Whenever I search for opportunities online, only companies that hire in SF pays well. Are there any remote companies other than Basecamp (since they rarely hire) that pays SF rates for anyone anywhere?
I may have a very controversial take on this but I would share it regardless. The moment you compete with remote developers all around the world, you have to be really really good to command great salaries. The reason is that the employers have a very wide pool to select from instead of location specific. So as an employer, I don't have an incentive to just pay "SF Salary" unless I find that really exceptional candidate.
So focus on becoming that really really good candidate who can command SF level salary while living in say Thailand or whatever your choice of stay is. Otherwise, you are competing with hundreds and thousands of people and if you are just about as good as them, someone is willing to work for less than SF salary. Supply/demand ?
Also, a company may be ok with a good enough dev. who costs much less than a great dev. who costs a lot more.
I'm having a hard time understanding why this is controversial. Can someone with a dissenting opinion chime in? I'm curious what the other side of the argument sounds like.
It's not really controversial, but just a kind of sad state-of-the-world type thing imho. While there are undoubtedly a lot of talented developers in SF, "SF salary" doesn't really equate with talent and it's mostly there due to the uber expensive nature of the place and US economy expectations afaik. For example, I'm pretty sure there are a ton of developers all around the world that are much more talented and hard working that a lot of people getting paid "SF salaries" in SF and that are paid but a small percentage of even an average "SF salary"
OP is right because the differences can be so abysmal that even just 1 month of "SF Salary" can be much greater that 1+ years of salary in other countries for basically the same job. So it would be an obvious choice that if companies can get a remote developer that's just as productive for 20k/year it would make no sense to pay >120k..150k/year (which seems to be the average for a software engineer according to payscale).
The other side usually is "Why should we restrict salaries based on location. Where a developer lives should NOT matter for a job and why should they get paid less than someone in SF ?"
But my point is that it DOES matter as there are other factors involved and not just location. Lets say that I find a great developer who wants SF salary vs a good enough developer who wants 1/5th of the SF salary, I may not need that great dev. at that cost. The "good enough" developer will be, well good enough and worth it. A lot of developers (and don't get me wrong, I am one too) tend to overestimate their abilities and expect high salaries just because devs get paid high salaries in general.
Salary has very little with how "good" you are, and determining "good" is the essence of this scam industry. Hypothetically, lets say there are devs being paid $1MM per year who are kicking back $250-500k to their managers who got them the jobs. They do the same work as everyone else. Are they good?
Oh it entirely does. But I think you're confusing the source for "good".
As the GP said, supply and demand, you're competing with a lot more developers when you work remote. I think we'd all agree there, right?
So now the company hiring has a large pool they need to sort through. How do you choose? Well they _could_ just choose the "best", but they get to define best, or good, right? Some companies may literally want to choose the best client they can, but many will want to balance all variables. They want a skilled candidate, who fits their culture, for a price that leaves them with a good feeling.
A candidate willing to accept less pay is a value in itself. If the candidate meets or exceeds the minimum skill that the company is desiring, the cheap price tag is often great.
Now I know this is a complex topic, but as a remote worker and someone who has hired many remote workers for a company with real, limited non-VC income, salary matters. Even in just the candidates I've interviewed, if they were all the same price tag I would have different coworkers today. Which isn't to say that my coworkers are bad or that we hired poorly, we hired based on variables at the time, and we made the right decision.
Price has nothing to do with candidate skill, but is still often top tier variable in choosing a candidate. It is not a scam. It is reality.
The labor market is not as efficient as your one data point makes you think. At big corporations hundreds of millions are thrown around like paper. All you need is a large corporation, some intense groupthink, and some kickbacks and the company is going to be paying $1MM for a remote worker barely better than a recent graduate. With monetary persuasion people are able to make management buy into calling someone who is nothing a purple squirrel critical to the company.
What does that matter to the conversation, though? My point was merely that compensation is merely a variable. As with any variables different companies will value different things. In your example the company has almost no concern for compensation amounts.
My reply was to the idea that cost is irrelevant and merely a tool to scam employees out of money. That is ridiculous. As I mentioned, I personally have valued the compensation variable heavily. And I (or rather the group of people I work with) are certainly not some evil masterminds trying to scam employees out of potential earnings.
In most industries, more experience = more pay. Not all, not always fairly, but generally.
