Ask HN: How much you make working remotely?
How much do you make working remotely?
81 comments
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.
Can I ask what your job is? Sounds like you won the remote working game
Sounds similar to me. Living in BC, doing Rails programming fulltime for a company in Toronto. Fly out for a week for quarterly meetings, but otherwise fully remote (and timezone shifted).
Started initially as a fully-remote team, but as the company's grown and staff has rotated, I'm the only fully remote guy still there. Coworkers take an occasional work-from-home day though.
Started initially as a fully-remote team, but as the company's grown and staff has rotated, I'm the only fully remote guy still there. Coworkers take an occasional work-from-home day though.
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What do you work on specifically?
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).
I don't think it works that way.
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.
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.
You're wrong though, at least in my case. My pay doesn't change at all and I move quite often.
Yes, he's wrong. I do quite well working remotely and every offer I've received for which I'd have to work in a $%^&ing open office (because open office good, cubicle bad plus mandatory daily Jar Jar meeting at no additional cost(1)) would have entailed a 25-50% pay cut.
My advice is to refuse in every way you can to be the generic fungible engineer most management wishes you to be, and to instead specialize in emerging technologies. When such technologies are in demand, your compensation will skyrocket.
1. http://softwaremaestro.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/scrum-master...
My advice is to refuse in every way you can to be the generic fungible engineer most management wishes you to be, and to instead specialize in emerging technologies. When such technologies are in demand, your compensation will skyrocket.
1. http://softwaremaestro.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/scrum-master...
That link is stupid. We do daily standups. It usually takes about 3 minutes. If it's taking 2.5 hours/week, you're doing it wrong.
Whenever I see "If X isn't working for you then you're doing it wrong" I remind the person who said it that they really ought to consider that there are no silver bullets/holy grails. If daily standups work for you, great (see, I'm acknowledging that it works for some people), but please keep your process religion to yourself, mmkay?
But this is a pretty clear indication that things are broken. I understand that there are variations in how things are done, but if you're doing "standups", the whole point is: keep it short and sweet. Otherwise, call it a "morning meeting" and run it as long as you want.
Also do daily standups - if someone wants to go into more detail about something they do it only with the people necessary.
We take about 10 minutes/day.
We take about 10 minutes/day.
Ah Scrum arguments.
The biggest source of No True Scotsman fallacies on the internet.
The biggest source of No True Scotsman fallacies on the internet.
I'm sure there are exceptions, and one of the big gotchas with all of this is that employers do all in their power to figure out what's a "reasonable" increase and not pay huge raises.
If you're paid at a certain level, and there exists a job that will pay you 50% more, there are basically 2 possibilities:
1) You know that job exists, and there are others like it, and you don't want it because it requires you to come into an office / work in an industry you don't like / do something less fun.
2) You're currently underpaid and haven't been able to line up competitive pay to force 2 company's to bid you up to market rates. Maybe it's a personal thing, maybe it's that the magical 50% raise is a one-off anomaly by un-educated employer, or something else.
In either case, the employer wants to figure out what you're currently paid, and they should be able to get what they want without giving more than 10 or 20% more. The only real way to get around this is to refuse to give current comp and be viciously underpaid, or to get 2 companies to give offers and start bidding it up.
In short, yes, you may be able to keep your salary as you move around. There are probably jobs out there in expensive areas that pay more than you make right now, but I'm guessing you don't want them.
If you're paid at a certain level, and there exists a job that will pay you 50% more, there are basically 2 possibilities:
1) You know that job exists, and there are others like it, and you don't want it because it requires you to come into an office / work in an industry you don't like / do something less fun.
2) You're currently underpaid and haven't been able to line up competitive pay to force 2 company's to bid you up to market rates. Maybe it's a personal thing, maybe it's that the magical 50% raise is a one-off anomaly by un-educated employer, or something else.
In either case, the employer wants to figure out what you're currently paid, and they should be able to get what they want without giving more than 10 or 20% more. The only real way to get around this is to refuse to give current comp and be viciously underpaid, or to get 2 companies to give offers and start bidding it up.
In short, yes, you may be able to keep your salary as you move around. There are probably jobs out there in expensive areas that pay more than you make right now, but I'm guessing you don't want them.
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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.
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This would work better as a poll so people can answer anonymously.
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.
- 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.
Indeed. Many people (though not all people) lie on anonymous polls. Frequently. They lie when they perceive themselves to have incentives to lie (per your last bullet point). They also lie in absence of any apparent incentives.
Some of it is just human psychology. Nobody sees what appears to be a norm, measures himself against it, and wants to admit that he falls short of it -- even if he's totally anonymous. This is especially true when a poll concerns topics of great emotional weight, like salary. Take an anonymous poll on everyone's favorite sports team, or favorite ice cream flavor, and you'd probably get accurate results. Take a poll on salary, and many of the results would be dubious.
Some of it is just human psychology. Nobody sees what appears to be a norm, measures himself against it, and wants to admit that he falls short of it -- even if he's totally anonymous. This is especially true when a poll concerns topics of great emotional weight, like salary. Take an anonymous poll on everyone's favorite sports team, or favorite ice cream flavor, and you'd probably get accurate results. Take a poll on salary, and many of the results would be dubious.
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.
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."
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).
working hour or two a day? What's your work schedule looks like? curious to know.
