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> Some companies seem to highly adjust for location, for example, Buffer is paying $93k for a developer in Hong Kong, $77k in Buenos Aires, and $144k in San Fra

> Some companies seem to highly adjust for location, for example, Buffer is paying $93k for a developer in Hong Kong, $77k in Buenos Aires, and $144k in San Francisco, for the same job. On a side note, how would they know if I lied? What would happen if I had a SanFran address, bank account, and everything but I lived in the middle of no where? Also, is it legal to discriminately pay people different amounts based on where they live? I can't see a valid way to say, for most positions, that the people are more or less valuable to the company based on location. If you're doing defense contracting or other such marketable services and you are hiring people who live in DC then yes I can see it but for run of the mill product development I cannot.

Redoubts 10y ago
> What would happen if I had a SanFran address, bank account, and everything but I lived in the middle of no where? Certainly curious myself, it would be easy enough just to pick my parents' house as my permanent residence...
- jypepin 10y ago
  But then, if you are willing to lie to your employer starting day 1, we're in a complete different conversation I think :)
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Well the employer is willing to cheat you out of hard earned money from day one. I'd say that is horribly unfair. What if this same form of open discrimination were applied to any other useless factor? Being in a location other then specific areas means nothing for remote position that is open to anyone around the world. What you are willing to pay for a service should be what you are willing to pay for the service. Not anything as a function of location.
    - thesimon 10y ago
      >I'd say that is horribly unfair. What if this same form of open discrimination were applied to any other useless factor? Being in a location other then specific areas means nothing for remote position that is open to anyone around the world. But isn't it fair, because you can choose your location where you want to work remotely from depending on your personal preference with no need to account for costs?
      - sakabaro 10y ago
        No it's not fair. Equal work should result in equal pay. If they pay $30,000 a Bulgarian developer remotely, are they atomically going to adjust to $150,000 if some day he moves to London? I don't think so.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Just because you can pick your location doesn't mean a business should arbitrarily pay you less for doing so. Use a friend's address in SF and be done with it if they do so.
jypepin 10y ago
That's a very interesting point. I don't think we even need to get into the "legal" talks. I love how buffer is so transparent with everyone, but at the same time I'm not sure how I like (or dislike) how they discriminate with locations. I think both sides have very valid points right. If I'm a native from buenos aires for example, for me the ideal might to stay there, so ok, maybe it's fair that's my salary is adjusted with my cost of living. but at the same time, it's the same labor and same output for the company, just cheaper. So you can also see that as a way for the company to get cheaper labor... If you are so much into having a remote team, then why would you discriminate against location right? It can be seen as "we love remote, but actually just because it allows us to get the same labor for cheaper!".
- csallen 10y ago
  I think getting the same labor for cheaper is a totally valid goal for any business. It's similar to a developer shopping around at various companies to do (roughly) the same job but for better pay and benefits.
  - nkantar 10y ago
    Or choosing to live in cheaper places to keep more of their pay.
- gedrap 10y ago
  >>> If you are so much into having a remote team, then why would you discriminate against location right? Well, minimizing the cost of running business is very reasonable, as long as it's fair to the employees which is subjective and complicated issue. I think that this is a fairly complicated issue. Some points: * if you pay the SF rate for developers in small towns in Easter Europe or Siberia or India or whatever, where the average salary is less than $750/mo and sometimes much lower, you might have some odd dynamics. Golden handcuffs and all that; * however, it is reasonably often an intentional decision to live in a cheaper place, with less opportunities, etc, so that you can save more money. So not really fair to heavily penalize for that and questionable how much should you penalize; * it's hard to adjust the numbers globally, really. There are some web sites about cost of living, but they ignore loads of details about the local dynamics. Often it's just a crowd sourced average. So paying the SF (or NYC or whatever) rate globally probably wouldn't work, you need some adjustments. The severity of such adjustments is hard to get right.
infodroid 10y ago
What if they ask you to briefly pass by the office or meet with a customer or business partner over a coffee? In any case, lying about your location is not a good way to build trust with a remote employer.
- gravypod 10y ago
