I understand to some extent varying pay based on location, since e.g. the cost of living in the bay area is easily 2x what I'm paying in Cincinnati, OH. But it

I understand to some extent varying pay based on location, since e.g. the cost of living in the bay area is easily 2x what I'm paying in Cincinnati, OH. But it can't be used as an excuse to pay talent poorly. For their part, my current employer made my pay about 10% less when I went from working in Seattle to going remote in Cincinnati, and that felt more or less OK since it worked out to a slight raise thanks to lower expenses. Had they gone with the "market rate" for an engineer here though, I would have gotten easily a 50% pay cut since there aren't any "big tech" companies around here. It's a tricky balancing act.