I honestly don't understand some of the ideas people have about remote work. Remote work may be great, but there will be challenges associated.
For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries.
A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries.
If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible.
Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen.
What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.
Pay rising seems to be because of a labor shortage and if SF base pay is top of market in the US/world then other areas will incrementally move higher to attract/retain talent.
It seems like the software developer market has much more hiring activity than pre-pandemic so I don't think equalizing to the cheapest geography/salary for remote is going to happen. It appears the trend upwards with a labor shortage is more the case that "A rising tide lifts all boats" type of thing where other markets are also trending upwards.
What would be more interesting about remote work is a discussion about the labor shortage. Is it because more people are leaving for more pay and causing a ripple effect in the place they left (like a game of musical chairs)? Are there a lot more VC, therefore startups and just more open positions?
I don't think this take will age well. By all public accounts there's something like a 15%-20% engineering talent shortage in tech. That means pay will go up regardless if Topeka or SF until the current generation of engineers catch up and become hire-able.
For venture capital backed tech companies at least, isn't one of the largest expenses salaries? Doesn't it almost benefit companies to have more employees at a higher salary expense to bolster huge valuations?
Certainly the Bay Area and quite a few other places on the West Coast (depending on your tolerance for clouds) are, to my taste, pretty attractive places beyond job prospects in certain industries. But NYC, Boston, Austin--add your other fairly popular cities in the US, much less Toronto in Canada--and cold/snowy winters or hot/humid summers haven't led to especially cheap housing.
For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries.
A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries.
If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible.
Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen.
What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.