  I'm assuming you did not read my comment in full. I acknowledge that as being a factor. > If you're doing defense contracting or other such marketable services and you are hiring people who live in DC then yes I can see That is fair but it is one scenario out of many that I'm sure seldom plays out. If I'm running a business the LAST thing I want is ANYONE outside of sales talking to the client. Only makes for bad bad things but it can still be a factor. That being said that is obviously not what is happening here.
  - infodroid 10y ago
    I was responding to the question "how would they know if I lied", not justifying whether it is fair/legal to pay remote workers differently based on their location. I agree that a customer-facing scenario may be rare for a programmer, but it is easy to imagine other scenarios playing out. Like your manager or colleagues asking to meet up with you face to face. Or needing to have documents or hardware couriered to your address.
brightball 10y ago
Cost of living is a standard adjustment factor, so it's not really discrimination. For example, I work for a company based in a low cost part of South Carolina with employees in Seattle, Phoenix and remotes in different spots of the country. Our HR department does a really good job of trying to ensure they have equitable compensation and based on that there's a "Seattle" scale for the employees at our Seattle office and a Phoenix scale for everybody else since that's more competitive with a national average.
- sakabaro 10y ago
  I don't see how this is fair. Zip code discrimination is a thing and should be treated as the same level as other discrimination. If not, why not paying less someone who lives in Oakland than in SF?
  - phamilton 10y ago
    Amusingly enough, I sometimes see the opposite. The engineer who lives next door to the office in SoMa works far more hours than the one in Oakland for the same pay.
  - brightball 10y ago
    I should have clarified. There's an office in Seattle so the Seattle employees are coming in to the office everyday. That means they are subject to the same proximity based real estate rates as everyone else in the area. If they move away from that area, the scale adjusts. Basically, Phoenix is our standard bearer for scale. Seattle is just so much more expensive that you can't employ anyone in Seattle for those rates, so the higher pay scale is necessity. If everyone could be paid at Phoenix rates, they would be. The compensation is equitable based on cost of living.
corysama 10y ago
Going further: Are there any clear examples of companies deciding to /not/ adjust for location? "We don't subsidize your choice of location. This job pays $100k regardless of where you live." It sounds nice at first glance, but I don't hear about it happening. Is that because no one is attempting or because no one is surviving the attempt?
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Some places do not adjust for location. This tends to make them really really good deal for an employee in Mississippi, and a really really bad deal for someone in NYC or SF. My take? A business wants the best employee it can get for the dollar. If your best employee for salary X is some guy in Mississippi, then so be it. If only a guy in NYC can fill your need, then I guess you need to raise your rate.
thrwaway_remote 10y ago
Using a throw-away account, I've been doing exactly this for the past 6 months. Living with my parents in their pretty nice house in Africa. And I'm saving a decent amount. My clients are from all over the US - all 4 timezones. I work in the Pacific Timezone (SF) - Sleep at 6 am my local time and wake up at 2 pm. I know I can do this right now as I am young but it's not good for health (Or maybe it's fine if your body adjusts?). Not once has any client asked me to come over and meet them and that works for me. I've also mentioned to some of them them that I do travel and work but never told them I'm actually out of the country. I've ported my US number to Google Voice and that works perfectly. EDIT: I think there are 2 things clients worry about if the freelancer is not in the US: 1) Will he be able to work in my Timezone, will I be able to call him when I want? 2) Can I trust the quality of the developer? I think it's weird, that if a freelancer is based in SF working remotely, he can charge $X/hr but if that same freelancer moves to a different place (Singapore or Tokyo or Mumbai or Arusha) offering the same level of quality and service, he can only demand $Y/hr where X>Y. -- Ask me anything :)
- kohanz 10y ago
  I mean, if they never asked where you live and are just assuming, then I suppose it's fair. However, if you told them or did not deny that you live somewhere other than you do, that would seem professionally dishonest to me. I don't think I would stake my trustworthiness and reputation for a few dollars.
  - thrwaway_remote 10y ago
    Yes, to keep my conscience clear, I never lie to them. When something like this comes up, I just tell them I take advantage of working remotely and live nomadically as I like traveling - which was true when I was in SF and still is. It is just that they talk to me on my US cell phone number during regular US hours and I'd think they assume I'm in the US. Yes, I might be walking on a thin line of being unethical/unprofessional.. But my clients are really happy with my work. So I tell myself, as long as I am providing value to them, they should pay me what I deserve and not based on my location. Also, I don't really have an option, I did not want to get a regular H1B visa and so because of that, I thought it would be better I continue work living outside. The clients were remote even before I left.

