Remote job offers demand pay cuts
12 posts across 7 communities in the last 30 days; 25% from r/Accounting.
“There is so much more to a job besides location and salary. Commute, environment, benefits, opportunity for advancement. Impossible question to answer. Usually the bots post hypothetical “$90k onsite or $65k remote - which one should I pick”, which is equally impossible.”
“No, that’s not the only issue. The company I work for has pay scales based on your level and location. And we cannot work outside of the US.”
“You might need to tighten your belt and maybe downsize your house and spending situation, but you have enough combined to take the offer and at least a pay cut to work somewhere more tolerable. We can't say your ok for sure without knowing what you're ongoing expenses will be…”
Multiple users report being asked to accept a pay cut as a condition for remote work opportunities. This suggests a trend of companies reducing compensation for remote positions, which employees are responding to by negotiating higher salaries.
SOURCES (60)
“Imagine you're at $110k fully remote and get an offer for $140k, in the office 5 days, 30 minutes each way. Sounds like a no-brainer until taxes, the 401k and a pricier health plan take their share. In a state like Texas the paycheck only…”
“Hey all, I could use some advice from people who've done this before. This is my first real job hop and my first big raise, and I want to go into negotiations prepared instead of just saying yes to the first number. Current job: $120k base 10% annual bonus (~$12k) Fully remote Unlimited PTO (I average about 4 weeks a year) New offer (so far): $165k base Hybrid, 3 days a week in office Haven't seen the full comp package yet (bonus, benefits, PTO details still TBD) PTO is an accrual system”
“Hi everyone! I have the chance to accept an offer from a previous employer I very much liked, and could see myself working there long term. I'd be fully remote. The catch is, its 21k lower than my current job, and a drop in title. Im currently a senior software engineer making 151k. I honestly do not like my employer or the work im doing. I am mandated onsite 4 days a week, and my commute is 21 miles, and 35 minutes one way on a perfect day. But due to traffic its usually 45 minutes to an ho”
“There is so much more to a job besides location and salary. Commute, environment, benefits, opportunity for advancement. Impossible question to answer. Usually the bots post hypothetical “$90k onsite or $65k remote - which one should I pick”, which is equally impossible.”
“A glorious few months when everyone was dying of Covid. You could ask for anything. You could ask to work from home .”
“Hi everyone, I have a job offer north of Seattle making $49/hr with overtime pretty available, 5% 401k match as well as a HSA(I'm unfamiliar with these but think I can use it as another investment account?). I currently live in Michigan making $28/hr with as much overtime as I want with 4% 401k match, I'm at 8%. I don't pay rent currently. My fixed costs $380 car payment, $605 student loans. $180 insurance a month. I pay ~$450 a month in utilities currently. Food and gas average abou”
“Because being “fully remote” means they can get someone of the same quality somewhere else, much cheaper. It’s local “off shoring.” All remote work did is expand the labor market to literally anywhere and if you can get someone for 10-20% of the same quality, why wouldn’t you?”
“the layoff angle is a good point too, if the current place is bleeding people that stability might not last anyway”
“Yea, usually CTO in my area is $150-210k, 100-105 would be absolute floor. That's kind of my thoughts. I have worked with this CEO in the past and find that I somehow have the magic communication skills required to work with him without smacking into verbal landmines. They have toooooons of data for me to work with and make a really cool platform out of, though monetization of the platform may be an uphill battle. The revenue increases would need to come from the UX coupled with the product”
“Yep! I turned down a raise (on paper) because of the commute. When I factored in my rate and not being able to pop home for lunch, it wasn't really much of a raise. I'm at the point that retirement is closer than not, and not only do I want to just kinda, well, chill and not chase higher titles, I also value my time more than anything. And commuting longer just didn't make sense - never again will I commute a long way, I will literally move before that happens”
“You're right to take your time while you're earning 63k. Your old employer's return to office is a good reason not to take a huge pay cut for remote work: you could lose the remote part and still be stuck with the lower salary.”