I am doing maintenance programming for living (in Delphi 5), which usually consist of long list of small problems and changes: I am usually trying to do one or two things a day, generate new binaries and send it to customer so he have something new to play with. I am usually working on my own things till, say 5 or 6 and then do my daily work for my customer.
Besides having the not-so-mainstream needed habilities, how do you manage to find that kind of (niche?) work?
I don't know, really. I do Delphi programming for 15 years now and it was quite mainstream back then, even now I occasionally do work for new clients (iOS, Rails, Machine Learning) and every 7 years or so I found another client whom I really like to work with and I just try to keep around. So I might find my client number 3 eventually and it is not going to be Delphi anymore. I usually work with like 2 new people each year.
Basically I do like to work with established, non-tech company that is around for long time, both companies are family owned with 50+ years in operation. I do respond to ads sometimes, got some referrals, bump to some odd guy at wine tasting and stuff like that.
Basically I do like to work with established, non-tech company that is around for long time, both companies are family owned with 50+ years in operation. I do respond to ads sometimes, got some referrals, bump to some odd guy at wine tasting and stuff like that.
True, "established, non text company" sounds good.
Thanks for sharing your experience! :D
I had never think about this: "established, non-tech company that is around for long time"
Probably makes for a very good working enviroment, they may have a lot of technology to add to their business, and also they may value your work a lot more than a tech companies.
I had never think about this: "established, non-tech company that is around for long time"
Probably makes for a very good working enviroment, they may have a lot of technology to add to their business, and also they may value your work a lot more than a tech companies.
I loved Delphi 7. Nowadays I do web dev, but it was just so fast to create a full-featured app with Delphi. Lazarus isn't there yet, unfortunately.
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.
So, if you want to make more - just ask for it.
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.
I do work as a remote C++ consultant too. Can you get in touch with me? I would like to exchange ideas
With 60% oDesk clients and 40% other remote clients, back in 2012, I did around 17k $ in the whole year. I explained it at the end of this post http://malditointer.net/after-working-1200-hours-in-odesk/
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.
AMAnything if you feel like! Willing to help or solve some doubts.
How much time and effort did it take you to reach $25/h from $8/h? From what I see, it is very competetive and there will be always some guy who is willing to work at less than price you mention (and sometimes, if not most of times, he would have more experience/ratings than you) how do you handle that? I mean how would you make someone chose you over a experienced guy?
You said you started to take development projects, then what kind of projects you were working on earlier?
You said you started to take development projects, then what kind of projects you were working on earlier?
You can figure that out if you take a look to my oDesk profile, link is included in the post and you can see what kind of works/and when I raised my $/h.
$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 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.
How does the final amount after you pay all the taxes/social security fees etc compare to what you would get from a comparable local job?
How did you get the job?
We started working via oDesk, but later switched to working directly.
$87.5k salary + equity as a designer/dev type. It's the same pay no matter where I live and is higher paying than my pervious location-dependent job.
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.
150k. Although I work remotely, I still live in the DC area and occasionally go to the office for meetings.
Third world national, living in the third world. $3800 per month working full time (~40Hrs a week)
$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?
Learn either rails, python or front end stuff (angular, sass, html), git is a must.
Apply for jobs on: https://weworkremotely.com/ https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote http://nomadjobs.io/
Apply for jobs on: https://weworkremotely.com/ https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote http://nomadjobs.io/
I work remotely, for a company located about 1.5 hours drive away, though am expected to come into the office twice a month on my own dime.
I make essentially a market rate salary.
I make essentially a market rate salary.
I do freelance, so it varies depending on how I schedule client work. On average, I sit comfortably around $5k a month with a 30/hr work week.
$6k per month - if I sell something in new or do a workshop (not remote) 10k.
Not entirely remote, but about $30/hour.
$2000 per month working full time remotely.
Above market rates for office-based work.
£350pd at the moment as a freelancer
$4K a month. Unlimited vacations.
$650/day on a C2C contract.
225k this year, its great as long as they don't micro manage you
With a new account and cybercoder in the name, I might think you are a very clever recruiter.
wow, that's amazing. May I ask what type of work you do?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess freelancing on CyberCoder.
Each recruiter here typically clears closer to 315K.
> here
Where is here? Op's handle? Cybercoders? That's incredible if true. You could essentially recruit for a few years and then retire.
Where is here? Op's handle? Cybercoders? That's incredible if true. You could essentially recruit for a few years and then retire.
Sounds great! Can you take that 225k to the bank? or is that just in you mind?
Anyways, I have been working remote for about a year. It's the best. I wish more recruiters / companies would understand that it doesn't make sense to have coders in the office.
I don't have to get SF coders pay, I will take a little bit of pay cut to live in Denver.
FYI: https://weworkremotely.com/
and for cybercoder4life, I'm looking for remote work.
Anyways, I have been working remote for about a year. It's the best. I wish more recruiters / companies would understand that it doesn't make sense to have coders in the office.
I don't have to get SF coders pay, I will take a little bit of pay cut to live in Denver.
FYI: https://weworkremotely.com/
and for cybercoder4life, I'm looking for remote work.
yea, I'm also curious, what's the trick?
Get a job at a recruiting firm like CyberCoders, then find a (not at all conspicuous) way of trying to lure people to reply or (ideally) PM you, and then get your recruiting commissions.
My rate is 65usd/hr on w2 at the moment
this year 225k, it's great as long as they micro manage you to death
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um, spam much?