About $115K/annum working remotely—probably about the same as if not. As @stephencanon said, an employer that suspected there was a downside in productivity for remote workers (and I'd say it's at least equally likely that working remotely results in higher productivity on average) could assuage their own concerns by remembering the significant (~50% of salary?) savings from not having to pay for air conditioning, heating, security, probably some office equipment (I provide my own printers, for example, since they're not terribly useful for remote work anyway), and various other bits of overhead.
Exactly the same as I would make if I weren't working remotely. I'm doing the same work, and it has the same value to my employer. (If anything, one might argue that remote employees should be paid more, since the overhead costs are often less).
Workers aren't paid by the value they create to the company. That sets a ceiling, but the floor is set by the competitive market. How little can you pay somebody to take that job and do the work you need done? That effectively bubbles up from the local cost of living and is modulated by availability of workers.
Hard-to-find software engineer in SF? Going to pay even more than the crazy housing costs imply.
Easy-to-find marketing events manager in NYC? Going to pay less than the crazy housing costs would have you think.
Remote allows you to hire from anywhere, so the competition is higher. I'd imagine that, if anything, it would hurt your earnings, because you're now competing with people from Iowa who have $300 / month rent payments.
I've found remote employees (truly remote, not an office job with telecommute option) often accept lower salaries than they could get otherwise in exchange for the flexibility of the position. Until remote work is more widely practiced, the good remote jobs will be in demand and they don't have to compete dollar for dollar with office jobs.
No, it would not. This doesn't work, and neither would a poll. To be clear: we can have an interesting discussion on salaries, value of employees, etc. but if anyone takes any of these numbers, from this post, or a poll, and does so much as average them, they would immediately produce meaningless data. Some reasons:
- Participation is voluntary, the group is self-selected. This in itself renders all results meaningless.
- HN polls let you vote on more than one option, yet you only have one salary.
- Time of day bias. It is currently lunch hour on the east coast, and morning in the Bay area. Remote developers living in the UK, Thailand, etc. are on yet a different schedule.
- Whenever a discussion like this pops up, the workers have an incentive to lie. If you say "I am top talent in my field and I make [2x my actual salary]", and enough people do this, you might actually raise the expectations of the employers. This discussion is actively giving a voice to the workers, and they have a huge reason to misrepresent facts for personal benefit.
I really wish HN got rid of polls. People tend to treat them as valuable data, and they are really just noise. The discussions are great, but the number noise is worthless.
Exactly, and the only reason I didn't participate. It would also make it easier to aggregate results. The more added as comments, the more effort required. 'tis an interesting topic question, though.
I know three people who work 100% remote, full-time for rates equivalent to 130-185k+ per year.
Interestingly, I'd always thought of remote workers as either high-end technical specialists working as-needed or cheap bodies being delegated to.
These folks all fall somewhere in the middle with the common factor being soft / niche skills - they work for sort of places that most people would run away from and work on things the most people haven't touched in years.
Two of them started out on-site, but were so valuable the company was happy to allow remote work in order to keep them on staff.
I've been that guy, several times in my career. Moved back to the Midwest, my Silicon Valley employer continued to pay me. Subsequently got other jobs working at startups and working from the Midwest (3 of them at least). Working one now.
"Somewhere on the high end of Silicon Valley market rate for the specific thing that I do for a guy who's been doing it this long."
The important part is that the spot on the globe where I decide to plug in my laptop has precisely zero bearing on that bill rate. I'll grant that the offset of having to pay for my own equipment and health care versus having to pay a premium in housing cost and take a huge hit on quality of life so as to be able to commute an hour to sit in a felt cube all day every day does leave me a bit ahead. But then I'd argue that surplus should be captured by me rather than J. Random Software Company.
Never let the poor negotiating position of the others around you affect your ability to negotiate the best deal for yourself. If your counterparty suggests dropping your rate to match the locals in whatever tropical paradise you've had the good sense to set up shop in, it's your job to chuckle softly and say "no. It doesn't work like that."
About 2500 USD/month, working hour or two a day. I can make more easily, but I already make like 2x of average salary in my country, so I can live comfortably, travel as much as I want to and have time to pursue other projects (running my little winery and working on low cost FTIR spectroscope).
I suspect you meant to ask this to people doing commission/independent-developer/consultant-type work, rather then employees that only happen to work remotely, if so maybe it needs to be specified.
And for a certain class of employees that work remotely (e.g. sales, consulting), people should know that the trade-off often requires a significant amount of travel away from home (sometimes up to 50%+).
Living in East Europe, working as a consultant (C++, no web dev) remotely for West European company. Making 10x more of what I'd make locally (Senior/Lead role).
I've changed several jobs during the last decade, always tripling the next salary (of course I've never mentioned my previous salary) - and I've always given the rate I asked for.
I keep working in remote for hand-picked clients. I raised my rates (I started really low, 8$/hour, coming from non-technical background at all). My current rate is 25$/h, and I have started to take some projects that imply some development (ruby on rails, html/css).
AMAnything if you feel like! Willing to help or solve some doubts.
$115K per annum + equity. Designer + some front-end dev - 6 years design experience, junior dev experience. I do pay for my own healthcare though, but I consider it one of the things I am willing to sacrifice for the lifestyle.
