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Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

businessinsider.com

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Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#81

Post by syshum »

0_____0 wrote: post #57
lanevorockz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, it might be the end of the sustainability of overpopulated cities ...

Funny because cities are more efficient from an energy and carbon footprint perspective. The only thing that makes it unsustainable is that some cities haven't figured out how to make it so everyone who should abbe able to live there can afford it

That is only true in a non-remote work environment where people would have to commute into office building for work

if everyone is commuting 5 feet to a home office then the efficiency of rural vs urban becomes less disparate

Add in Solar power and it becomes even less so

of course there still is some in the delivery of supplies, but even these can be some what mitigated to where the differences are minor

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#82

Post by nly »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #61
nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

If you want to maximize earnings, I almost wonder if it would be cheaper to rent the cheapest possible place in a remote area with a higher COL/salary, and then just live in a cheap area.

Yes, but until remote work is the norm it's a quality of life trade-off. Living in low COL area around London for instance is complicated by the fact that the entire commuter zone, for certain classes of housing, is basically priced at central prices less cost of commuting.

If you want a comfortable family life, with a bunch of kids, then you're looking at a long commute.

Housing in the UK is severely messed up though. It's actually better in most of the US.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#83

Post by mewpmewp2 »

javajosh wrote: post #55
nivenkos wrote: post #2

Do they pay those salaries in Europe? Because European salaries are usually 1/3 of the US rate.

My experience in Germany may not be typical. But with the EU's higher taxes, 80% indeed goes down to 50%. However if you have kids, the numbers climb up again because, at least in Germany, you get "Kindergeld" and "Elterngeld" and state-sponsored day-care (Kita) for your kid(s). Plus, 30-days a year vacation standard, you get walkable cities, very good public transportation (so, no car costs) AND you get to take inex…

As someone from Europe, I work in a company with US presence and my counterparts do get 3x salary, according to levels.fyi at least.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#84

Post by h0l0cube »

nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

> A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries.

... and the beginning of a new wave of entrepreneurship. The best talent goes towards companies that are too big to take risks. If you're ultra-competent, and the fat juicy wages aren't there to tie your resources on maintaining the status quo at some giant tech firm, maybe taking a punt on your own product (or teaming up with a friend) might be a little more appealing.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#85

Post by humanrebar »

tpetry wrote: post #66
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you don't think people doing the same job you do don't deserve the same pay. It comes across as classism to be honest, looking down your nose at people because they don't live in the most expensive areas of the country.

You do understand this wrong! The message is that any startup/company not in the valley will have a hard time finding employees. Until now every company paid a salary fitted for the locale the company is in: You are in an area with a low cost of living you are paid a lower salary than elsewhere. But from now on you can get the inflated valley salaries from everywhere. They are so high because cost of living is very h…

Some business models would need to adjust if pay outside of tech centers started going up, yes. Possibly some will have to be abandoned entirely.

My instinct is that if a tech problem doesn't have a fairly high upside, though (5-10x), it already has a tenuous business model given how famously risky technology projects are. It's very hard to impossible to consistently complete them as estimated and budgeted. Not to mention actually getting folks to adopt the finished product.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#86

Post by syshum »

nly wrote: post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

Not even homogenization, for the US this will be the precurser to the next round of Layoff's, and all those people that took part in the #LearnToCode and other movements to retrain people displaced from other employment into Programming jobs / office style jobs are going to be shocked when their nice remote job is outsourced to another nation.

Round 1 was the manufacturing Sector, Round 2 will be the office sector.

Economically the US is on a down hill path, and there is not a money printer large enough to fix this problem

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#87

Post by superbcarrot »

javajosh wrote: post #55
nivenkos wrote: post #2

Do they pay those salaries in Europe? Because European salaries are usually 1/3 of the US rate.

My experience in Germany may not be typical. But with the EU's higher taxes, 80% indeed goes down to 50%. However if you have kids, the numbers climb up again because, at least in Germany, you get "Kindergeld" and "Elterngeld" and state-sponsored day-care (Kita) for your kid(s). Plus, 30-days a year vacation standard, you get walkable cities, very good public transportation (so, no car costs) AND you get to take inex…

> That's an exaggeration. At worst its 50%, but usually its ~80%.

That's too high. In London getting 80% of equivalent pre-tax salaries in a big US city is virtually impossible. And then 1/3 of it goes to taxes and national insurance deductions.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#88

Post by throw14082020 »

dd_roger wrote: post #36

I just hope the home office trend doesn't lead to an urbanization of the countryside. I'm from a charming village that was overtaken by ugly and expensive developements during the past 20 years because people from the nearest city realised it was within commutable distance. I die a little inside every time I see someone oneline saying "I can't wait 'till X area has better internet so I can move there", understand "I…

Please embrace the visitors. You share this planet with them. Your fear of losing your resources is natural, but they weren't yours to begin with.

If you still want your special benefits on Earth, well thats what politics is for.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#89

Post by alistairSH »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #50
senko wrote: post #29

PSA: When comparing US and EU salaries (or anywhere, really), use total cost to employer (excluding fixed office costs), or total benefit to employee (incl. taxes paid in their name and health/retirement costs). US salaries are mostly discussed before taxes, while often for EU countries it's after taxes and/or after mandatory health insurance and retirement savings.

My wages / wage offers are always listed as wage before tax. On top of that, the employer will pay an X amount for pension contributions and health insurance, but that doesn't show up on my wage slip because it's not coming out of my income.

What country?

In the US, my wage slip shows the portion of my salary that was withheld to pay federal/state income taxes on my behalf, plus my personal pre-tax retirement account contribution, plus health insurance fees. It does NOT show the taxes paid by my employer in my name (workman's comp, employer share of FICA, employer share of health insurance, etc).

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#90

Post by dkyc »

AhtiK wrote: post #42
senko wrote: post #29

PSA: When comparing US and EU salaries (or anywhere, really), use total cost to employer (excluding fixed office costs), or total benefit to employee (incl. taxes paid in their name and health/retirement costs). US salaries are mostly discussed before taxes, while often for EU countries it's after taxes and/or after mandatory health insurance and retirement savings.

Which EU countries have net salary in their employment contracts? Employment contracts in Germany have gross salary (Bruttogehalt), all the social security, healthcare and taxes will be deducted from that amount. Estonian employment contracts are a bit of a mix: the amount listed is gross (brutopalk), but the employer pays an additional 33+% on top of that gross salary for social security etc.

That's not completely true, part of the German social security is paid directly by the employer and not deducted from the Bruttogehalt. It's about 15-20% in total.
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