Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#241

Post by megy » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

kweinber wrote: post #123

incanus77 wrote: post #110

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "ev…

"Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc." I am in this boat now. . . and find it really tough. Many others I know feel the same way but it is rarely talked about. How do you get over the social isolation of being remote?

There are advantages and disadvantaged to being remote.

One way of getting over isolation is to work in a share office. But even getting out to the library, or a cafe can be good. I used to work in different places, Museums with wifi, art centers, Uni's, almost anywhere.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#242

Post by fnord77 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

> There are still some constraints on our ambitions. In our first phase, we will be focused primarily on remote engineers in North America, starting with the US and Canada.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#243

Post by megy » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #204

throwaway4721 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are compensated according to locale. Our Google sheet of offer anecdata contains a few entries for Stripe, some remote and some SF. I’ve seen a salary difference of 30%. I don’t know the people who entered them personally so I can’t speak to how well they performed during the interview, so take that with a grain of salt.

I just don't understand this. If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? USD200k is a good carrot where I live, so you would be able to attract the best engineers living here (with far less competition and far less churn). I get it that SF has network effects, but good remote engineers also tap…

I know, why wouldn't a company pay more. When I go buy something, I always insist on paying double for it. It just makes sense to pay more when you don't have to.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#244

Post by megy » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

ngngngng wrote: post #61

I've always wanted to switch to fully remote. I worked from home for a couple weeks after my son was born and my current company didn't like it. My productivity was down and they noticed so they informed me I wasn't allowed to work remotely anymore because of it. Obviously it had nothing to do with the fact that they gave me 3 days of parental leave after the birth, so I was trying to help a recovering wife take care…

If you are going to request to go to remote, then I would suggest making sure your productivity is better or at least not worse.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#245

Post by rak00n » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:58 AM UTC

kossae wrote: post #205

robocat wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this. If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? USD200k is a good carrot where I live, so you would be able to attract the best engineers living here (with far less competition and far less churn). I get it that SF has network effects, but good remote engineers also tap…

> then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? Because they don't have to. Peoples' expectations of salary are likely in line with their local job markets, so even great developers living in a rural area will likely either accept the average base salary for their locale, or move to SF for the larger payday (and all of the expenses that come with it).

In that case what if I use the zip code for getting a better salary and then just move a cheaper location?

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#246

Post by lugg » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:42 AM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #162

greenhatman wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely for a U.S. based company from South Africa. I don't think they do anything special for each different territory. The IRS stuff just has two categories - U.S. and outside U.S. I'd love to apply for an engineering job at Stripe.

If you don't care about the laws in South Africa that's fine but they are too big to risk that.

You're acting like hiring a local firm for a few hours to advise on this is somehow constricting. Its not.

Hiring in other locales is a perceived difficulty. Not a reality.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#247

Post by hinkley » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:44 AM UTC

kossae wrote: post #205

robocat wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this. If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? USD200k is a good carrot where I live, so you would be able to attract the best engineers living here (with far less competition and far less churn). I get it that SF has network effects, but good remote engineers also tap…

> then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? Because they don't have to. Peoples' expectations of salary are likely in line with their local job markets, so even great developers living in a rural area will likely either accept the average base salary for their locale, or move to SF for the larger payday (and all of the expenses that come with it).

There are a lot of bad managers who style themselves as feudal lords and one of the known ways to get them to give up on that model is offering to save them a bunch of money. Pay someone a bunch of money and I don’t get to yell at them? No thanks.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#248

Post by lugg » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

peterjmag wrote: post #35

kypro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's worked remote with "timezone issues" before they're not for the company to solve. If you live in Europe but work for a US company that requires you to work US times, it's simple, you work US times. This is how I've worked before and it's worked out perfectly. In fact, I'm a bit of a night owl so I much preferred it.

I disagree — those issues are totally for the company to solve. Or at least, the company should be prepared to meet employees halfway. If a North American company is going to insist that I work North American hours whilst living in Europe, I'm just not going to work there. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way. I live in Europe and work for a very remote-friendly, NY-based company, and I work pretty no…

> And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Your not, what AP thinks is reasonable would be considered rediculous if you frame it under normal satellite office scenarios. Can you imagine Sydney Googlers all catching the late train into the city to work the night shift. Like come on.

Re stripe limiting to NA only I get their concerns but its a failing approach. They're going to build out remote teams and a bunch of practices that rely on this timezone sync.

Swapping out real-time communication to async communication is going to be much, much harder once those practices are ingrained.

They also need to add more than just engineering into this remote hub. Having all your non engineers in offices is going to create a very odd adversarial culture.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#249

Post by drb91 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

sithlord wrote: post #122

yitchelle wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fit a 8+ hour day into less than 6 hours. I suppose that could be one measure of productivity. Another view would be an increase in the number of backlog items closed in the 8hour.

It will be a great accomplishment when we can get the idea that a 'full-day' is 8 hours.

Hell let’s aim for six. I doubt I’d get anything less done.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#250

Post by stevens32 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:23 AM UTC

throwawaym13551 wrote: post #214

bauerd wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do all day then? Does no one ever try to get in contact with you?

Very seldom and when they do it's something really trivial to fix/answer (which I can often do on my phone if I'm out doing... leisure stuff). I more or less have a permanent paid vacation.

Do you do other things during the work day? How do you fill the time?