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I'm having a hard time understanding why this is controversial. Can someone with a dissenting opinion chime in? I'm curious what the other side of the argument

by maest 6y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding why this is controversial. Can someone with a dissenting opinion chime in? I'm curious what the other side of the argument sounds like.

lgl 6y ago
It's not really controversial, but just a kind of sad state-of-the-world type thing imho. While there are undoubtedly a lot of talented developers in SF, "SF salary" doesn't really equate with talent and it's mostly there due to the uber expensive nature of the place and US economy expectations afaik. For example, I'm pretty sure there are a ton of developers all around the world that are much more talented and hard working that a lot of people getting paid "SF salaries" in SF and that are paid but a small percentage of even an average "SF salary" OP is right because the differences can be so abysmal that even just 1 month of "SF Salary" can be much greater that 1+ years of salary in other countries for basically the same job. So it would be an obvious choice that if companies can get a remote developer that's just as productive for 20k/year it would make no sense to pay >120k..150k/year (which seems to be the average for a software engineer according to payscale).
codegeek 6y ago
The other side usually is "Why should we restrict salaries based on location. Where a developer lives should NOT matter for a job and why should they get paid less than someone in SF ?" But my point is that it DOES matter as there are other factors involved and not just location. Lets say that I find a great developer who wants SF salary vs a good enough developer who wants 1/5th of the SF salary, I may not need that great dev. at that cost. The "good enough" developer will be, well good enough and worth it. A lot of developers (and don't get me wrong, I am one too) tend to overestimate their abilities and expect high salaries just because devs get paid high salaries in general.

by maest 6y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding why this is controversial. Can someone with a dissenting opinion chime in? I'm curious what the other side of the argument sounds like.

lgl 6y ago

It's not really controversial, but just a kind of sad state-of-the-world type thing imho. While there are undoubtedly a lot of talented developers in SF, "SF salary" doesn't really equate with talent and it's mostly there due to the uber expensive nature of the place and US economy expectations afaik. For example, I'm pretty sure there are a ton of developers all around the world that are much more talented and hard working that a lot of people getting paid "SF salaries" in SF and that are paid but a small percentage of even an average "SF salary" OP is right because the differences can be so abysmal that even just 1 month of "SF Salary" can be much greater that 1+ years of salary in other countries for basically the same job. So it would be an obvious choice that if companies can get a remote developer that's just as productive for 20k/year it would make no sense to pay >120k..150k/year (which seems to be the average for a software engineer according to payscale).

codegeek 6y ago

The other side usually is "Why should we restrict salaries based on location. Where a developer lives should NOT matter for a job and why should they get paid less than someone in SF ?" But my point is that it DOES matter as there are other factors involved and not just location. Lets say that I find a great developer who wants SF salary vs a good enough developer who wants 1/5th of the SF salary, I may not need that great dev. at that cost. The "good enough" developer will be, well good enough and worth it. A lot of developers (and don't get me wrong, I am one too) tend to overestimate their abilities and expect high salaries just because devs get paid high salaries in general.