Redoubts 10y ago

> What would happen if I had a SanFran address, bank account, and everything but I lived in the middle of no where? Certainly curious myself, it would be easy enough just to pick my parents' house as my permanent residence...

jypepin 10y ago
But then, if you are willing to lie to your employer starting day 1, we're in a complete different conversation I think :)
- gravypod 10y ago
  Well the employer is willing to cheat you out of hard earned money from day one. I'd say that is horribly unfair. What if this same form of open discrimination were applied to any other useless factor? Being in a location other then specific areas means nothing for remote position that is open to anyone around the world. What you are willing to pay for a service should be what you are willing to pay for the service. Not anything as a function of location.
  - thesimon 10y ago
    >I'd say that is horribly unfair. What if this same form of open discrimination were applied to any other useless factor? Being in a location other then specific areas means nothing for remote position that is open to anyone around the world. But isn't it fair, because you can choose your location where you want to work remotely from depending on your personal preference with no need to account for costs?
    - sakabaro 10y ago
      No it's not fair. Equal work should result in equal pay. If they pay $30,000 a Bulgarian developer remotely, are they atomically going to adjust to $150,000 if some day he moves to London? I don't think so.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Just because you can pick your location doesn't mean a business should arbitrarily pay you less for doing so. Use a friend's address in SF and be done with it if they do so.

jypepin 10y ago

That's a very interesting point. I don't think we even need to get into the "legal" talks. I love how buffer is so transparent with everyone, but at the same time I'm not sure how I like (or dislike) how they discriminate with locations. I think both sides have very valid points right. If I'm a native from buenos aires for example, for me the ideal might to stay there, so ok, maybe it's fair that's my salary is adjusted with my cost of living. but at the same time, it's the same labor and same output for the company, just cheaper. So you can also see that as a way for the company to get cheaper labor... If you are so much into having a remote team, then why would you discriminate against location right? It can be seen as "we love remote, but actually just because it allows us to get the same labor for cheaper!".

csallen 10y ago
I think getting the same labor for cheaper is a totally valid goal for any business. It's similar to a developer shopping around at various companies to do (roughly) the same job but for better pay and benefits.
- nkantar 10y ago
  Or choosing to live in cheaper places to keep more of their pay.
gedrap 10y ago
>>> If you are so much into having a remote team, then why would you discriminate against location right? Well, minimizing the cost of running business is very reasonable, as long as it's fair to the employees which is subjective and complicated issue. I think that this is a fairly complicated issue. Some points: * if you pay the SF rate for developers in small towns in Easter Europe or Siberia or India or whatever, where the average salary is less than $750/mo and sometimes much lower, you might have some odd dynamics. Golden handcuffs and all that; * however, it is reasonably often an intentional decision to live in a cheaper place, with less opportunities, etc, so that you can save more money. So not really fair to heavily penalize for that and questionable how much should you penalize; * it's hard to adjust the numbers globally, really. There are some web sites about cost of living, but they ignore loads of details about the local dynamics. Often it's just a crowd sourced average. So paying the SF (or NYC or whatever) rate globally probably wouldn't work, you need some adjustments. The severity of such adjustments is hard to get right.

infodroid 10y ago

What if they ask you to briefly pass by the office or meet with a customer or business partner over a coffee? In any case, lying about your location is not a good way to build trust with a remote employer.

gravypod 10y ago
I'm assuming you did not read my comment in full. I acknowledge that as being a factor. > If you're doing defense contracting or other such marketable services and you are hiring people who live in DC then yes I can see That is fair but it is one scenario out of many that I'm sure seldom plays out. If I'm running a business the LAST thing I want is ANYONE outside of sales talking to the client. Only makes for bad bad things but it can still be a factor. That being said that is obviously not what is happening here.
- infodroid 10y ago
  I was responding to the question "how would they know if I lied", not justifying whether it is fair/legal to pay remote workers differently based on their location. I agree that a customer-facing scenario may be rare for a programmer, but it is easy to imagine other scenarios playing out. Like your manager or colleagues asking to meet up with you face to face. Or needing to have documents or hardware couriered to your address.

