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Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

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Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#81

Post by meiraleal »

bartwr wrote: post #46
gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

> doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do

like what, adding more ads in the already ad-covered search page? It doesn't need tens of thousands of engineers for that and it is not rocket science. It is gone the time that working at google and being a worker at google means something amazing. Lots of normal low achieving people at big tech nowadays which the only achievement is getting to Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Uber/whatever and then benefiting from it.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#82

Post by ghaff »

sam0x17 wrote: post #13
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, companies don't really care that much if they lose some of "the best." A lot of "the best" are changing jobs on a fairly regular basis anyway.

> companies don't really care that much if they lose some of "the best." SWE salary numbers would suggest otherwise

That SWE salaries, especially at some companies, are high in the aggregate doesn't mean that companies will necessarily bend their policies too far to accommodate a specific SWE who thinks they're special enough that the policies don't apply to them.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#83

Post by MilStdJunkie »

Here's my favorite side effect of this latest scam: MUCH lower salaries for the same level of work.

How does it work? Well, BigCorp X says, hey, you can remote! So we just need to pay a salary for the CoL in Jackson MS. That's fair! Also we're moving our offices there. So, theoretically, since anyone can work there, and that's where we moved our headquarters, that's our pay scale. Then, you pull that rug, and now they come back into the office - still making 1/3rd of their previous salary. Except now they're in Jackson, with the region's only employer that doesn't involve chicken in some way.

Companies loooooooove it when they're the sole employer for hundreds of miles. Love it love it love it.

It's frickin' brilliant. I'm looking at some Mech Eng salaries for Level 2s, and I swear I'm seeing some 40k numbers. That is bananas. The ONLY way they can square that is they're adjusting L2 money for the CoL in Alabama, or maybe Zaire.

I mean, it's brilliant . . assuming you're trying to get rid of as much payroll as possible, so that you can wave your MBA wand and leverage the whole sinking ship into something resembling cash. Wait a second, I've got Dave Calhoun on the phone.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#84

Post by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh »

gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

The reason it affects all of us is because those firms have been defining the high-end of market compensation.

And, for clarity, compensation isn't just the money — which they generally do max out — but it's also all the intangibles. It's the free gyms and laundry services, the vast campuses with endless free restaurants and kitchens, and, yes, the formerly-free-wheeling remote-work policies and location strategies.

Once these firms start slashing comp [1] and their stock prices are unaffected (or even boosted), it "inspires" everyone else to start looking around and seeing how they can pay their own engineers less.

Today, it may just be FAANG that's slashing remote perks — tomorrow, all the other companies will follow, and maybe they'll be "inspired" to "adjust" their health insurance benefits at the same time, too.

[1]: It is also a fascinating coincidence to me that all these firms declared RTO around the same time.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#85

Post by meiraleal »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #84
gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

The reason it affects all of us is because those firms have been defining the high-end of market compensation. And, for clarity, compensation isn't just the money — which they generally do max out — but it's also all the intangibles. It's the free gyms and laundry services, the vast campuses with endless free restaurants and kitchens, and, yes, the formerly-free-wheeling remote-work policies and location strategies.…

> Today, it may just be FAANG that's slashing remote perks — tomorrow, all the other companies will follow, and maybe they'll be "inspired" to "adjust" their health insurance benefits at the same time, too.

If they do it, it means the market doesn't value software engineers as much anymore so what could you do? That isn't what is going to happen though. But all of those big techs can become next IBMs, HPs, Yahoos.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#86

Post by toomuchtodo »

edgyquant wrote: post #79
toomuchtodo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working on the 4 day workweek in the US at the moment. Progress takes time, it's impossible until it is done.

What Unions are working on this and what progress has been made?

UAW: https://www.google.com/search?q=uaw+4+day+week | https://www.npr.org/2023/09/11/1198394085/uaw-big-3-automake... | https://www.axios.com/2023/09/25/uaw-4-day-workweek

900 US school districts because they can't retain teacher talent otherwise: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/school-districts-4-day-week-tea... | https://www.ncsl.org/education/four-day-school-week-overview

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#87

Post by red-iron-pine »

gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

> I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business.

I've been remote since 2015 and, arguably, it's made it harder. Before COVID it was mostly a niche thing, but now the cat is out of the bag and I'm competing with a lot more.

The RTO backlash is also in force, so the big F500 companies I used to snipe roles from are now fully owned by corporate overlords.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#88

Post by ghaff »

sime2009 wrote: post #56

umm.. wouldn't an agreement about where you work and when be the kind of thing you would have written down in your employment contract?

Aside from a status flag in a database (which doesn't actually reflect reality), I don't have anything about location in any contract. I doubt that's atypical, at least in the US.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#90

Post by codingdave »

keikobadthebad wrote: post #3

Something you have to understand about being remote - at any time, this was true decades ago - is that you are not there when people talk and you can't correct them or defend yourself. People with commutes and requirements to be under the eyes of management resent those who don't have that problem and can all agree on that. Remote gigs will always be more tenuous than prison-jobs.

> People with commutes and requirements to be under the eyes of management resent those who don't have that problem and can all agree on that.

If you have found that to be true, you may have had a streak of pettiness in your work culture. I've found that the healthy organizations I've been a part of don't resent each other - if they have a concern they raise it, discuss it, resolve it, and leave it be.

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