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Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

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Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#211

Post by hermannj314 »

cj wrote: post #172
hermannj314 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original suggestion was to work 2 jobs. The post I replied to projected that (for some reason) into being a bad idea because of some story deceptive, poor-performing, contracting violating, three concurrent jobs. I stand by my statement. It is not wrong to work two jobs. That was the original claim despite what this other guy wanted to make it about.

I'm "this other guy" you reference above. For what it's worth, even if he were working only 2 jobs rather than 3, that would have still broken our ability to trust him with any meaningful work. From an HR perspective, if someone lies about having a 2nd job, what else are the capable of lying about? > It is not wrong to work two jobs. 2 jobs vs. 3 jobs doesn't make much of a difference. It is wrong to work 2 jobs if y…

Yeah, I am not doubting you did the right job firing this guy. But you brought the wrong anecdote to this debate.

The original idea was about a 2nd job. Thats all. You are saying that shows bad reputation and moral compass and then trying to shoe horn in the idea that people with multiple jobs are liars and poor performers.

Have you ever had to work two jobs? As someone that did and whose parents also did, I dont equate it with the worst in people. You do. I think that says something about the classes we each grew up in.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#212

Post by moneywoes »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #194
Jensson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting $100k sticker price worth of stocks per year is worth about $100k a year. If stocks go up they are worth more, otherwise less. On average they will be worth more than cash, and for a big company it is rare for them to go down a lot, so I'd say that getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash. Edit: Not sure why people think otherwise. Maybe they are used to companies…

> at least as good as getting cash This claim is patently false. If you receive $100k in cash, you can immediately exchange that to $100k in public company stock. The opposite is not true (if you receive stock with a vesting period, you cannot immediately exchange it to cash). Therefore, getting cash is at least as good as getting public company stock, not the other way around.

Are the tax implications the same?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#213

Post by headmelted »

raman162 wrote: post #162
headmelted wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure, but this line of thinking suggests you’re worth more than double what someone else is at the same job. What makes you think this is so?

Everyone has their unique value to a company. That could range from large expertise with certain libraries/type of problems to deep knowledge of an industry or even your network (more applicable to sales/leadership). Not all developers do the same exact job and I think we can universally agree that some work performed is more valuable to a company than others.

100% agree. All I’m saying is that to get double the salary from someone not obligated to pay it would mean that you’d need to be able to convincingly answer that question first.

It’s going to be a massive elephant in the room before the topic of money is even raised.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#214

Post by ghaff »

xen0 wrote: post #36
moreira wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I will never understand is how harmless old Netflix found its way into an acronym for the big beasts of tech. Not even Microsoft gets that privilege (for some reason).

The acronym wasn't so much about 'the Big Tech' companies, more about 'Innovative tech companies that dominate, or are poised to dominate, their market'. Also remember that the landscape has changed since the initial FANG acronym came into existence.

It was specifically a Jim Cramer-coined term for companies whose stock was hot at the time--which correlated somewhat loosely with both comp and dominance. Netflix is somewhat of an outlier in various respects and arguably Microsoft should probably be on the list today--even if the WA-headquartered companies tend to pay less than the CA-based ones.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#215

Post by haint »

Lordarminius wrote: post #22
fxtentacle wrote: post #11

Leverage. If your work improves the productivity of 100+ other people, you're surely worth the price. If your work saves $500k+ in annual costs, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you cripples key competitors, you're surely worth the price. If you can enable new revenues streams through knowledge that only you have, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you does not increase productivity, reduce costs, fend…

> ...And if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business.... This has to be one of the top ten best pieces of advice I have seen on HN.

Would you mind sharing the remaining 9? Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#216

Post by vmlinuz »

This kind of post is somewhere between depressing and surreal to me.

I live a long way outside the US - UTC+8 - and these sort of numbers are utterly unreal for most of the world. In my recent experience, pre-, during- and 'post-'pandemic, the vast majority of remote companies aren't willing or able to consider people outside their local timezone(s) and/or tax jurisdictions, while my local market is masssively under-developed compared with most other developed parts of the world, unless you can break into banking.