brightball 10y ago

Cost of living is a standard adjustment factor, so it's not really discrimination. For example, I work for a company based in a low cost part of South Carolina with employees in Seattle, Phoenix and remotes in different spots of the country. Our HR department does a really good job of trying to ensure they have equitable compensation and based on that there's a "Seattle" scale for the employees at our Seattle office and a Phoenix scale for everybody else since that's more competitive with a national average.

sakabaro 10y ago
I don't see how this is fair. Zip code discrimination is a thing and should be treated as the same level as other discrimination. If not, why not paying less someone who lives in Oakland than in SF?
- phamilton 10y ago
  Amusingly enough, I sometimes see the opposite. The engineer who lives next door to the office in SoMa works far more hours than the one in Oakland for the same pay.
- brightball 10y ago
  I should have clarified. There's an office in Seattle so the Seattle employees are coming in to the office everyday. That means they are subject to the same proximity based real estate rates as everyone else in the area. If they move away from that area, the scale adjusts. Basically, Phoenix is our standard bearer for scale. Seattle is just so much more expensive that you can't employ anyone in Seattle for those rates, so the higher pay scale is necessity. If everyone could be paid at Phoenix rates, they would be. The compensation is equitable based on cost of living.

corysama 10y ago

Going further: Are there any clear examples of companies deciding to /not/ adjust for location? "We don't subsidize your choice of location. This job pays $100k regardless of where you live." It sounds nice at first glance, but I don't hear about it happening. Is that because no one is attempting or because no one is surviving the attempt?

brianwawok 10y ago
Some places do not adjust for location. This tends to make them really really good deal for an employee in Mississippi, and a really really bad deal for someone in NYC or SF. My take? A business wants the best employee it can get for the dollar. If your best employee for salary X is some guy in Mississippi, then so be it. If only a guy in NYC can fill your need, then I guess you need to raise your rate.

thrwaway_remote 10y ago

Using a throw-away account, I've been doing exactly this for the past 6 months. Living with my parents in their pretty nice house in Africa. And I'm saving a decent amount. My clients are from all over the US - all 4 timezones. I work in the Pacific Timezone (SF) - Sleep at 6 am my local time and wake up at 2 pm. I know I can do this right now as I am young but it's not good for health (Or maybe it's fine if your body adjusts?). Not once has any client asked me to come over and meet them and that works for me. I've also mentioned to some of them them that I do travel and work but never told them I'm actually out of the country. I've ported my US number to Google Voice and that works perfectly. EDIT: I think there are 2 things clients worry about if the freelancer is not in the US: 1) Will he be able to work in my Timezone, will I be able to call him when I want? 2) Can I trust the quality of the developer? I think it's weird, that if a freelancer is based in SF working remotely, he can charge $X/hr but if that same freelancer moves to a different place (Singapore or Tokyo or Mumbai or Arusha) offering the same level of quality and service, he can only demand $Y/hr where X>Y. -- Ask me anything :)

kohanz 10y ago
I mean, if they never asked where you live and are just assuming, then I suppose it's fair. However, if you told them or did not deny that you live somewhere other than you do, that would seem professionally dishonest to me. I don't think I would stake my trustworthiness and reputation for a few dollars.
- thrwaway_remote 10y ago
  Yes, to keep my conscience clear, I never lie to them. When something like this comes up, I just tell them I take advantage of working remotely and live nomadically as I like traveling - which was true when I was in SF and still is. It is just that they talk to me on my US cell phone number during regular US hours and I'd think they assume I'm in the US. Yes, I might be walking on a thin line of being unethical/unprofessional.. But my clients are really happy with my work. So I tell myself, as long as I am providing value to them, they should pay me what I deserve and not based on my location. Also, I don't really have an option, I did not want to get a regular H1B visa and so because of that, I thought it would be better I continue work living outside. The clients were remote even before I left.