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The Winners of Remote Work

nytimes.com

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Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#131

Post by Damogran6 »

francisofascii wrote: post #28
echopurity wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's got to be clickbait. If there are winners, then how many workers are losing by working remotely? It seems obvious that the vast majority of people win big by not being forced to commute into a full day at an office where they would rather not be.

To use an example from the parent post, local, cyclist spin trainers are losing, since people are simply using the Pelaton trainers at home, rather than going to an "in person" spin class. The local, small time trainer can't compete with a celebrity/model trainer. Similar to how TV and movies hurt local theatres. In the end, it is more efficient, but there are "losers".

There's also the people using spin class trainers in Apple+ that wouldn't ordinarily use one...it's not a zero sum game. (I have it playing the the background as I ride my roadbike, it provides enthusiasm even if the effort doesn't line up with the road.)

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#132

Post by subpixel »

masterof0 wrote: post #122

Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to accept less money for their work?

I believe it will, and what Google has done, by adjusting (down) remote salaries, essentially hands managers at lesser companies an argument-ending example.

There will be exceptions, especially among the most skilled and experienced HN readers. But I am on calls all day with engineers and managers whose salaries may vary by six figures depending largely on their location.

When the results of paying far less are acceptable to companies, companies will pay less and less.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#133

Post by ameixaseca »

masterof0 wrote: post #122

Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to accept less money for their work?

Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, ability of an engineer to get on a plane/car/train/boat and meet face-to-face in a reasonable amount of time, and so forth.

Remote work within borders is one thing, but remote work from different continents is an entirely different beast.

Not to mention the sheer difference in labour-related laws and conventions across the world and how little recourse you may have if - let's say - your employee decides to take your source code with them and resell. Or take the idea and start a product themselves. Or anything similar that you could very easily sue locally. How much trouble would you go to sue? Translate and certificate every document? Comply with local laws regarding representation? Can you even sue?

You may think these are extreme examples, and yes it all tends to work out in general, but even with local employees people sometimes get burn so you need to take these into account when jumping into something uncertain. It's becoming more common for sure but there are risks and they are not null.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#134

Post by walshemj »

raverbashing wrote: post #60
wintermutestwin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up on construction sites before escaping to cushy office work, I can tell you that there are a lot of negatives that many don't consider when romanticizing the trades. Physical work means physical risks: From injuries to long term issues with knees, backs and shoulders. From constant exposure to toxic materials to the ever enjoyable dust boogers. There's a reason that tradespeople get paid what th…

Correct Electricians have to work in less than desirable conditions (dusty attics, outdoors, etc). Most of the material is your responsibility. Accidents can and do happen. The days where you are less than 100% but you would be able to WFH don't exist. Think it's annoying to plug a network cable under your desk? It's like that but 7hrs per day or more.

And developers don't have the risk of death by electrocution even with low voltage - when you work with Medium and High voltage its a lot more dangerous

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#135

Post by frozenport »

masterof0 wrote: post #122

Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to accept less money for their work?

Many small companies lack the ability to organize these kinds of efforts, as hiring is usually local or word of mouth.

Large companies like NVIDIA/Intel/Microsoft have tried to do it with mixed results. In particular your savings rarely exceed 50%.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#136

Post by asdff »

umeshunni wrote: post #69
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.

The same principles that apply to remote work apply here. Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take that same class in my garage or living room.

because then you wouldn't need a spin bike in your garage or living room

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#137

Post by elboru »

foobiekr wrote: post #126
masterof0 wrote: post #122

Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to accept less money for their work?

Time zone. For whatever reason, and not for lack of looking, there aren't really development ecosystems like India/Pakistan/Estonia/Slovakia/... in south and central america.

I’m a developer located in Latin America, I’ve worked for several clients and I know tons of companies that outsource work from here. What do you think is missing? I sincerely would like to know the perception from the other side.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#138

Post by madamelic »

kccqzy wrote: post #121
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #48

> Avoiding the office saves employees money — in commuting costs, for example It saves money for businesses exponentially more. The office space, associated utilities, physical security, cleaning, supplies, insurance, etc. are insane amount of savings. I owned a small "remote business" in the 90's and it allowed me to be competitive with multi-million ventures.

And now the employee has to pay out of pocket for that ~100sqft or so of the home that has become an office: the heating or air conditioning of that space, the implicit cost in rent when the employee seeks a bigger place to rent, etc.

Yeah, but the comfort for the employee will go up because they get to define their own space and not have to share it. If they want blinding lights and warm: you got it. If they want darkness and cold: you got it.

Companies should probably kick in a small office stipend, but the cost / sq foot of suburb vs cost / sq foot downtown is usually pretty huge.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#139

Post by walshemj »

ghaff wrote: post #42
vehemenz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have a stronger argument if remote work didn't have the potential to increase rural living and exurban sprawl, both of which contribute massively to energy waste and ecological destruction. At least in the US. Boom cities were never the problem. The problem is commuting, which stems from a lack of housing. Forcing everyone out of the cities creates a worse set of problems. It means more wasteful roads to nowher…

>The problem is commuting, which stems from a lack of housing. I think you'll find that a great many people don't want to live in the denser areas where offices often tend to be. You can scold about that all you want, but you could make cities arbitrarily dense and a lot of people, indeed more, wouldn't want to live in them if they weren't making a commuting tradeoff because of work.

Depends when I worked in London id have loved to be able to live near the office in Red lion Square or in a flat with a view of the Thames.

Or Fitzrovia

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#140

Post by Johnny555 »

echopurity wrote: post #7
roflc0ptic wrote: post #5

This article really isn't about remote work writ large, it's about websites/organizations that provide platforms for individuals to sell services to consumers. The fact that you can make popular workout videos from your home is orthogonal to the behavior of consumers on the Peloton platform. It's an interesting and important observation that good communicators win disproportionately as telecommunications get better -…

It's got to be clickbait. If there are winners, then how many workers are losing by working remotely? It seems obvious that the vast majority of people win big by not being forced to commute into a full day at an office where they would rather not be.

how many workers are losing by working remotely

I think the big losers are the service workers that provided services for all of those office employees: coffee shop workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided employee lunches, cleaning people, etc.

A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in my former office building have shut down permanently. My company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff.

Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in-office work, but since it will probably be part time in-office work, not all of those jobs will be back.

Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy.

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