I also do freelance work on the side, billed $32k last year (mostly from Wordpress website referrals). I consider myself a perpetual traveller to minimise tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_traveler
I don't know why anyone thinks you should get any less than someone in-office. I am guessing those people are probably underpaid because they don't know how to value / sell themselves.
I am a software engineer at Canonical working in Go on Juju. I live in Massachusetts and have 15 years of professional development experience and a BS in CS from a decent technical university (WPI). When applying for the job, I asked for (and got) the same salary I'd ask for if applying for an office-based job in Boston (which was a fairly significant bump over my old office-based job in Boston). From what I understand, Boston salaries may be lower than those in SF, but the cost of living probably makes up for the difference.
I'm Ruby on Rails & Javascript developer from South-Eastern Europe (Croatia, Zagreb).
I'm working for a client in Chicago, USA and my rate is 40usd/hr.
I charge about £50 per hour doing freelance e-learning development, but I don't actually take much freelance work on because I'm too scared to move away from full time employment - from which I earn a lot less (roughly £30k a year) but I get 42 days holiday, pension, sick pay and security.
$40/hr @ 30-40/hr work week. I live in a low-cost country. Tempted to move to Silicon Valley though. I live with the constant battle of wanting to live in the USA or in my home country.
So how do I find one of these jobs? Do I have to be a genius or master at language or technology X? 20 years of work experience? Can I live on the other side of the planet?
[+] [-] putzdown|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marketingadvice|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] artmageddon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephencanon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trjordan|11 years ago|reply
Workers aren't paid by the value they create to the company. That sets a ceiling, but the floor is set by the competitive market. How little can you pay somebody to take that job and do the work you need done? That effectively bubbles up from the local cost of living and is modulated by availability of workers.
Hard-to-find software engineer in SF? Going to pay even more than the crazy housing costs imply.
Easy-to-find marketing events manager in NYC? Going to pay less than the crazy housing costs would have you think.
Remote allows you to hire from anywhere, so the competition is higher. I'd imagine that, if anything, it would hurt your earnings, because you're now competing with people from Iowa who have $300 / month rent payments.
[+] [-] tdfx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gk1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IgorPartola|11 years ago|reply
- Participation is voluntary, the group is self-selected. This in itself renders all results meaningless.
- HN polls let you vote on more than one option, yet you only have one salary.
- Time of day bias. It is currently lunch hour on the east coast, and morning in the Bay area. Remote developers living in the UK, Thailand, etc. are on yet a different schedule.
- Whenever a discussion like this pops up, the workers have an incentive to lie. If you say "I am top talent in my field and I make [2x my actual salary]", and enough people do this, you might actually raise the expectations of the employers. This discussion is actively giving a voice to the workers, and they have a huge reason to misrepresent facts for personal benefit.
I really wish HN got rid of polls. People tend to treat them as valuable data, and they are really just noise. The discussions are great, but the number noise is worthless.
[+] [-] eplanit|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incision|11 years ago|reply
Interestingly, I'd always thought of remote workers as either high-end technical specialists working as-needed or cheap bodies being delegated to.
These folks all fall somewhere in the middle with the common factor being soft / niche skills - they work for sort of places that most people would run away from and work on things the most people haven't touched in years.
Two of them started out on-site, but were so valuable the company was happy to allow remote work in order to keep them on staff.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonkester|11 years ago|reply
The important part is that the spot on the globe where I decide to plug in my laptop has precisely zero bearing on that bill rate. I'll grant that the offset of having to pay for my own equipment and health care versus having to pay a premium in housing cost and take a huge hit on quality of life so as to be able to commute an hour to sit in a felt cube all day every day does leave me a bit ahead. But then I'd argue that surplus should be captured by me rather than J. Random Software Company.
Never let the poor negotiating position of the others around you affect your ability to negotiate the best deal for yourself. If your counterparty suggests dropping your rate to match the locals in whatever tropical paradise you've had the good sense to set up shop in, it's your job to chuckle softly and say "no. It doesn't work like that."
[+] [-] dejv|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BilalBudhani|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otoburb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerr|11 years ago|reply
I've changed several jobs during the last decade, always tripling the next salary (of course I've never mentioned my previous salary) - and I've always given the rate I asked for.
So, if you want to make more - just ask for it.
[+] [-] 3rdwrld2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobKyle|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malditojavi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malditojavi|11 years ago|reply
AMAnything if you feel like! Willing to help or solve some doubts.
[+] [-] designergal|11 years ago|reply
I also do freelance work on the side, billed $32k last year (mostly from Wordpress website referrals). I consider myself a perpetual traveller to minimise tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_traveler
I don't know why anyone thinks you should get any less than someone in-office. I am guessing those people are probably underpaid because they don't know how to value / sell themselves.
[+] [-] NateDad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brunosutic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johansch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] odonnellryan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwmeaway21|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daledavies|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ap22213|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3rdwrld|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chroman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wantsemployment|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ishanr|11 years ago|reply
Apply for jobs on: https://weworkremotely.com/ https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote http://nomadjobs.io/
[+] [-] jeffasinger|11 years ago|reply
I make essentially a market rate salary.
[+] [-] GingerBoats|11 years ago|reply