In tech, more experience in a niche field generally = even more money.
It’s not that different than paying for regular items.
There is supply and demand at play (hence niche roles will often pay higher) and the basic concept of “you get what you pay for”. Generally a more experienced developer will be more productive. Generally that means they’ll be compensated more.
SF salaries are pushing the supply and demand part heavily: without sufficient salary the candidates can’t afford to live where the job is because it’s so over populated.
I'd focus more on providing enough value to justify a SF like salary.
Just trying to find a company that will throw money at you while you sit in a LOC area will be tough. Companies are not stupid, and you are competing with the whole world. There will always be someone who can do the job for a cheaper price.
So figure out what value you provide, that justifies inflated rates.
Another approach is not to be an employee, but a business. But that's not as comfortable.
What is the logic that says over inflated salaries that are required to make hiring possible in a ridiculously expensive place to live are the only measure of “pays well”?
You could have a salary substantially less in equivalent dollars and still end up better off if a huge chunk of that income isn’t being spent on putting a roof over your head.
Or do you just want the bragging rights “I make 300k” but are sick of spending half of it on rent?
I don't know about the OP, but I live in Los Angeles so when looking for remote opportunities I need a salary comparable to local onsite jobs. I've got a daughter in school here and my wife has a job with 10 years seniority and a pension at 20 years so it isn't realistic to move to Idaho for the cost of living savings. I've been working remote for 5 years and it has limited my choices to companies that pay LA wages. I've talked to coworkers who live on 5 acres in Texas, a mansion in Iowa, or 20 acres in Arkansas and they think I'm crazy but I can be at the beach or Hollywood in 15 minutes and I don't have to deal with snow or rain.
I guess maybe it's a factor of the US employment/benefits situation but I don't quite understand this scenario.
In Australia (where I grew up) if you leave a company, you don't lose your retirement savings from that time, because they're not controlled by the company.
Is that what you're suggesting: that if your wife changes her job, she'll lose the money that's been paid into a retirement fund for her?
As for kids: changing schools can be a hassle but I'd hardly consider it a reason not to move to a much more liveable location.
The parent is referring to a pension plan, which is generally guaranteed income for life after a certain amount of service. If you leave or are fired prior to the service requirement, you could lose all or part of the pension. Just want to note in the US these are usually offered to public sector workers - e.g. teachers, firemen, police, military, civil servants. I don't know of a private company that still offers pensions.
Separately we have retirement savings programs (usually called a 401k) that are offered by private sector employers, often with a match. Employees can invest a percentage of their paycheck in the program, and companies will match that contribution to a certain level to incentivize savings. When you leave the company you can keep the account or roll it somewhere else. Unfortunately these contributions are capped by federal law at no more than $19,500 per year per person. There are tax benefits to the 401k - you can choose to pay tax on the contribution when you make it and pay no income tax on those funds in retirement, or not pay tax now and pay income tax in the future. This is a lot better than investing in a taxable brokerage account, because you get taxed on the income as well as the securities.
Right. That clarifies things a bit. The only "pension" I've seen in Australia (and apparently UK, as my father's situation implies) is a fairly minimal "pension" payment to all retired citizens, and then huge incentives for people to pay into their own "Super" (short for Superannuation) plan, which is fairly similar to your 401K it seems - but they actively encourage paying more into it.
Is the cap on any payment into the 401K or just the employer's contribution?
I've not heard of nor experienced anything similar to the 'pension plan' concept you have, and my first job was in State Government, from whence I still have a Super plan... somewhere.
> a fairly minimal "pension" payment to all retired citizens
The U.S. version of that is "Social Security" (which is funded by a payroll tax).
> Is the cap on any payment into the 401K or just the employer's contribution?
Yes, the maximum amount an employee can contribute yearly is limited by law. (You can make additional "catch-up" contributions if you're aged 50 years or older, which are also limited by law.)
Huh. Australia used to have “social security” (it’s now referred to as the cryptic “Centrelink”), but I thought it was essentially only unemployment/disability payments, and specifically not pension payments.
Does the US S/S cover unemployment benefits as well as those who are retired?
Re:401k wow. I cannot fathom a government preventing its citizens from saving more money for retirement. Seems bonkers to me.
> Does the US S/S cover unemployment benefits as well as those who are retired?
