Coming from a country(Poland) that may well be treated as one large outsourcing company (with the notable exception of CDPR and its whopping 1200 employees) her

Coming from a country(Poland) that may well be treated as one large outsourcing company (with the notable exception of CDPR and its whopping 1200 employees) here's my prediction on how this is going to play out: Salaries of remote employees will initially be made much lower according to some woefully inaccurate estimate of cost of living, but from that point on they will increase at a considerably faster rate than normal. Within a decade they will stabilise at a visibly lower than SV, yet still high level representing the true difference in cost of living - or actually - "cost of deciding not to live in SV". Eastern Europe experienced an amazing advance in IT compensations when the west figured out that the software engineers there are no worse than their local counterparts. In the case of SV's surroundings it's obvious that the engineers are talented, so I believe this process should be starting just now. Overall it's not that bad, because with time any incentive to move back to the high cost of living area fades. You won't be driving Teslas to work(chiefly because you won't be driving), but you'll enjoy a standard of living higher than a person employed in a local company, and that is nothing to sneer at.