Significant chunk of my team members are permanently leaving Seattle and still collecting Seattle pay checks. My boss working from Hawaii and org VP embraced WFH saying 'at best' we will be a hybrid org. Other team members permanently moved to cheaper states. Over 90% of amazon employees want WFH in some form according to surveys. WFH is the future and it is here to stay. I ain't ever going back to the office and they can't make me. I bet in the future there will be a salary normalization cross USA and Canada and this will be a very good thing for all devs!
I hate wfh full time. 3 day office would be best. I still would get to see people in real life
I like WFH but only because I hate commuting. I do kind of miss interactions with people. But I hate hate hate commuting.
Eventually it will be a hybrid. My org was hybrid before COVID (2-4 days in office), and I can definitely say that it works better than full remote. Couple of things will happen to support full remote: 1. Those who choose fully remote should expect a TC drop to adjust to low COL. 2. People are social beings, so it remains to see how water cooler conversations/ promotions will happen in distributed organizations.
On #1, why do you think those who are in low cost areas and are fully remote will get a TC drop while those in high cost areas but yet still fully remote will not? Amazon EXPLICITLY stated in my salary negotiations that they do not care about cost of living only cost of labour. If we group 'remote workers' as one cost of labour bucket in certain timezones then there is no reason someone in bay area should be paid more than someone outside of it. Infact the idea of a colleague being paid less while doing the same job is outrageous. It is in the best interest of the company to have salaries normalize across the US and Canada.
What do you mean “outrageous?” This is how capitalism work. What you are describing is arbitrage.
I’ve seen this movement back in 80s, 90s and 00s. It is turbulent time right now and all companies is more or less forced to work remotely. It would be very different story if one company could be more competitive than other due to WFH/office policies. Right now it is hard to predict, but couple years down the road the industry will settle on new norms.
Did you see WFH and remote jobs in 80s?
Zoom and Skype were making bank in the 80s
In London they are encouraging going back to work so that small businesses thrive again and downtown cores are not destroyed permanently.
I think this is one of the major material reasons large scale WFH won’t actually happen.
WFH aint super hot in SE Asia as well.
Just read yesterday that Amazon is buying office space for an additional 25000? people in Seattle, after last week’s property for 35k more people in NY
They’re buying property for 25k in Bellevue, not Seattle
I heard they were also encouraging current seattle employees to change to Bellevue
“and they can’t make me” - true, but they can certainly terminate your employment. Apple is specifically telling employees not to move, you are required to return to the office when this is over.
↑ Not true. They are telling people that “this is not a blanket remote work authorization, remote work still has to be approved.” So working remote is of course doable you just have to ask
I do not see any universe where companies can just order staff back to the office and expect everyone to comply. There is also no hint from good companies that this will occur. For example, over 90% of Amazonians want to work from home and leadership has only been receptive to that.
What does permanent mean in this context? There was no such thing even pre-covid. People always moved. Of course a lot of people are going the claim a 'permanent' move now. As soon as they get PIPed, their ass will be back in Seattle to interview at some other company.
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