[neoburkian]

Skeptical. Remote work increases the supply of available technologists across the board. That means more competition at every level - 10x or otherwise. If your whole team is remote, what exactly is the difference between someone in California and Chile?

Another thing not mentioned here is that employee productivity is a variable that is almost always invisible before the hire happens. Leonardo DiCaprio can command a premium because he is identified with the work he does. This is not the case for tech workers who's work is typically invisible. Suppose you are a 10x DevOps sorcerer. None of your potential employers will know that in advance, so they are all only willing to pay 1x salaries.

FAANG companies pay higher across the board, not because they want to, but in the hope that by overpaying 90% of their employees (relative to market) they will be able to attract top 10% candidates whose skills are hidden until after the hire happens. If they could price discriminate in advance they would.

[nabben]

Don’t necessarily agree with the article, but I’m a little curious about this. If you don’t have anything to show that you are a 10x DevOps sorcerer, are you actually one?

The thought is that it would show through your past experience, no?

[neoburkian]

Just because someone meets the "X years doing Y at Z" criteria doesn't mean that they are great hires. I've met PhDs in computer science that could barely write python.

Resumes or similar self-marketing says a lot less than we would like. If there were good signals here, hiring would be a solved problem.

[sombremesa]

FAANG companies don't treat their extant employees anywhere close to well enough for me to believe they're trying to attract top 10% candidates by overpaying 90% of their employees.