No. Unemployment benefits are a separate program, run by the individual state governments. (Social Security is run by the Federal government.)
> Re:401k wow. I cannot fathom a government preventing its citizens from saving more money for retirement.
You can save as much as you like for retirement outside of your 401k. The limit on the 401k only puts a cap on how much you can save in tax-deferred accounts.
Yes she has a 401k so she can take that with her, as well as IRA accounts we have privately with our bank, but at 20 years she gets a huge pension from her employer, which is a large health insurance company that operates hospitals (Kaiser Permantente).
For a lot of jobs in the US, you have a pension where if you retire from the company after X years there (in this case 20 years), then they’ll pay you some fixed sum every month for the rest of your life. There isn’t a “retirement fund for her” that money has been paid into, but rather it’s a single on/off switch. This dates from the 50s-70s when staying at a single company your whole career was the norm. Nowadays, most companies offer a 401k retirement plan that you can take with you, but some older companies or government agencies still offer pensions.
As for the kids, I’d say that staying in one school district is a huge plus for them, but it varies depending on the kids and the school district.
> For a lot of jobs in the US, you have a pension where if you retire from the company after X years there (in this case 20 years), then they’ll pay you some fixed sum every month for the rest of your life.
Pensions are extremely rare outside of the public sector, and have been for about the length of the average working career.
> What do you consider extremely rare? 13% of private sector employees still participate in a pension plan.
Down from 18%, ~7 years before, when 39% and growing of those who still had pensions in the private sector had non-traditional pensions that weren't pure specified-benefit plans, but instead were (for the vast majority of non-traditional plans) hybrid cash-balance plans where the actual benefit is determined by investment returns through the point of retirement (basically, a defined contribution plan where the accumulated balance is used to purchase an annuity at retirement.)
IIRC, a big part of the decline being that for many private employers, pensions, especially traditional ones, are legacy plans that haven't been offered to employees for decades, and are only available to employees that have been working with the firm since they were generally available.
As for kids: changing schools can be a hassle but I'd hardly consider it a reason not to move to a much more liveable location.
I'm not sure how it is in Australia, but the US is very racially/culturally diverse on the coasts (where it is expensive), and more homogeneous in the interior (where it is cheap). My daughter is in a great school with a diverse student body that would be difficult to find in other places.
Traffic is a nonissue when you work from home. Wildfires are getting bad but the hope is that they can be mitigated over time, unlike snow every winter.
Hope in one hand and shit in the other, see which fills up first.
If you think extreme weather events (droughts, the ensuing wild fires, hurricanes, blizzards, etc) are going to reduce any time soon, you need to pay more attention.
In case you can manage to keep the same savings-rate, living in an expensive place, you can move to an inexpensive place for retirement and retire earlier. The absolute values count. It is not only about cost of living/salary.
You're totally right but I was asking this question because I wanted to know if there are any other companies similar to Basecamp that pays you SF rates no matter where ever you're in the world.
Looking for a remote salaried position in another country seems like a weird situation to me. The headaches of setting up legal entities, complying with tax laws, benefits etc for whatever location the person is in, is not worth it IMO.
If you're a freelancer, it's up to you to decide what rate you want, and if you're willing to negotiate on that rate.
For reference, I charge clients about 3x more now, living in a relatively small city in Thailand than I did when I left Melbourne (Australia) several years ago, which is ridiculously more expensive.
Actually - many do...
A lot of small companies/startups aren't setup deal with varying costs of living and what a 'comparable' salary would be, so they just pay what they would pay in the local market (SF).
edit: my bad, I missed the 'worldwide' part...I only have experience with remote work in the U.S.
If you want a well paying remote job, you need to avoid companies that advertise remote work. 99% of the time they are trying to capture great talent for less money. Instead just apply to well paying places, and prove you are a worthwhile asset. Even companies that swear they are non-remote will usually make an exception
Caveats: This usually only works if you're in the same country as the company (legal/tax complications). Also, while you might get SF salary you will almost never get SF stock comp, which is almost always worth as much as the salary
So focus on becoming that really really good candidate who can command SF level salary while living in say Thailand or whatever your choice of stay is. Otherwise, you are competing with hundreds and thousands of people and if you are just about as good as them, someone is willing to work for less than SF salary. Supply/demand ?
Also, a company may be ok with a good enough dev. who costs much less than a great dev. who costs a lot more.