[cbg0]

> maybe I'm the exception to the rule and most engineers just want to stay focused on their immediate work and not leave the house and minimize human interaction

This is a bit of a false premise, I've been working from home for over a decade and I don't mind human interaction at all, I get plenty of it when hanging out with friends and family, but I do prefer my office space at home to some open space office with lots of noise and people constantly coming by and asking for stuff.

> The cynical part of me thinks all this "WFH Permanently" initiative is just a disguise for companies to start lowering cost for entry to mid-level IC positions by hiring from areas with much cheaper CoL.

While this could be true, it's entirely up to you if you want to work for such a company. Great developers will not work for cheap regardless of where they're from, and just because you live in a cheaper place doesn't mean the work you're doing is somehow lower value than the work employees in the SF office are doing.

[dannyw]

I don’t follow the second part of your argument.

Here in Australia, plenty of grads are just as good as someone who might get hired at FANNG. How much are they paid? With the exchange rates taken into account, half as much.

What I think we’ll see is a reduction in SF salaries and CoL, and an increase in ex-SF salaries and CoL.

[HatchedLake721]

Graduates are not “great developers” as mentioned in the second paragraph. Graduates can’t dictate anything, they don’t have the necessary experience and knowledge.

Once you’re a professional and know your worth, then you know what’s a cheap salary and what’s not.

[dannyw]

Your starting salary is the biggest influencer of your total lifetime earnings. That’s why I mentioned grads: it sets a benchmark and also is relatively commoditised and can be more directly compared.

What I’m saying is that “what you’re worth” is heavily influenced by the area you live, and a $X in SF developer is only worth $X in SF.

They are not worth $X in Thailand; you are welcome to try and get SF salaries for a remote role and see how that works out.

I think you’re speaking from a myopic high-CoL view. High performing FAANG engineers take substantial paycuts to work in lower CoL areas within the US, or overseas, all the time. We get a lot of them here in Australia.

As another example, leading machine learning researchers in China are making a fraction of leading ML researchers in SF.

If you’ve had a look at who’s leading in ML research these days, you’ll realise the disparity.

[true_religion]

People are forced to take pay cuts because high paying companies simply doing hire outside of their high CoL zones unless you are really special. That in effect depresses salaries, because there is less competition from the top.

If Google and Amazon remote only for example, salaries would go up everywhere as they competed to hire the best developers who never want to leave their hometowns.

They wouldn’t hit the SF rates, as the necessity isn’t there, but for most things will improve.

For entry level staff, Keep in mind, there is a floor for developer salaries... and that is the salary of any other job available. For example, in VA you can’t pay developers less than 60k or else the new grads will just walk off into construction work and trade schools. For a company that is remote only, they also have to worry about their targets simply moving to get a better job too. They can’t stiff someone in Mississippi for their salary, or else the person will just move to NYC.

[cbg0]

I think you're kind of comparing apples to oranges, the discussion isn't about how much for example Google Australia pays employees in Australia, but how much Google USA would pay remote employees working across the US.

[Cookingboy]

>I do prefer my office space at home to some open space office with lots of noise and people constantly coming by and asking for stuff.

Haha so you do dislike human interaction to some degree, or at least human interaction beyond family and friends. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but a lot of people thrive, if not prefer those "noisy environment" you described.

>Great developers will not work for cheap regardless of where they're from, just because you live in a cheaper place doesn't mean the work you're doing is somehow lower value than the work employees in the SF office are doing.

That's not how market economy works. Doesn't matter how great a developer is, in 99% of the case there is someone who's just as good but is willing to take half the pay because they live at a place that's 1/4 as expensive when it comes to CoL. A senior engineer at Google would get paid $350k+ in Mountain View, but I guarantee you plenty of people with that level of talent who live in much cheaper areas would gladly take 60% that much, if not less. In the end what count as "work for cheap" all comes down to supply/demand. And due to the supply increase and we'll see the price point drop.

[cbg0]

I realize you really want to drive down this concept of disliking human interaction because you've made your mind that if you want to work from home this must be true, but being bothered by people that interrupt you when you're doing work doesn't mean you dislike human interaction.

Also, I don't really know any software engineers that "thrive" in noisy environments. If you need noise cancelling headphones to thrive, then the environment is definitely an issue.

[Cookingboy]

>Also, I don't really know any software engineers that "thrive" in noisy environments. If you need noise cancelling headphones to thrive,

I'm one of them, and I'm also exceptionally good at multi-tasking. I also never wear noise-cancelling headphones. You call that kind of environment "noisy" I call it "stimulating".

Not everyone works the same way.