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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
