I don’t see he mentioned differences btw existing vs new hires.
They do market adjustments. If you move from PA to Sacramento, i bet the salary will be reduced substantially.
Moving to Tahoe or a cheaper area is easy if you have a lot of home equity. Basically your housing cost goes to zero. So a pay cut is not as painful
80% of pay to live in Sacramento is very good money. Typically companies reduce base pay and bonus keeping stock grants about the same.
Facebook needs to move away now so I can finally afford Palo Alto.
Is WFH permanently as permanent as “permanent employee” or less?
Companies need to make short term adjustments for Covid and are tripping over themselves to show they can accommodate remote work to attract and retain talents. 100% remote work is a fool’s bargain. You do more work than coworkers and have less social and networking opportunities. Let me know if any of you are moving away to take advantage of Zuck’s offer.
The pay delta isn’t that big, and it gets smaller the higher up you go. It’s becoming a national market for talent.
Burlingame. 50k below list. Price doesn’t seem materially lower than before covid.
https://www.redfin.com/CA/Burlingame/1520-Hoover-Ave-94010/home/1376814
Home purchase loan volume is only 15% lower than same time last year. National housing market is showing no near term risks.
Working remotely permanently seems a real threat to Bay Area now.
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I have – over the years, not in 2020 – seen several people move from Silicon Valley to cheaper areas and their pay was not cut at all. E.g. one SWE moved permanent back to India
Raises were probably slim though.
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How about promotions? Would Facebook have a remote team lead in India but rest of the team in Menlo Park? How would that work?
I think the expensive area close to big high-tech comp lik FB/Apple such as SF, PA, MV will be more hurtful than suburb like EB Pleasanton, Dublin…
The guy who went back to India, in theory could have been promoted. The team was already distributed between Menlo Park (our office), East Coast, Houston, Switzerland and Tokio.
But TBH, I don’t remember that any of those emigrants got promoted.
I was in the office for 1 day/week, in the end for like 10am to 1pm, basically to have lunch with them… This did cause friction when my old supervisor was replaced with a director from Houston. The Texas guy gave all SWE a letter demanding presence 9 to 5, 5 days a week. I refused to sign. The Indian guy signed and went on 2 week vacation to India, then he extended his vacation due to family emergency, then someone got married there and he had to stay longer (while working from there), then a family member died and he had to stay even longer… Suddenly his 2 weeks had become 6 months and since then, he came back twice a year for 1 week each LOL
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Even though you are WFH, your pay is still different per region. WFH from Nashville will still get pay less than WFH from Bay Area. Also L5+ is like less than 20% of Engineering workforce. But it’s interesting to see how things going to turn out.
If I have to summarize the trend I am reading in this thread, it will look something like this. If your are a CEO or someone higher up in the HR department of a company, DO NOT CONTRADICT THE NEWS. So, if news says that employees will work from home, just say the same. Do not contradict. What will actually end up happening is no one knows really. The news cycle of the day is determining what companies are saying on a particular topic. Sometime later, when a companies sends a contradictory news out that working from home is affecting creativity and problem solving, all other companies will do the same. The remote work has been in place for long time in high-tech world. I really do not see what is such big deal other than to be seen as a part of the crowd. Salaries, pay structure, and fringe benefits on this matters have already evolved over years of experience. I am not seeing anything new or revolutionary.
What’s funny is how many people are hoping that people move out so prices dip and they can move in.
That right there tells you everything you need to know. The Bay Area has a lot going for it. Price go up and down but I wouldn’t bet against this place.
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Difference is scale 
If large enough would lead to fundamental change to compensation and benefits.
We all know that right?
The amount of discussion this topic has generated seems to suggest God has spoken.