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Let People Move to Jobs

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Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#211

Post by esotericn »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #210
esotericn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK that's not "that remote". There are 5x, 10x house price differentials for driving 3-4 hours up the road. Because no-one wants to live in a depressed town. You can live in a commuter town and not commute, sure, then you're not arbitraging CoL (it won't be much cheaper). If you live somewhere where there are no jobs then you have to deal with all of the issues I've stated.

Get out into the country proper, and you'll find plenty of rich people to hang out with. They don't tend to live in villages or towns, and they don't socialise with "townies", and they certainly won't share any interests with some nouveau-rich tech worker who thinks they're wealthy

Sure, but then you're not taking advantage of cost of living differences (first line of my post).

You seem to have this idea that everyone here thinks they're uber wealthy or whatever. It's just relative to the locale. If you move to a depressed northern town with the idea that it's going to be some utopian bliss in your massive house then you are in for a shock. That's what is being discussed.

Obviously there are nice places outside of metro areas. They have a price tag to match, or not, the land isn't for sale.

You're also illustrating the other side of it - it's not easy to slot into a different social class (upwards or downwards).

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#212

Post by flatiron »

dx87 wrote: post #176
esotericn wrote: post #153

The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. I think that a lot of people banging on about remote work just haven't tried it for an extended period. It works for some, and for those - great. To me, it's just another step down the 'technification' of everything in which people don't speak to the people around them (because they've been 'removed' from their live…

That's been my experience as well. I've worked remote for a few years and love it because I'm fine without the social aspect of work, but most of the people I know left their remote job in under a year because it felt lonely and isolating. Anecdotally, it seems like married people and homeowners tend to like remote work because they have extra free time and a spouse to talk to, whereas the single people I know would…

As a married dude with three kids I love the fact I can drop them off at school and wait for the at the bus stop and do all the dad things most dads miss out on. It helps my company is 100% remote so our culture supports it. Honestly they could give me a pay cut come raise time and I would still stay.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#213

Post by cheese4242 »

balfirevic wrote: post #207
cheese4242 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, tech has got to have some of the most inflated egos on the planet. Do people in this thread really think there aren't plenty of other people making 150-200+ outside of the major tech hubs? Do they really think they are going to be Mr. Monopoly Man because they have a 150k remote job in Des Moines?

Don't insult entire field based on your interpretation (perhaps justified, perhaps not) of few comments here.

Being in tech myself I will critique the culture of the industry as I see fit.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#214

Post by thrwaway69 »

esotericn wrote: post #165
gurkendoktor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. Unless you grew up in the area from which you work remotely, in which case you can be more social because connecting with old friends and family is much easier than making new friends at 30+. > If I earned a London salary in my hometown I'd be ostracising myself completely from those around me [...] I don't see ho…

Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent. Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather than having lived experience. As I think most people do. Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to find people to speak to who are on your level. Your specific…

Doesn't a normal job restricts you more since you are tied down to your employer's area?

In a remote job, you could be travelling and be more social, engaging with different people every month. A digital nomad.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#215

Post by VLM »

The problem with making decisions based on inaccurate facts is you can get very weird results.

There's really not much in the article based on actual data; it all seems to be meme stuff that "everyone knows" but google queries seem to oppose.

The main problem I've seen at companies that have "... ran out of talented devs that wanted to work in ..." stories is the labor pool is infinite IF the pay is there. As an example from the article, the median metro income in Milwaukee is $35K and in SF is $92K. And I found an infographic portraying the average software engineer pay in SF as $129K. Therefore HR needs to produce a salary for the new remote office employees and they run some simple math formulas and declare its financially irresponsible to pay a Milwaukee software developer more than 35/92*129 or $49K.

The problem is, again, via googling, the average software engineer on the ground right now in Milwaukee gets $68K.

Needless to say, if the locals will pay $68K and the remote coastal office will only pay $49K, the new remote office companies will never get an applicant who can even fizzbuzz much less provide value. I totally understand how the locals can produce world class software but remote offices "... ran out of talented devs ..." and decided they had to move back to SF and pay $129K again.

Its a youthful thinking mistake to think overly binary; either everyone gotta decentralize or everyone gotta centralize and either extreme tend to get owned in the competitive market by folks who compromise in the middle.

