Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Competition for each position is fierce. Especially for the SF-type jobs where the salaries are so astronomical compared to your remote area (like Greece, India, Thailand, etc.). You may have some (or even a lot) of experience in some tech, but so would the other 50-500 applications for that position. This puts the ball in the court of the employer, because they use stupid filters like "the right fit" - which most of the time equates to finding the person they can extract the most value from per-dollar (or the 1 who kills their wannabe-Google interview process the best)

As I mentioned in another comment in this thread, I disagree with this. I've worked remotely for almost all of my career, across three companies and long term consulting. I've also interviewed many candidates for positions that were remote-friendly.

For self-awareness, I'm going to acknowledge that there is an element of survivorship bias in play here. That said I do not believe remote positions are intrinsically more competitive than the modal onsite position sought by a typical HN reader.

What I believe actually happens is a cultural obstacle: two types of companies offer remote work. The first type has a cultural foundation set up to treat remote employees equally both in the work environment and in the interview process. The second type is well-intentioned, but does not design their work environment or interview process to enable remote employees to succeed as well as onsite candidates and employees.

If you are seeking positions at companies that merely offer remote work in a sort of half-hearted, "this is the future and we want to be trendy and 'get the best talent'" way, then yes, it will be competitive - you'll find that even if you do well in interviews onsite candidates will be chosen more often than not. But if you optimize your job search for positions which treat remote employees as first class citizens (especially with regards to on the job communication and the interview pipeline), you'll probably notice that the competitiveness of the process quickly returns to what you'd expect of typical engineering interviews in coastal areas.

Every remote job I've ever posted has received 300-500 applications. For the same role on-site (NYC), I've had to turn to recruiters.

> That said I do not believe remote positions are intrinsically more competitive than the modal onsite position sought by a typical HN reader.

Actually, how is this even a possible point to argue? The pool of candidates for an on-site job is limited to the population of that city + applicants willing to relocate. The pool of candidates for a remote job is literally everyone in the entire world.

Eh...I see your point, but it seems a tad hyperbolic. When I was interviewing for remote positions I saw similar numbers, so I agree with that.

What I don't agree with is mapping those numbers to competitiveness. How many of those 300-500 applications were actually competitive? You can do a first order qualification check on 300 - 500 resumes in a day if you're sorting into two piles: "I can immediately say no to this" and "I can't immediately say no to this."

You'll probably still have a lot to deal with at that point (though honestly I wouldn't be surprised if you've reduced 50% in my experience - people submit truly awful applications). Of those candidates, most are still going to be unqualified.

I distinctly recall phone interviewing 20 candidates back to back, each of whom couldn't answer very simple interview questions (and I mean simple, not "HN interview humblebrag simple"). I know, I know, this means we didn't have a high quality candidate pipeline. But that's harder to do with remote positions.

So to that last point, I suppose I have to concede if you're defining competition as higher numbers of raw applications. That's not the definition I'd use for competitiveness (though it's definitely a valid one), but probably better we get that sorted instead of talking past each other :). I would consider a position more competitive based on the quality of candidates applying to it, not based on the sheer number of people applying. As someone who has interviewed and worked in remote positions I've never really been concerned when applying for them, because I've always been reasonably confident I can hit the top n percentile of candidates, where n is inversely proportional to the total number.

Kudos for the clarification. Your argument makes a lot more sense given the context of your experience.

Yeah, I think it comes down to whether you define competition by quantity or quality of applicants. There are definitely valid reasons to approach the topic from both perspectives!

I dont see how its hyperbolic. This is the long tail at work. Remote work allows workers to fill a niche, but it will be very competitive for broad skillsets.

>The pool of candidates for a remote job is literally everyone in the entire world.

It is not true. I for one do not even consider remote work. I don't imagine I am the only person in the entire world like this. The reason is that I had been working remotely sometime in the past and found it less attractive than working in the office. Combined with the fact that employers consider "remote" an additional perk justifying the lower compensation I now just turn down any remote offers without further negotiation.

The job pool for a remote candidate is also the entire world.

It's the entire world that; lives in a timezone the employer is comfortable with, speaks English with near native proficiency, comes from or can adapt to a culture that is close enough to the employer's culture to fit in, has access to a reliable electrical grid, and has reliably fast internet access.

Basically If you're already in America, you have several huge advantages over the rest of the world when applying for remote work (permanent or contract).

While I see your point, the job pool for a remote candidate, realistically, is the couple dozen jobs a month that they find on HN/Linkedin/StackOverflow Jobs/etc. Also, the on-site candidate pool, realistically, is a subset of the remote candidate pool* (edited). I don't know anyone who wouldn't prefer to work from home (or wherever).

I know plenty of people who wouldn't prefer to work from home. I have the option to do so regularly, but I only take it when it suits me for other reasons (someone coming to visit normally) I prefer to keep my work and home life separate if possible.

It takes a certain type to WFH and there are plenty of downsides. I'm currently remote but I wouldn't say I prefer it to on site. It's almost certainly exaggeration to say everybody prefers it. There are ups and downs.

Sure, and also everyone tends to go for the SF positions, as they pay better. I was just mentioning one theoretical way that remote working might be less competitive than on-site.

I for one prefer to work in office rather than from home.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com