[moomoo11]

I was explicitly talking about too good to ignore.

Anyone who can optimize a company’s bottom line will be hired.

Like I said, no random average mid react guy or dime a dozen Java developer is getting hired as a remote employee in some flyover country.

But if someone can provide like 50x value then hell yeah..

I thought that was obvious in my message considering we are discussing compiler optimization

[Degorath]

(Yeah, I'd say your messaging was reasonably clear, but in the context of the whole thread it wasn't obvious whether the poster was putting themselves in that skill bucket.)

I think there's also quite a big spectrum of skill, even when we're talking about compiler optimization and highly skilled software developers. I'd put myself up there, but still I'm no Lars Bak (for whom Google allegedly created an office in Denmark).

[ptsneves]

How do you rate yourself as higher than dime a dozen? I work as a full remote dev but I am not sure I am anything special, I mean how do you know that you are objectively good.

[moomoo11]

Where did I say anything about myself? Sounds like projection or some deep insecurities if you meant it _that_ way.

If you're asking what would constitute someone being special, it would depend on the role and skillset. As I said in my earlier comment, someone who is a beast and can find and fix bugs in compilers is a rare person. Especially if that skillset can help the company save boatloads of money that can be deployed elsewhere.

There are probably only a handful of people in the world who understand and can push the AI landscape forward. A lot of them are Chinese immigrants, and yet OpenAI/Meta/etc are paying them boatloads of money.

As for remote roles, I once worked on a project where we hired some dude for like $500/hr as a contractor because he was one of the few people who knew the inside/out of postgres and oracle rdbms because we were doing some very important migration.