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

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

#141

Post by levosmetalo »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #3

This could create a "golden chains" situation for employees, whereby they don't leave their job only because of the money, despite not being happy or as productive as they could be.

Or to rephrase, the employer gets long term commitment and loyalty from their employees because they get the best reward. The alternative is job hoppers, and I don't think you can create a business out of people who skip town whenever they get a better offer. Mind you, the insane wage difference in SF is partly caused by job hoppers and scalping between the big and highly funded companies.

You speak here as if it's somehow not fair for the companies that employers get paid more? As if the competition only works in one direction, to reduce the salaries, because employees are interchangeable.

Instead, let's enjoy the interchangeability of employers for a while and use the competition of companies for the best talent in our advantage. At least while it lasts.

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

#142

Post by EvilEy3 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #3

This could create a "golden chains" situation for employees, whereby they don't leave their job only because of the money, despite not being happy or as productive as they could be.

Or to rephrase, the employer gets long term commitment and loyalty from their employees because they get the best reward. The alternative is job hoppers, and I don't think you can create a business out of people who skip town whenever they get a better offer. Mind you, the insane wage difference in SF is partly caused by job hoppers and scalping between the big and highly funded companies.

> Mind you, the insane wage difference in SF is partly caused by companies that value their employees and are willing to pay proper salary

Fixed for you.

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

#143

Post by solosoyokaze »

superbcarrot wrote: post #105

I still think that remote in general won't be that prevalent after covid. Remote with SF/NY salaries? I seriously doubt that they will keep this up long term or that many companies will do the same.

Access to world class talent, not paying for office space and greatly improved corporate culture all seem like things that are going to stick. Every new startup I’ve seen in the past year has been 100% remote since day one.

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

#144

Post by EvilEy3 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #131
h0l0cube wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (…

This is why it will always be worth paying inflated salaries for FAANG companies. Taking all the top talent is a moat.

What makes you think their salaries are inflated and others are not lowballing?

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

#145

Post by alkonaut »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #38
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.

Having worked in many EU countries, I've never once had salary quoted or discussed after tax.

I'm sure you have - but not after income taxes. All taxes that are taken before you get your gross (before income tax) pay, is typically what is quoted in Euerope.

E.g. My employer pays X1.25 for my "before tax" salary of X because there is 25% payroll taxes/fees. I pay 35% taxes on that, so my net is 0.65x. Is X "before"or "after" taxes here? It's after payroll taxes and similar deductions, but before income taxes (which I pay myself).

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

#146

Post by ornornor »

What does it take to work for this kind of company though? I have about ten years experience, been focusing on frontend for the last few years. I have never worked at any of the big names and I have a bachelor degree that’s not in CS or mathematics but I’m a decent developer in my opinion: I write clean, testable code.

And yet the major tech players always reject me before even a screening call. Which makes me think I must be missing something in my CV or experience. But what? What are recruiters screening for at these companies?

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

#147

Post by alkonaut »

ulfw wrote: post #48
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.

What you're saying is impossible. Prospective employers don't know what your exact after-tax income is as it depends on a lot of factors (dependents, marital status, etc)

> dependents, marital status,

Is this common outside the US? I thought this co-taxation thing was becoming less and less common. I have only ever been taxed as an individual.

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

#148

Post by ironmagma »

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…

Except that employers aren’t going to become less picky when switching to remote; likely, they will become even more picky and will want to improve their employee base since the supply has increased and that will be possible where it wasn’t before.

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

#149

Post by RHSeeger »

samvher wrote: post #94
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.

For many of the sibling comments discussing before/after tax: part of the confusion arises here because many European countries essentially have two steps of taxation. I work for an American organization as a Dutch person and have had to figure some of this out for my own contract situation. For the Netherlands, your contract will state a wage "before taxes". But the employer will play "employer's taxes" over this wa…

It's the same in the US, with different percentages. From: https://bench.co/blog/accounting/calculate-payroll-tax/

- FICA tax is 7.65% (6.2% social security, 1.45% medicare)

- FUTA tax is 0.6 to 6.0% (varies, iiuc)

- And then employers (generally) also pay an amount towards health care. But that's not a tax, per se; more of a mandatory "benefit"

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

#150

Post by ghaff »

solosoyokaze wrote: post #140
m4tthumphrey wrote: post #138

Recruiting is proving insanely difficult right now. We are based just outside of London and have been offering "local remote" (1 day in week office generally) for about 4 years now. Candidates were always hard to attract (salary and office location) but offering remote work 4 days a week really helped. Now, that perk is now a norm so access to even remotely (no pun intended) skilled candidates is next to impossible.

It shouldn’t be that hard. I’d drop the one day a week in office requirement and make sure you’re paying market rates (e.g. £100k+ for mid level devs). Lots of good people looking to go fully remote right now.

Possibly. Although the surveys I've seen show something like 75% of employees want to come into an office at least one day per week. Of course 25% is still a lot of people and opens up options considerably for someone that doesn't want to live near a city or at least near your city. Monthly team off-sites are also an issue if you don't mind paying for some travel/hotel.
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