With this new "Virtual First" WFH mantra our directive for new hires is to exclude HCOL areas. We're being asked to not hire in San Francisco, New York, Seattle... at all. We're even being asked to not look in lower-than-high COL areas like Austin, Chicago, DC. So the list where we should be looking at resumes instead are places like Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas (non-Austin), etc. I assume we're not the only ones doing this. How are you feeling about working from home indefinitely now that your jobs are leaving? At some point this will have some effect on visa work, why sponsor anybody when you can hire them directly in their low cost country? How could a company even justify sponsoring anybody when they're just going to work remotely? Why even hire inside the US at all when all your employees are virtual? I'm just wondering how far this will all go. I'm not advocating for or against, just noting that things are starting to change and unless we adapt we're going to be in for some hard times. That sweet, sweet TC we've all gotten used to might not be around forever.
I am in a LCOL area. Referral please? Overall I think it makes sense and might help develop more of the country.
Sure but your TC is going to prob match where you are living?
Start talking to recruiters on LinkedIn, your location has become important!
Good initiative by Dropbox. Hope rest of the industry follows. PS. I’m in the Midwest and have been remote for the last 5 years.
Lots of people in the SF Bay Area are making high TC so they're buying really expensive homes for way over asking price. Sounds like a dangerous game when your employer would rather hire somebody else for half the money in some other location. I just sold my house for double what I paid for it 6 years ago. I've got a whole bunch of cash and just wondering what to do. I'm a little scared to go fully remote.
Remote is the future. Granted not all companies like Google or Apple will allow their employees to be remote, but most others will. I don’t think jobs will leave the US because of culture and quality differences in countries like India. But having that option to stay in lcol areas in the US would really help.
I think it's somewhat good. If companies keep espousing diversity, they need to stop hiring unqualified token minorities only and actually start looking in different places. I don't like the idea of absolutes (i.e. no SF)
Racist
Lol how did you brain immediately go there from this post tf
This is the future, you can fight it the same way people fought the internet, and many other transitional periods of time. These jobs ARE doable remote, the last 16+ months has proven that beyond any doubt. Why should a company pay you 3x what it would cost them to hire someone from the middle of Iowa? You claim to be more skilled, but you have no evidence or fact. Most people in SF came from those other areas. Is there AS MUCH talent in this little Iowa city? No, but they now have hundreds to thousands of city’s, towns, etc that they can hire from. If you’re worth your comp over someone from small town USA, prove it. Put out 2x/3x/4x their work output, or 2x/3x/4x their quality. If not, get ready to get replaced.
I think you're on to something here. Maybe small town Iowa doesn't have the same talent as SF but I'll bet that person can produce 90% of the output for half the cost.
As somebody in Iowa who feels like they have capped out and has to move to get more comp, I welcome the change.
As someone who just moved to a HCOL area to better establish myself in both career and finances, I think it sucks.
Will Square pay your moving expenses to go back? Assuming you'd want to.
Nope, voluntary relocation receives no assistance
In the midwest people dont go around talking about how smart they are like hcol areas seem to do. So possibly get some recruiters in the culture to help get started.
Based in Cleveland, i also don't see us flogging ourselves at work like some of my friends in the west coast who work 12hr days and weekends too.
CLEVELANDDD THIS IS FOR YOUU! Love my hometown. Smart people there, we could use that boost in TC
Awesome! Finally our very progressive tech companies found out how to save money without any hit to performance. Took a while and a pandemic. To me, it is still surprising that most tech companies are willing to subsidize your living in a shack under freeway for $2M+.
Amen….
You can make the same argument in favor of outsourcing to cheaper countries.
About hiring people on visa, to some extent certain companies will still require them to work on site, not even remote. Teams that work on devices and with IP. Also, imagine those All-hands with run down on several new product announcements and it’s effect on insider trading. Sharing office space with your family member/friend working for competition would be a bad idea. Even though talent exists outside, they would still want to keep them within the US. But yeah spreading the wealth across US is a good thing. I agree that sweet TC won’t be around forever.
I'd rather not have bay area housing and taxes in exchange for lower TC.
@OP you are not a recruiter. So why would your company tell you where to hunt for new employees?
He’s probably the hiring manager…DUH????
Dropbox is very very open with all its internal docs - including for recruitment
And how many suitable candidates you find in those areas?
Their point is that internationals don’t have an incentive to study in US anymore
We're just starting to look, so far I get the feeling we're not going to find staff engineers right away but there are certainly qualified people out there,