Location-independent salaries are actually a great deal for employers who are willing to go remote. I hired several extremely talented developers with 8-15 yea

Location-independent salaries are actually a great deal for employers who are willing to go remote. I hired several extremely talented developers with 8-15 years of experience in foreign countries with total comp in the $200K range. They were extremely grateful, very dedicated, and were always going the extra mile to do a professional job with their work. In many cases we were more than doubling their previous compensation and none of their local opportunities could compete, so they were very committed to doing their jobs well. That same $200K total comp in an expensive location (basically San Francisco Bay Area) would often get us a less experienced person who saw our job as a stepping stone to FAANG. $200K sounds like a lot until you're opening levels.fyi and browsing Blind every morning while you eat breakfast, then it starts to look like you're leaving money on the table. It's strange to see semi-disgruntled young people in one location getting $200K working side by side with more experienced, more professional, and frankly more friendly peers in another country producing better work for the same pay. Needless to say, we gradually did more hiring in foreign countries and low cost of living US locations.