[newspaper1]

A decent house in the Bay Area is >$2M. Why would I pay that when I can make the same money and buy a much better house for $500k, work from home, not have a commute (which is hideous in the BA) and not have some little micro manager breathing down my neck all day? It's a massive quality of life improvement all around.

[dbish]

Because the point is you can’t make the same money working from home elsewhere. So you have to make a tradeoff

[newspaper1]

That's not true, I definitely make the same money remotely that I would make anywhere else. Full remote companies don't care where you live and pay just as much as RTO places, often more.

[dbish]

I’m willing to bet this isn’t true for the average dev and you haven’t compared to in person pay from to companies, but there are definitely exceptions and sure it can be true for a particular person.

[newspaper1]

I know a lot of people working from home. Unless you work for a place that specifically adjusts for where you live (which is rare, especially with startups), you're going to get paid your market rate, no matter where you reside.

[dbish]

Pretty much all the FAANGs adjust for location so not what I would call rare. In addition it’s not about adjusting, many jobs just aren’t offered remote for better or worse (look at many Bay Area YC startup location expectations for the last year), so yes your current job might be ok with it, but the next bump up to make more isn’t even an option because many high paying jobs will be in office.

[newspaper1]

FAANG is literally 5 companies and they just do a market rate adjustment. Making $230k in Texas vs $270k in SF isn't really that different. Startups don't even do that, remote work pays the same regardless of geo. Any "in office" only startup is pretty much doomed tbh.

It's also not just my "current job", I make more than any peer that works in office and I always have at any employer that I've been at. If you want me to work for you, you have to pay what I require. That's how the market works.