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Remote startups will win the war for top talent

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Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#101

Post by dfadsadsf »

mooreds wrote: post #31

The $1M question in my mind is: Will wages in, say, Lagos or Buenos Aires rise to SF/NYC levels? Or will the reverse happen? Economics says that it depends on the value of the labor, but cost of living matters too (or at least, has in the past within say, the USA). I think this essay https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala... shows evidence that says the answer is "yes", that we'll see a weird fr…

There are virtually no engineers in Lagos and very few in Buenos Aires who compete with engineers in SF/NYC (the one getting SF/NYC salary) in terms of skill set. One thing that many people overestimate is number of competent engineers outside of well known tech hubs.

I know that it was big surprise for FB and other big tier 1 companies when they started to hire remotely was that it was not actually easier to hire remotely than hiring in NYC/SF. The remote pool ended up being pretty small.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#102

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ghaff wrote: post #26

"A study conducted on the main campus of a Fortune 500 company found that just 10 percent of all communications occurred between employees whose desks were more than 500 meters apart. This suggests that once companies span multiple floors, buildings, or campuses, they’ve already lost much of the collaborative value of being “in the office” together." This point often seems to get missed. If you're at a large company,…

Isn’t an alternative explanation that companies locate people that need to communicate near each other? Why would we assume you are equally likely to want to communicate with every other employee.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#103

Post by jejeyyy77 »

bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

I think one thing noone wants to admit is that a significant part of your team don't even want to "socialize" with coworkers outside of work. They want to just do their work, go home, and socialize with their friends/family.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#104

Post by DiggyJohnson »

bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

> Socializing is encouraged via huddles in Slack and I can communicate with anyone in the company if I need to.

I enjoy remote, but cannot agree with your comment. Socializing simply doesn't occur in Slack, for me. Communication, as you put it, does - but not the genuine socialization that I've come to miss.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#105

Post by bastardoperator »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #36
bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

How do you replicate water cooler talk in a fully remote environment? Do people do work while tuned in to a meeting where anyone can drop in and talk to them?

We have two 30 minute watercooler meetings a week where we talk about everything except work and our manager purposely doesn't join one of them.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#106

Post by lucidone »

vinaypai wrote: post #13

That might be true, but this is probably the beginning of sharply declining developer salaries. If you're going remote, a developer in California is going to be competing with devleopers in Kansas, not to mention overseas. The era of people fresh out of a developer bootcamp getting six figure salaries is all but done.

I live in a town where the primary industry is resource extraction. There are some software development jobs but they pay a pittance relative to remote work. I see many of my peers in my area working remotely (alongside myself) for this reason. I expect that local salaries will have to be increased or those local jobs will become stepping stones for new grads to transition to remote work eventually.

So, maybe big city folks will see their wages stagnate, but for those of us out in "Kansas" it's a dream.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#107

Post by ghettoCoder »

rngname22 wrote: post #37
bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

Throughout my career it's been my experience that the type of people you describe are never the top performers, and seldom average performers. The ones craving social interactions often are just looking for distractions (like spending too long at the water cooler chatting) cause either they hate their job, hate the work, can't do the actual work or view work (exchange of labour/time for money) as a predominantly social activity. That type of person is usually a negative contributor overall.

No thanks. I get paid the same if it takes me 4 hours or 8 hours to complete my work. I'll take 4 hours and spend the rest of the day doing what I want.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#108

Post by teaearlgraycold »

KerrAvon wrote: post #81
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think remote has the biggest issue with onboarding people that can't hit the ground running. I'd hate to be a new grad right now.

IME: This aspect of things has not proven to be a problem in practice; Slack and videoconferencing works well, FWIW. Managers are mainly complaining about forward planning not working as well as pre-pandemic, but they’re unwilling to actually change to fix that problem, which is how you get rigid hybrid plans and not flexibility.

There are better and worse ways to do it. But I found it uncomfortable to provide the "spin around and ask your co-worker" experience when helping to onboard people remotely. If someone's taking much longer than expected to get up to speed you want to find some way to make yourself more available without looking like you're watching their every move.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#109

Post by asoneth »

cpursley wrote: post #91
bamboozled wrote: post #47

They might win the war for the best “talent” (whatever that means). Remote only may lose the war for building the best products.

Why non-remote employees are commuting (in anger), remote employees are spending time with their family, exercising, working on their hobbies. Which of those two employee types do you think will have have better work output? I'm have a pretty good idea, but am not totally sure.

Individually I think remote workers will be more productive.

But collectively I do not yet know. I find it plausible that the average in-person organization may turn out to be more productive than the average remote organization.

Either way I'm excited to find out!

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#110

Post by icedchai »

wowokay wrote: post #94
icedchai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communications and collaboration is very important. However, "socializing" through Slack is simply just not the same as going out to lunch with a coworker, for example. Permanent remote work has a very detached feel to it, at least for me.

I assume you don’t keep in touch with people through social media or texting then? Or would you not consider those remote people actual friends since you can’t collaborate with them in physical locations regularly?

There are former work colleagues that I do keep in touch with regularly, yes. We do text and do get together every now and then. I knew them from before the pandemic, when we worked at an office together, from before remote work became a semi-permanent thing. If you work at a "remote first" company where people are spread all over the country or world, this won't happen unless you happen to have someone nearby.
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