.

And TBH, if I were to work fewer hours in a year, I'd probably prefer to have bigger chunks of time off, i.e. more vacation time, than having every weekend be 3 or 4 days--much less have shorter work days.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#210

Post by freetime2 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #141

What I'd like to see happen when the pandemic ends is this: if I return to a company's office, I should be able to return to an equivalent of my home office. My home office is a small room in my home, but it has a large window providing natural light and top of the line office furniture including a couch and a really big desk. Most importantly I am the only one that works in this office. Having a setup like this in a…

After working remote for about 5 years now, I don’t think I could ever work in an open office again. Whenever I do need to visit an office, I don’t even attempt to get any focused work done. I just attend my meetings and try to spend time socializing with coworkers who I haven’t seen in a while.

Commutes are a pretty miserable aspect of working in an office, too.