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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

#151

Post by jbay808 »

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 suddenly remembered that in high school, the vast majority of my socializing was done via IM.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#152

Post by dfadsadsf »

jkukul wrote: post #34
paulcole wrote: post #6

I always think this is a funny argument because most companies don't need top talent. For nearly every business, good enough is definitely good enough. So the question to me is for average to slightly above average employees, will remote companies "win"?

It can still be a lot cheaper to hire good enough talent remotely. If you're an average company in California you can hire good enough, remote talent 2-3 times cheaper remotely than if you had to hire locally. Just compare avg developer salaries in US vs Europe. "Slightly above average" developers in Europe can do the same job twice as cheap.

If you are average startup in California you should absolutely not hire devs in Europe unless you are ready to pay time zone cost. You will have literally 30min/day that’s inconvenient for everyone to meet (8:30AM in SF/5:30PM in Berlin). Good luck making Europeans meet after 6pm or Californians before 8AM)

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#153

Post by burneraccountt »

I think there's a barbell effect: those early in their career and those in the top levels of leadership much prefer in-person environment, while most of those in the middle prefer remote.

Of course, that's a broad generalization and yes, there are different preferences up and down, but I've seen that play out.

I've always been an advocate of remote work before COVID and think it'll be a much larger part of tech. It's not without flaws though, as the tooling, processes and general attitudes need to evolve.

It's also hard to decouple COVID from it, too. Working remotely during a scary, global plague where schools are shut down, groceries are sold out, and family members are dying is different than working remotely during a relatively normal time.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#154

Post by TrackerFF »

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…

I don't see why they would need to do that. If they open up the doors to that market, the supply greatly outnumbers the demand. You will have equally qualified candidates do the same job for WAY less.

If you pay a top programmer in the Philippines, say $45k/year, that's 10x more than the average dev. salary in Philippines. It would be like offering $1M in salary to someone in the US. You could pick and choose between the best.

You're not gonna get any better candidates if you up that salary to SF-level salaries, like $250k/year. The law of diminishing returns will kick in after a certain level. Comparing wages in city A in country X and city B in country Y is like comparing apples and oranges.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#155

Post by dogman144 »

Agreed. People saying socialization and collaboration is impossible in that context I think just don’t know how to make Slack friends I think.

Even so, some people are just extroverted in a certain way and need that in-person. And, senior leadership often want a footprint to see and sense the troops.

So, the question posed to workers is this:

Because I need to see people in-person for social fulfillment/for understanding the scope of my authority in a clear way/because this is the way things are always done… I want you to sacrifice your family, finances and time.

Now that family and finances are on the bargaining table, and remote companies that “do it right” can seemingly maintain all the necessary revenue generation, I think remote work will win out.

It’s ultimately asking for a subset of someone’s socialization needs to be met in return for sacrificing family. Good luck with that.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#156

Post by diego_moita »

Remote and local will change a lot. And will merge a lot.

Drop some Metaverse (or VR by Google/MS/Apple) in the mix and the patterns of interaction on remote teams will come closer to local.

Add some of the Gitlab tricks into the methodologies used on local and people will need less time at the office.

Add some unavoidable adjustments in the price of real estate or commuting patterns and some remotes might accept a bit of office.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#157

Post by DiggyJohnson »

fjabre wrote: post #46
TOMDM wrote: post #22

Okay, how about a tad more nuance though. The better headline would be "Remote Startups will win the war for top talent among employees who prefer to work remotely" Not quite so sexy. Sure some; probably even most software devs prefer remote/hybrid work, but there are still plenty of incredibly talented people out there who prefer being in the office every day.

Polio, Monkey Pox, Covid variant x, environmental concerns, inflation. The office isn't coming back unless we fall into some dystopia where they force people back in. People had a taste of life WFH during the pandemic. Overwhelmingly they loved working from home even though there were a minority who wanted a return to the office. The hybrid model or remote work will be the only real possibilities going forward. Top t…

> Polio, Monkey Pox, Covid variant x

I don't really think these are reasons to work remotely, at this point. Until we eradicate disease, we have and will continue to operate in a world with small but not-insignificant risk of disease transmission.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#158

Post by wpietri »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #66

"Your remote team is my company's opportunity." Purely anecdotal based on my own experience, but at my company we have some people who work in an office and lots more that work remotely. The in office staff contribute more ideas, work, fixes, and functional software than the remote teams by a factor of 4 or 5, or sometimes, depending on the in office worker, 10 times. Those are hard numbers right out of our project m…

I'm on an all-remote team right now and I totally miss the level of ambient information I used to have when working with a collocated team in a good environment.

On the other hand, a lot of collocated teams, especially at larger companies, have bad enough environments that they're essentially remote workers as far as communication goes. I've visited plenty of teams in open-office environments where all the coders are packed in, hunched over wearing headphones all day, while random people blather loudly nearby about things unrelated to the coding, and key people for their project are scattered across the building. Or farther.

If I could have a properly collocated team with dedicated space and the correct layout for collaboration, I'd love that. But I'd still prefer all-remote over the average BigCo setup, where space is set up for the convenience of managers and office planners, not the actual work.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#159

Post by vladvasiliu »

lm28469 wrote: post #96
bearjaws wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use a service called Deel, but we are US entity and that helps in many cases. Essentially they have companies in most countries and you pay them (deel) directly and then they payout to your staff. This also simplifies benefits for healthcare, taxes, retirement. If you find it helpful, heres my referral code https://deel.com/referrals/Michael-n53jPEZJ

What happens when an employee is fired or quits ? Does he qualifies for unemployment benefits ? And who pays for it ?

It probably depends on the local laws, but here in France, such a company would employ you and pay all the taxes that go with your employment contract, like social security, health insurance, unemployment, etc.

Unemployment benefits are paid by the state, through the taxes that are levied on those who are employed.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#160

Post by koheripbal »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #102
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.

This 100%. We reliably shuffled people to keep them with their teams on a constant basis.
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