[volkk]

i'm kind of super interested (also scared) in the effects FAANG companies allowing remote workers will have. sure, maybe salaries at FAANG might decrease as supply/competition rises, but then all of the other companies that arent FAANG now have to sort of raise the lower boundaries of their pay since they cant just say "well you can go ahead to move to SF if you dont like it". Are we looking at lower high end of the spectrum but a higher median?

[ip26]

It seems like the top end would drop a lot more than the median would rise. Given the poaching it seems clear SF has a scarcity of developers that satisfy FAANG, and scarcity drives price up radically. If remote work becomes more widespread, the scarcity condition would presumably evaporate.

Socially speaking it could be a very good thing. Many of the big challenges we are facing (wealth disparity, political polarization, housing crunch) can be tied to the gross disparity in economic opportunity between places like SF, Austin, NYC, vs everywhere else.

[mrkurt]

Those companies already hire all over the world for the scarce, high dollar engineers. I don't think top end compensation will drop while those companies are monopolies. Most of those salaries balloon because they poach people from each other.

[stackcrash]

The amount of remote positions FAANG offer is tiny compared to other companies. If they open up to hiring the majority of positions as in office or remote the salaries will drop a lot for the Bay area. They will be more inline with the other companies in the Bay that hire in office or remote as options for almost any position.

[perl4ever]

You have to consider that FAANG companies already outsourced work to companies that use both offshore and remote employees. Policy changes aren't necessarily as big a deal as they seem, or at least they aren't what they seem, because they concern the direct hiring practices only.