The main reason pay averages out more than people would think, is there is NO averaging of management demands for results. Its not like management is only going to demand 38% of the results and productivity from the new Milwaukee workers vs the SF workers regardless what they pay them.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#216

Post by jnwatson »

esotericn wrote: post #168
sjg007 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to be that remote.. you could work in another city or even in a cheaper suburb. With video conferencing I think some of the social parts are maintained.

In the UK that's not "that remote". There are 5x, 10x house price differentials for driving 3-4 hours up the road. Because no-one wants to live in a depressed town. You can live in a commuter town and not commute, sure, then you're not arbitraging CoL (it won't be much cheaper). If you live somewhere where there are no jobs then you have to deal with all of the issues I've stated.

In the US at least, that’s a false dichotomy.

The US Midwest and South have a dozen relatively cheap cities to live in where it isn’t depressed.

Housing supply/demand balance is a prime contributor to CoL, and the south/Midwest generally doesn’t have the draconian housing restrictions that the coastal cities have.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#217

Post by cowsandmilk »

humanrebar wrote: post #171
cowsandmilk wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You actually lose money working in DC, the salaries aren't even worth. People around DC have such low salaries that they are among the richest counties in the country... https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/censu...

That just proves that there's a certain class of rich people (diplomats? lawyers?) that have plenty of work in the D.C. area and they've carved some neighborhoods out for themselves. It doesn't prove anything about what life for a DBA in D.C. would be like.

Glassdoor shows the pay for DBAs in the DC area are above the national average.

For software developers, the median salaries are below those in SF and Seattle, but if you are a FAANG level engineer, Amazon’s pay scale in NOVA is identical to Seattle and Facebook pays similarly.

> carved some neighborhoods out for themselves

This is an effort to imply that the suburbs of DC with high median salaries are small enclaves. This could not be further from the truth. Fairfax County, which has the third highest median household income in the US, is over a million in population and the largest county in VA. Montgomery County is the largest county in Maryland, also over a million people. So these counties are not separated from the rest of the metro area, but instead have over 2 million people in an MSA of 6 million.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#218

Post by esotericn »

thrwaway69 wrote: post #214
esotericn wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent. Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather than having lived experience. As I think most people do. Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to find people to speak to who are on your level. Your specific…

Doesn't a normal job restricts you more since you are tied down to your employer's area? In a remote job, you could be travelling and be more social, engaging with different people every month. A digital nomad.

> engaging with different people every month

That's exactly what I'm railing against. Most people who have done this eventually recognise that it does not make them happy.

It certainly did for me. Permanent connections with imperfect people are better than some sort of forever quest.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#219

Post by scottLobster »

0x445442 wrote: post #198
ddxxdd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, a rising tide of economic progress would lift all boats in all communities all around the country. Nowadays, we're in a bizarre reality where a 200% productivity gain among the average worker nationwide means a 1500% productivity gain in the top 10% of counties, coupled with a 55% productivity loss in the bottom 90% of counties. (Numbers generated randomly for illustrative purposes). One would expec…

I agree with your assessment and the irony with respect to this topic is a big contributor to the current state of things in places like the Rust Belt is what other's have said is not feasible; jobs moving to the people. If all that manufacturing can move to China why can't FAANG move to Toledo?

Because most people who want to work at FAANG don't want to live in Toledo, and it's a lot harder to find competent software developers than factory workers. Not that there aren't competent devs in Toledo, but the supply would be dried up pretty quick, and good luck convincing rich, coastal, Elizabeth-Warren-beat-Hillary-in-my-district Californians to move to an area with lake-effect snow in a state that just passed a heartbeat law for abortions.

Obviously painting with broad strokes, but FAANG companies would have to fundamentally rethink the kind of person they'd like to hire if they want to move out of affluent Urban cores.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#220

Post by stallmanite »

zorak wrote: post #199
bitforger wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really the money, it's the level of education and ambition. I worked remotely from Mount Pleasant, Michigan for a year and had a difficult time finding anyone to talk with about things that were interesting to me. The only group on Meetups.com was "Housewives of Mount Pleasant." Friends are peers that have similar life experiences and values (and humor). Sometimes people like that are hard to find.

Sounds like you were looking for more of a college town vibe. Austin, Athens, Madison, etc.

Or Ann Arbor or East Lansing
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