I totally agree, and am trying to balance my desire to preserve my career and standard of living with what - logically - makes so much sense.
I previously worked for an all-remote team that, over time, shifted from mostly within the US to HQ'd within the US on paper, but with just a few employees left in the country. When I left to take a local job, the guy who replaced me in Latin America was every bit as talented an engineer and tech leader, but for less than a third of the cost to the company compared to what I was making in NYC.
I get the feeling a lot of people are looking at this as their first step towards more tech jobs in cheap parts of the US, but the reality will probably end up as more tech jobs offered to people from much cheaper parts of the developing world - also a great thing... but with potential impact to those of us in the country if wages move faster than COL does.
My justification for finding my walkable community in one of the only places it exists in the US was always high wages, but if that changes, there's little reason to not pursue parts of western europe with a much better social climate and lower wages - but also lower wages. Who knows what will happen post-pandemic though, and how much of this will stick outside of a few SV companies.
I previously worked for an all-remote team that, over time, shifted from mostly within the US to HQ'd within the US on paper, but with just a few employees left in the country. When I left to take a local job, the guy who replaced me in Latin America was every bit as talented an engineer and tech leader, but for less than a third of the cost to the company compared to what I was making in NYC.
I get the feeling a lot of people are looking at this as their first step towards more tech jobs in cheap parts of the US, but the reality will probably end up as more tech jobs offered to people from much cheaper parts of the developing world - also a great thing... but with potential impact to those of us in the country if wages move faster than COL does.
My justification for finding my walkable community in one of the only places it exists in the US was always high wages, but if that changes, there's little reason to not pursue parts of western europe with a much better social climate and lower wages - but also lower wages. Who knows what will happen post-pandemic though, and how much of this will stick outside of a few SV companies.