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Google employees who work from home could lose money

reuters.com

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Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#611

Post by bitbuilder »

alex504 wrote: post #587
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers in the US are much more expensive but they have experience working in high scale environments that isn't widely available in the markets you are talking about Then why do the same engineers (pre and post-transfer) get paid such ridiculously different salaries between London and the valley? Do you get special scaling powers when they stamp your visa at SF?

Are these engineers working at the same company?

Not OP, but at a former gig I was in a position to know the salaries of an engineering team spread out between North America and the UK. The UK engineers were doing the same work but paid salaries that would be considered insulting to most US engineers.

And frankly, the UK team was coding circles around much of the US engineers.

It was incredibly eye opening, and humbling.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#612

Post by mywittyname »

panda888888 wrote: post #602
krferriter wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no way I'm doing a 2 hr commute just for a 10% higher pay if there's another option available. That's months of life gone just on commuting that can be regained by paying 10% of pre-tax income? Seems like a no-brainer. Time is money.

It depends a lot on the mode of transportation. The Seattle employee referenced in the article may commute by ferry, which is about as relaxing of a commute as possible. The Seattle ferries are very nice; you can sit in a booth and eat breakfast and read the newspaper. Here's a photo of what it looks like: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/travel/vashon-island-near... . I'd totally be willing to do that for an hour…

We should probably assume that people commute via car unless noted otherwise, since it is by far the most common method.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#613

Post by GeekyBear »

andreilys wrote: post #427
jollybean wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" more strategic your role -should- be. " "The problem is too many upper managers think their role should be tactical. " So this is a little bit mythologizing and there's a couple problems with this perception: 1) Everything is operational, and operations require material leadership at every level, there is no escaping it. Meaning, that there's a very material 'hands-on' component to even in higher level leadership.…

Strategy, in the end, if it's done well should seem fairly obvious, even boring. a product roadmap that takes into rational consideration the aspects of market dynamics. If your company is looking to make incremental improvements and not trying to do anything innovative, I agree. If you’re building the first smart phone where there exists no “roadmap” or “rational consideration”, then it’s neither going to be obvious…

I'd say that Apple's big innovation was a user interaction method that made their device intuitive to use.

>Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”

“What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#614

Post by Retric »

bennyp101 wrote: post #558
Retric wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is the relative amount of electrify and gas used at home vs the office plus commute. Running the same computer at home or the office clearly is irrelevant for the environment.

Is it though? Maybe my office uses an electricity supplier who charges a bit more, but uses as much renewable as possible, but at home my supplier doesn’t use any renewable, but is cheaper There are just too many factors involved to make a fair comparison - especially across countries

There is no such thing as a “green” electricity supplier in practice. It’s the same power plants connected to the same grid. Unused solar power isn’t going to be wasted in favor of gas turbines.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#615

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

alex504 wrote: post #587
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers in the US are much more expensive but they have experience working in high scale environments that isn't widely available in the markets you are talking about Then why do the same engineers (pre and post-transfer) get paid such ridiculously different salaries between London and the valley? Do you get special scaling powers when they stamp your visa at SF?

Are these engineers working at the same company?

Yes, for the FAANG at which I was gainfully employed for a number of years.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#616

Post by alex504 »

bitbuilder wrote: post #611
alex504 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these engineers working at the same company?

Not OP, but at a former gig I was in a position to know the salaries of an engineering team spread out between North America and the UK. The UK engineers were doing the same work but paid salaries that would be considered insulting to most US engineers. And frankly, the UK team was coding circles around much of the US engineers. It was incredibly eye opening, and humbling.

Terrifying

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#617

Post by alex504 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #615
alex504 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these engineers working at the same company?

Yes, for the FAANG at which I was gainfully employed for a number of years.

Well I guess I have some egg on my face.

They must know the market in London isn't competitive so they just pay a competitive rate in the market. It seems like salaries are generally going to go up everywhere for top talent but down in markets like Seattle and SV.

Another interesting aspect of London is that it is in a TZ so far away that there isnt any overlap with PST in the states, so they kind of know you are screwed if you are working there.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#619

Post by ryneandal »

ghaff wrote: post #475
ryneandal wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point, particularly considering here in the US we've lost the ability to claim deductions on a home office if we're a company employee, as of 2018. I've worked remotely for a long time, and have accepted the reality of increased electric bills, but I'm sure this was a surprise to some.

There may be exceptions in hot climates with AC, but I strongly suspect that the far bigger cost for people is now those who need an additional room for work rather than those with a somewhat higher utility bill or footing the cost of a new desk chair.

Continual draw for external monitors and PCs adds up. Anecdotal, but I know quite a few devs in this area had a pretty easy time fitting a desk into their master bedroom when needed.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#620

Post by bovine3dom »

vel0city wrote: post #606
bovine3dom wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll update the size of American supermarkets in my mind by 100% : ) There are broadly 5 big shops within comfortable distance of me - one of them is between 150-200,000 sqft [1], so I guess a mid-sized American store. But I've only been to one of them, when I needed some electronics, because I don't see the point otherwise. Presumably other people do or the shops wouldn't exist... Unrelated - does "town" mean someth…

I said "town" due to the geographic size of ~3km^2. My "town", really a small city, is ~70km^2 and a population of ~100k. It is surrounded by other towns/cities forming the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex, which metro area is 24,000km^2 with ~6 million people in that space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metr... I just checked Google Maps, there are almost a dozen of these 180,000sqft Walmarts with…

Hah, I've actually looked at Dallas-Fort Worth before and been horrified at how so much of its residential green space is golf courses. Is most of the conurbation as well served by non-car transport or is your area a special case? It looks so low density that it's hard to imagine anything being economically viable. Then again, bike lanes and bike racks are so cheap that they're pretty much free.

I do understand consolidating regular purchases into one trip - I just go to the supermarket for food (and occasionally Asian supermarkets for non-perishables that French supermarkets don't sell). I don't see the added convenience in doing the same with once-in-5-year purchases. If anything I'd probably get fed up with walking past loads of things I wasn't remotely interested in buying. Maybe there's some spontaneity to buying stuff that I just don't have.

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