From my perspective as an employer the pay is primarily a function of scarcity. Location-based pay would make perfect sense for roles where supply is abundant a

From my perspective as an employer the pay is primarily a function of scarcity. Location-based pay would make perfect sense for roles where supply is abundant and location is irrelevant. Example: simple data entry jobs of the kind you can outsource to Upwork. When looking for senior software engineers the supply is very limited relative to demand, and as a startup [0] we don't have the luxury to discriminate based on location other than timezone (though we're somewhat flexible there, too). Hence, we'll pay the right candidate the right salary, regardless of whether they're physically located in the Bay Area or in rural Vietnam. Because if we don't, someone else will. [0] Yes, we're hiring - https://spacelift.io/careers.html https://spacelift.io/careers.html