Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts • Hacker News Board

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#41

Post by jpeg_hero » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

I always see comments like this from individual contributors. I'll give you the managers perspective.

You may be worth $150k, any one individual engineer could be worth multiples of that!

Look at your entire engineering team, from best to worst. Is not there some inflation of salaries in the SF Bay area? The bootcamper that is making $110k out of bootcamp? Are they really 73% as effective as you?

The marketing person down the hall? Do you contribute more then that person today? Yeah, probably. Without marketing to get the word out and sales to actually bring in the cash, how much would your contribution be worth?

You have to look at the whole system as a manager. And yes we pay the bootcamper $110k because we hope they'll grow into be a great engineer like you.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#42

Post by mc32 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

I kind of understand where you’re coming from and as an employee I agree... but on the other hand when you relocate from TUL to SFO you expect a COLA, right? Why would COLA only apply one way?

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#43

Post by renewiltord » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #25

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

> one-sided in favor of the businesses Remember how Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and eBay colluded to suppress wages of Software Engineers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Remember how Facebook (the subject of this thread) chose not to?

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#44

Post by 121789 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

ody4242 wrote: post #17

nostromo wrote: post #7

People should be warned that working remotely has been career suicide for as long as I've been in tech. Being "out of sight, out of mind" from management generally means you're passed over for promotions, and often the first to get cut during layoffs. It's just human nature. It's easier to layoff the person that's been working from across the country (or another country) than it is to layoff the person at the desk ne…

Except the case when you are considerably cheaper than the people working at the desk next to your boss.

I think it's actually the opposite and I'd be wary of moving remote full time quickly at the moment. The face time with your boss while the rest of the team is remote would be hugely beneficial to your career.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#45

Post by sb52191 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #5

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261394 in the other thread, there are a myriad of people thinking that there won't be. Excitement about moving to Iowa while making 150,000 was very premature.

I will gladly take some amount of a pay cut to move out of the Bay Area, but obviously it's very dependent on how much that is. 15% less to live in Lake Tahoe? Yea, I'd probably do that. 50% to live in Seattle? Obviously not.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#46

Post by jedberg » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #31

This feels like a "welp we need to cut some pay, let's see who takes the bait". Cost of living should not dictate your value to the company. If you're an engineer supporting x number of users worth y dollars, it literally does not change what you bring to the table whether you do the job in SF or Birmingham. Yes, they could hire cheaper in Birmingham, but they can't hire _you_. If you have a proven track record of do…

> Yes, they could hire cheaper in Birmingham, but they can't hire _you_.

Unless you move to Birmingham. Now they can hire you. And if you want to live there then you'll probably take the offer because it will still be better than the local options in Birmingham.

Employee pay has always been about "what does it take to get them to work here" and not value to the company.

If there is something in Birmingham that you value, then you'll be willing to take a pay cut to be there.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#47

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

somebrody wrote: post #29

nostromo wrote: post #7

People should be warned that working remotely has been career suicide for as long as I've been in tech. Being "out of sight, out of mind" from management generally means you're passed over for promotions, and often the first to get cut during layoffs. It's just human nature. It's easier to layoff the person that's been working from across the country (or another country) than it is to layoff the person at the desk ne…

It is only suicide for in-company promotion tracks. It has no effect on your career if you learn to not depend on in-company tracks for your success.

That's not just a matter of learning. The kinds of things you can achieve are different. If you want to become a director of some big engineering organization one day, you'll need to build up your position within the companies you work and not just your personal brand.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#48

Post by kgin » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

In the big picture, wages are set by how much it would cost to replace you with an equally-qualified worker.

In a location-agnostic situation, this would mean "how much it would cost to replace you with an equally qualified worker anywhere in the United States?" (Or world, really, but let's stick to US for now)

What Facebook is probably signaling with this location-based cut is that this is the direction they are headed. They can't afford to immediately cut their Bay Area workers' salaries to this US-average-number (because they would lose their current workers faster than they can replace them) but they are not going to give preference in the future to Bay Area workers and will not pay new Bay Area workers higher salaries unless their physical presence in the Bay Area is explicitly needed.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#49

Post by aeternum » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #8

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

It's not about where you live. It's supply and demand. Those companies artificially limited their supply and provided a ton of demand within their narrow market. They are now opening up to new markets and spreading out the demand accordingly. Forced analogy time: It's like if I decide I'll only buy peaches from the organic farm down the road. They charge $20/lb. I calculate that I get $21/lb worth of utility. The Far…

The part that doesn't make sense though is keeping the employees that live in SF, or paying an employee more if they choose to relocate to SF.

Tech companies typically do increase your salary if you move to a higher CoL area.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#50

Post by fennecfoxen » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #9

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

> You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. You are in for some surprises then. Companies don't pay you just in relation to the value you deliver. Most companies pay the least amount required to get the value you deliver. Now if you are competing against engineers who are willing to accept lower salary due to low CoL in…

> if you are competing against engineers who are willing to accept lower salary due to low CoL in another area, the company would offer less. Of course, that is not how things should be.

Why shouldn't it be? The market uses prices to signal things you should and shouldn't do. This particular price signal is saying, "move away!" If you don't have another, stronger signal that overrides it, it is not an efficient use of resources, and society suffers a dead-weight loss.

Why should all the software engineers all have to cram into Silicon Valley, pay California income taxes, and bid up the prices on a housing supply which remains wholly inadequate for the region? If tech stopped paying the California premium, the companies would see higher profit, their customers would see lower prices, their engineers more disposable income.

I would love for programming jobs to be available in every major city in the nation. Sure, the Mission is pretty cool, but there's hundreds of other cities in the US that have some pretty cool stuff too.