“Thank you for the encouragement! My current goal is 3-5 applications (on company websites rather than job boards as often as possible). Id EVEN take a pay cut down to 60k because I just got a raise and can survive on less. Trying to be realistic and optimistic! It's excellent to hear success stories like yours 😊”
“Take it. Gain some experience. If the number doesn’t start shooting up, leave and go somewhere that it will. $55k is better than $0k. I started at 38k in 2017, they bumped me to $40k in 2019, I left and took a $55k also in 2019, got bumped to $60k in 2020, left in 2021 and took a $65k. Between 2022 and 2025 I got bumped all the way up to $100k with promotions. Was public accounting and was incredibly burnt out so I left for a $127k + 10% target industry gig where I am currently at. As you get ex”
“Don’t offer a pay cut upfront; walk in with a defintely workable trial plan and point to your bonus/raise plus the existing remote employees.”
“and sorry that wasn't a case where i took a paycut but this was a role that i had been eyeballing in case there was nothing left, so in this case i gave into it and applied”
“i got close at one place when i was interviewing early 2024, a place local (San Diego) that had a role that was just... insultingly low but, it was already over a yr of unemployment at that time even then I make it clear that its low and my "overall goal" is high but i always say let's worry about $$, i just want to go through the interview and I say that because, there's always room for negotiation. Always. I passed that interview and got to a disucssion with their Director of”
“I was googling people's opinions on this because I may have the opportunity to take a fully wfh position, likely at around a $3/hr pay cut and the line about the bathrooms sealed the deal for me 😂💀”
“Frame it as a trial remote arrangement with clear metrics and a montly office visit, but don’t open with a pay cut since they already have remote people and just gave you a bonus.”
“Probably, but I’d want to calculate the actual value first. If it meant getting Fridays off and never commuting, I could see myself taking a 10–15% pay cut without feeling like I was losing out.”
“I did! Saved me a hour (each way) commute every day & saved me a $2k/month daycare bill because I was able/allowed to have my kids home with me, so it never felt like a pay cut.”
“The number I'd accept matters less than whether the team genuinely protects the fifth day — if the deadline culture doesn't change, it's just a 20% pay cut with extra steps. The real question I'd ask the company is how they handle coverage and on-call rotations, because that's where these setups quietly fall apart.”
“I'd take a 15%-20% cut without hesitation if the workload is actually 32 hours. That extra day is worth more to me than the money.”
“That's the only concern I have. I don't want them to think I'm unhappy and looking to leave if they say no. I'm planning to ask more in a way of what I'm able to do instead of telling them since overall I'm flexible and I want to stick with working there.”
“What's the worst that could happen? You've already got a great track record, a bonus, and a raise. If they say no, you can still keep the job and keep building your case for the future. But they'll probably say yes.”
“My last company that did adjust pay based on location was the same company mandating a strict 3 day RTO tracking badge swipes. IN FACT 8 out of 10 people on my team were remote and scattered everywhere. When I moved down for my wife’s career, the slime balls mandated I come in weekly at my expense, I begged to be remote with a SIGNIFICANT paycut, they told me to pound sand & come in still My new remote friendly company, NAH. AFAIK they aren’t too caring about my location, but that could chan”
“3 options. Stay where you are and continue on. Go back to the office in hopes of a pay increase and lose remote more than likely. Update your resume and look elsewhere. That's about all there is. They are trying to get you back in office. What do you want to do?”
“I was part of some lays off a few weeks ago and was making 115k, was an increase from a previous 99k salary. I have an offer for a 90k and feeling an offer for an 100k that could Be coming 90k remote BA/Scrum Master job- have 3 days to decide Pro: Interested in the field + clear career progression, remote, will pay for certifications etc. Cons: feels like a steep drop from 115k 100k Record Manager Onsite Pros: 20 mins each way, could be more relaxed/un stressful, can pay for certifications + goo”
“Be realistic about what you can handle right now and take the remote job. Be honest with the district job and tell them that you would love the job but are not able to dedicate the bandwidth it takes to be your best right now. In the future you’d like to reexamine this possibility. Keep in mind, you won’t grow if you’re never uncomfortable. However, take time to heal before you grow.”
“There’s usually a range, and depending upon your skill set and your ability to negotiate, you could be at the higher end of the range”
“Some companies do this yes especially if it’s hourly and you live in a state with a shitty minimum wage.”
“Yes, and depending on the needs they may or may not negotiate. My company recently posted a lateral position. I don’t think many have applied because word has gotten around that that department is working a lot of long hours. So, those that get offers may be able to negotiate higher pay.”