My most recent income was a little over a third of this, and that was with a bank, albeit on a devops-ish contract. I am a senior engineer - you could say mid-senior if you really wanted to pick holes in my CV - and I'm pretty much ready to quit the local market, and then likely relocate due to inability to pay rent otherwise...

Meh. Have a good end of year and stay safe, y'all.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#217

Post by 300bps »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #120
300bps wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$150 per hour is $300,000 per year including two weeks vacation per year. I have a side client that I met 11 years ago that I charge $150 per hour for remote development. They feel lucky to get that rate! Most people around us charge $200 per hour but since I work full time for someone else and can’t always be available I give them that discounted rate. I don’t think they’re hard to find at all for consulting. Being…

> I don’t think they’re hard to find at all for consulting. You said you found your $150/hr 11 years ago. How many other $150/hr clients have you met since then? What makes you say that it’s easy to find them? I think it’s easy to say that consulting is easy when you’ve had a single, long-term client that pays well. In practice, it’s much harder to find these clients when starting from 0, unless you have such luck to…

I was self employed for five years many years ago.

It’s easy to find clients - one of the best ways I did it was to go to computer stores and tell the salespeople if they got me a new client I would pay them $15 per hour in perpetuity for every hour I charged the client. I had 3 people that made more from me than their regular job.

Then there are chambers of commerce, LinkedIn messages and frankly just putting yourself out there. I met my long term side client studying for a certification while my oldest son was at a baseball clinic. My client saw the book I was reading and walked up to me and said, “Are you in IT?”

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#218

Post by ghaff »

Lordarminius wrote: post #24
k__ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Freelancing is a good option. 250k a year is 20k a month, for 12 months a year. 20k a month is 1k a day, for 20 work days a month. How to make 1k a day? Write 2 technical articles. Btw. as a freelancer you could end up paying less taxes, because more things are deductible. This could mean, you can end up with the same money after taxes without making 250k a year.

> Write 2 technical articles. How do you monetize technical articles at the rate of $1k / article ? Most firms wont pay that much.

Freelance writing these days is not very lucrative. Personally I won't touch it for less than $1/word (so about $1K/article = ~ 1 day). Which, if you do the math and account for all the unpaid time needed to be in a position to write a $1K article still isn't a lot of money.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#219

Post by lotsofpulp »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #208
lotsofpulp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is stopping the buyers who can wait a day or two from placing limit orders. If the HFT firms are earning profits, it is because someone wants to pay them for the liquidity.

Anyone who buys organically is buying after the HFT firms have made their buying decisions on the entirety of the market, it's not possible to "wait a day or two". The deal will be incrementally worse as these firms extract value, your price will be the one that all of these firms deemed "meh". It's like walking into a grocery store and the banana you really want it 1$ and you'll buy. Because that's the price that hi…

> Now that you can sell in a nanosecond your deal is bad, as in the moment you hear of the Volkswagen scandal all the trading algorithms are done with their work already.

You can only sell in a nanosecond because someone else is willing to buy in a nanosecond. And if your goal is to earn money trading in time horizons of minutes or hours or even days, you probably are not equipped to do that as a retail investor.

Why should you have the right to dump VW after the scandal and not someone else? What about an investor that did not read the news until the next day?

> The deal will be incrementally worse as these firms extract value, your price will be the one that all of these firms deemed "meh".

No one owes you arbitrage opportunity. If you think the banana is worth $1, then it is worth $1. Maybe a nanosecond ago you could have bought it at $.999999, but as long as you still think it is worth $1, then what is the problem with paying $1?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#220

Post by quaffapint »

vadym909 wrote: post #91

Almost every large tech company now has fully remote tech roles for senior developers. $250k total comp is average for someone w 4-8 years experience. You just need to be good in coding, data structures and system design - and be able to show this in the interview - achievable with some practice.

What do you consider large tech companies? I find that number for only 4-8 yrs experience to be much higher than most people see even with a total comp perspective. Just look around on the job boards or like SO - Not seeing numbers like that unless you're up there in mgmt levels.
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