[gregd]

WFH for the past couple of decades, gives me the choice to live where I want to live (internet dependent and time zone dependent of course). I can make a West Coast salary and live in the midwest if I so choose.

Having lived in PDX and commuting there, what would sometimes take me a 30 min drive early in the morning, would be a 2-3 hour drive coming home. Absolutely absurd and guess who it was costing? Certainly not my employer for sitting in traffic for 2-3.5 hours each day...

I cannot even begin to tell you how much my work/life balance has evened out since I stopped having to be in an office. Additionally, I get far more hours of singular concentration at home versus an office.

[jfim]

> I can make a West Coast salary and live in the midwest if I so choose.

For now, until the execs realize that they don't need to pay West Coast salaries, just whatever gets them the engineering output that they need. If the job can be done with Latin American and Canadian engineers for less, or even less if they are open to other timezones, then West Coast salaries for remote work will go away in many instances.

I'm definitely enjoying working remotely, but I doubt that the high salaries from the good times in the tech industry will be there forever for remote work.

[cvhashim04]

I don’t think you realize how hard it is to find good engineers abroad. And if you do find them, they’re already likely employed at a good job and would want a significant pay bump to leave.

[jwestbury]

A "significant pay bump" could be an increase from the equivalent of $100k to $130k. Well below west-coast tech salaries.

Anecdotally, I had a total comp of (roughly) $400k as a senior engineer at Dropbox with a tier-1 salary (Seattle area). I asked about moving to the UK. The move would result in my base being cut from $220k to £120k, which, at the time I asked, was equivalent to about $140k. So, just over a 35% paycut. Now, because I already had RSU grants from the US, I'd continue to do better than that, and would have been making an extra $150k/yr in stock, roughly -- but a new-hire in the UK wouldn't have that advantage.

And Dropbox is one of the best-paying non-finance tech employers in the UK. Most tech employers in the UK are paying <$200k/yr total comp for senior engineers. Most tech employers in Europe are paying even less. And I'm talking about top-tier companies in terms of comp, here -- Facebook, Apple, Dropbox, etc.

So, yes, good engineers may already have a good job, but unless they're at quant hedge funds, US-based employers can probably offer 30-40% less than they'd offer to a west coast engineer, and it will still be a huge increase in comp.

[nunez]

That's the same argument's that been made for finding good engineers here in the US...

[BrandoElFollito]

Have you tried to find good engineers in Europe?

[lesuorac]

Offshoring is not new.

[helij]

I've been hearing this since 1991.

[lewdev]

Given how beneficial it is to employees and it's ubiquity, quality workers are reasonable to expect this flexibility when looking for their next company to join.

This news is what I was hoping for.

[sharts]

I thought WFH was great until the inevitable result of increased Slack messages and Zoom meetings. In fact, I think there were fewer hours wasted to context shifting and loss of concentration in the office. But it really depends on the company/team in the end.

[kulikalov]

How do you form your peer group remotely?

[Jcampuzano2]

Peer group as in friends? Or peer group as in coworkers?

I'm friendly with my coworkers, and some I may even call friends, but I certainly don't need my job to be able to make friends wherever I live. I can do that without the company stepping in to do the decision making for me. Companies all argue we should all be family, and my coworkers should de-facto be my friends, which is wrong to assume.

If you mean peers as in coworkers, well usually most people are just assigned to teams. So you meet people through that and eventually get to know them, remotely or in-person, doesn't really matter imo. I'm relatively close with plenty of my coworkers whom I've only met a couple times in person over the course of 2-3 years.

[taylodl]

In some ways you get to know your coworkers better. You see their partners, kids, cats, dogs - the stuff that helps make people more relatable.

[gregd]

I have conversations all the time over Teams with any peers that I'm interested in having relationships with outside of work. This gives me the opportunity to be selective in doing that because I'm not interested in being friends/pals with everyone at work.

Also when we lived in the same city, we would meet in physical locations for a beer and a burger.

Now that I don't even live in the same state, we make plans to fly to each other's cities and get together. We'll also carry over convos to Slack or Telegram and phone calls.

[toomuchtodo]

Friends and and loved ones are at home. Colleagues and I just share a paycheck provider and body of work we collaborate on.