“Well pay scales are a thing for sure. You can always negotiate. Last job I negotiated 20% more than their top salary level. You can always ask.”
“No, that’s not the only issue. The company I work for has pay scales based on your level and location. And we cannot work outside of the US.”
“We do, yes, and it was actually a very conscious policy decision that caused quite a significant split within our senior team. Broadly, we try to pay around the mid-market rate for the employee’s actual locality rather than imposing one global salary for a particular role. So, purely by way of example, someone doing the same job in central Mumbai would not ordinarily be paid the same absolute salary as someone doing that job in New York City. The reasoning was not simply that wages are lower in”
“Hi everyone! I just landed a fully remote job offer. I'm really excited about it! 🙂 However, the salary they offered was a bit less than I had expected. I'm really curious... does anyone know if companies use your location to determine the salary they offer you? I'm currently living with my parents in my hometown, which is a more rural/smaller town. It's not terribly small, but it's definitely not a big city. I gave them my current address/name of my town, and I'm wonder”
“Same pay while giving up union protection is the part that screams danger to me. Remote care coordination sounds convenient, but it is also the kind of work that can get scripted, metric tracked, centralized, and outsourced when budgets get ugly. Unless the remote role has a clear path into something more specialized, I would keep the patient facing union position.”
“The union piece is actually the most important detail here and it's easy to overlook. Giving up union protection for a non-union remote role that pays the same is a meaningful trade-off, especially in healthcare where those protections matter. The outsourcing concern is valid for purely administrative remote roles, but care coordination with real patient interaction is harder to offshore than people think. Still, the union coverage is a real safety net you'd be walking away from. Same pa”
“The union piece would be the deciding factor for me more than remote vs on site. Same pay, less protection, and a role built around calls/documentation sounds like a lateral move with more layoff or outsourcing risk. I would only take it if there is a clear internal path, written job security expectations, or a major quality-of-life gain from being remote. Otherwise the patient-facing union job seems like the safer bet.”
“You might need to tighten your belt and maybe downsize your house and spending situation, but you have enough combined to take the offer and at least a pay cut to work somewhere more tolerable. We can't say your ok for sure without knowing what you're ongoing expenses will be, though. We make about the same, and if you spend like me and my wife, you've still got work to do, lol.”
“If the pay is about the same, I wouldn't switch unless I really dislike my current work environment. Is there anything about your current job that bothers you?”
“Nice sentiment but one thing I’ve learned recently is that companies and by association hiring staff at those companies simply think they’re in such a position of power that they don’t give a shit. They might be reasonably civil on the surface but it’s a veneer covering a deep streak of contempt.”
“I have some money saved up. I'm mainly worried if I get laid off that it will take forever to find another job. Especially since I applied for 70 jobs this year and only got 5 interviews.”
“Remote job 100% especially in this environment. The SRE seems even more volatile if they're rehiring a whole dept.”
“The only other reason I thought of taking the role is for learning more skills. But, some of these roles expect you to already know some of that stuff then lay you off if you don't know it. I thought it was weird that they're hiring for an SRE 2, SRE3, and SRE manager, so it sounds like either they're rebuilding or starting from scratch. It makes me wonder if they already did a layoff?”
“It's also worth noting, that your commute time counts too. A company I was working for started a "back to office" thing, and it worked out to something like a 15k/yr paycut. (I managed to not have to go back in.)”
.50 after 3 months from hire date, it goes up over time but not a lot
“Say no more after fully remote. Seriously though, since raise and bonus are uncertain I'd omit them from consideration. Not having to learn a new role is a plus but more work is a minus. So it's 15K more for 4-6hr commute (x2 for 2 days?), screw that. Not even a close contest.”
“This is the same as saying "some people are serial killers." That don't mean it's the norm or a widespread problem.”
“I live in rural eastern Ky and I’m a software engineer and my internet is better and more stable then the people I work with that live in the cities and like they said starlink is a thing and Amazon is releasing Leo soon so there will be more options.”
“It depends on your role and flexibility of your org. As long as the employers do not care it doesn't matter. It's not cheating the employer if your productivity is fine. The IRS is understaffed and most of the auditors literally do not care unless you're a big fish. Stop trying to fear monger people into having one job. 🤣”