For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm • Hacker News Board

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#311

Post by mytailorisrich » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 9:54 AM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #261

I'm surprised so many people are so angry about the pay cut. Using my company's simulator, the pay cut seems to be at most 15% of the base salary and most likely less than that. In my case, considering cost of living, it would certainly be most advantageous to work remotely. I would save more money and live in a much nicer place.

> I'm surprised so many people are so angry about the pay cut.

I think that's because many people think (rightly so, IMHO) that this is just exploitation by companies that sense they can squeeze a bit more out of employees because employees will likely accept (partly for the reason you mention).

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#312

Post by higeorge13 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 9:56 AM UTC

ca01an wrote: post #285

higeorge13 wrote: post #112

Most HN posts always compare with FAANG jobs and salaries, while there is a whole different world out there. For instance, in Europe and especially low-paid countries in the south or eastern Europe, i foresee zero chance that top talent will stay in their countries to be given low salaries for jobs with local/low impact. These people are already working or looking to work remotely to companies in richer countries (e.…

I'm curious, what sort of salary range would there be for engineers in your country?

Gross salaries for juniors is usually in the range of 20k annually, in certain companies or software (slave) houses even less. For seniors it should be around 40k. For lead or principals, even managers, around 60k. Consider that net salaries might reach 60% of gross for certain amounts and above (e.g. 60 gross is 36 net). And of course, these are anecdotal data, probably covering 99% of local companies.

My current salary which is close to 6 figures for a tech lead job would be an instant disqualification in probably every local company. To be honest, a few years back it would be a dream for me, unless i had to relocate somewhere. But now and for the next few years, i really cannot see how i can work onsite again in my country.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#313

Post by globular-toast » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 9:56 AM UTC

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #297

globular-toast wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because your description of "the office" includes me. Specifically, that "external pressure" you are talking about. You seem to require the office to be filled with drones who are monitoring you to make sure you are working. If you were just talking about working in a location that isn't your own home, then fair enough. But what you're actually talking about is going back to that broken culture we had before where ev…

>You seem to require the office to be filled with drones... Stopped reading here. There's no point since you are arguing imaginary things.

In that case please tell me where this "external pressure" is going to come from.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#314

Post by smorgusofborg » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 9:58 AM UTC

caskstrength wrote: post #298

digbert wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. I'm not so sure about that. My company recently announced that our offices wouldn't be reopening until at least November, and there was a lot of quite angry pushback from people who are desperate to get back.

The survey should include "team decides how to work" option, which would probably get majority of votes.

I'm not sure I would want to manage that. I mean imagine your 2 year search finds the Typescript and Rust DevOps engineer with six sigma black belt who uses Vue is familiar OracleDB and Azure and disagrees with your team's consensus on where one should work? Do they accept the job and get to cause a revote? Are key members of the team now paying more attention to how they might vote than anything else?

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#315

Post by littlecranky67 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:01 AM UTC

stackbutterflow wrote: post #236

littlecranky67 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasons are mostly individual and to some extent based on a lifestyle that you got used to because working remote wasn't an option. I often hear "i don't have a workspace/desk at my home" as a pro-commute argument. But the reason you don't have that desk is because when you moved into your flat, you didn't think of this. But if more and more employers allow to work remotely, people will make different choices on…

Exactly. Our societies/cities were built for in-office workers. The fact that despite that there are many people who still prefer remote work shows how much potential there is for a remote lifestyle. Every house has a bathroom. Now imagine we lived in a world were the norm was to shower at the office. Then suddenly a bunch of people starts to question whether we really should shower at the office or if we could do it…

The bathroom example is well chosen, to this day you will find apartment buildings in Berlin with a shared bathroom/toilets for all the apartments in the building (and no individual bathrooms in the aparment). Given the tight housing situation, landlords exploit that fact by asking very high rent for those apartments and still find people willing to rent.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#316

Post by oldsecondhand » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #72

I dunno, for a group of people who seem to believe you're worth a ridiculous amount of money per hour, think of what your time is worth. You folks that make a living programming off exceedingly decent wages. You don't break your bodies every day, you're not forced to spend all day moving wood and metal, filling bags full of garbage, hauling shit that weighs 50+ lbs all day every day. You just gotta sit and think and…

Found the astroturfing employer.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#317

Post by littlecranky67 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

genezeta wrote: post #225

I'm doing interviews now and, naturally, the question comes up. Am I looking for a remote position? Would I mind that the position is only partially so? Or that it is fully on-site? Obviously it's just anecdotal data , and I'm in Europe. So take this with a grain of salt, but I'd say: * There has undoubtedly been a big rise in remote positions, but not a huge one. Many of these seem to come from companies willing to…

I can confirm the anecdotal observation, companies are becoming more open to work from home, but most still have a "at least X/days week in the office" rule, which kind of defeats the main benefit for me as I still have to live close to the office (instead of moving to cheaper parts of the country or event world).

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#318

Post by caskstrength » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:08 AM UTC

smorgusofborg wrote: post #314

caskstrength wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The survey should include "team decides how to work" option, which would probably get majority of votes.

I'm not sure I would want to manage that. I mean imagine your 2 year search finds the Typescript and Rust DevOps engineer with six sigma black belt who uses Vue is familiar OracleDB and Azure and disagrees with your team's consensus on where one should work? Do they accept the job and get to cause a revote? Are key members of the team now paying more attention to how they might vote than anything else?

It has always been the case that if employee "disagrees" with management decision that their ass should be in the office 5 days a week, then they will have to find a new job. Now this could become up to consensus inside the team, which in my opinion is much better and fairer approach.

BTW team doesn't have to chose between two strict options (WFH or office 5 days a week). Another options could be hybrid office work or allowing _individual_ team members to chose how they work and mandate all meetings to accommodate online participants.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#319

Post by nickjj » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

fuzzylama wrote: post #304

woutr_be wrote: post #214

My company (a large multinational bank) (about 100K employees) introduce their "future way of working" back in April. This came after most of our offices in different regions working from home due to covid. Much to my surprise, this was actually pretty well thought out. This new way, would give people the flexibility to choose wether they work from the office or work from home, or even combine both. (They also offere…

What is that 750 USD supposed to cover? - Monitor - PC/ laptop - desk - chair ... either one of those things can cost as much as that

> What is that 750 USD supposed to cover? - Monitor - PC/ laptop - desk - chair ... either one of those things can cost as much as that

If I were to guess it's maybe all of those things except the PC / laptop because chances are the company would issue that separately with a $750 budget.

My sample size is only 3 based on people I know who have similar deals:

    - One of them got $2,000 to buy whatever work supplies they wanted but no company computer was included.
    - Another got $1,000 to buy whatever work supplies they wanted but the company issued a laptop separately (~$2k).
    - The last one can request any computer related items within reason as long as it's not abused.

For the last one that translated to 2 laptops and a few monitors over 7 years but things like a desk and chair aren't included.

I'd be curious to see what others have gotten for home office supplies. There's other ancillary things too like internet and phone bills. Companies that go all-in with remote workers often partially help pay those bills too.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#320

Post by throwaway6734 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #72

I dunno, for a group of people who seem to believe you're worth a ridiculous amount of money per hour, think of what your time is worth. You folks that make a living programming off exceedingly decent wages. You don't break your bodies every day, you're not forced to spend all day moving wood and metal, filling bags full of garbage, hauling shit that weighs 50+ lbs all day every day. You just gotta sit and think and…

>you're already overpaid for shit that's not going to kill you

Software developers are not overpaid. Many are still relatively underpaid relative to the value they provide.