4 ms·

The company is paying you the market rate, i.e as little as they can get away with, not how much value you create. Your location is one of the variables in calc

The company is paying you the market rate, i.e as little as they can get away with, not how much value you create. Your location is one of the variables in calculating your market rate. Who knows , with remote work this may disappear, but I doubt it's what workers in the USA would want. I live in the UK, salaries in the USA are way higher. Then look at India. My feeling is when people say location shouldn't matter then mean as long as the location is in their country.

notreallyserio 5y ago
By all means, if my employer can find someone in another country that they think can do as well as I do for less money, they ought to hire them. It would be foolish and (frankly) shitty to feel otherwise, especially for folks like me that are in the US purely by luck of birth. If they're from a real poor country, maybe this practice will help their economy (not that that's a reason to do it necessarily).
musicale 5y ago
> The company is paying you the market rate, i.e as little as they can get away with, not how much value you create "As little as they can get away with, not how much value you create" sounds like a recipe for exploitation and dissatisfied employees. Which I suppose is exactly what we have. It would also seem to create a strange incentive for people to move to places where the cost of living is higher.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  People have been moving to the Bay Area chasing higher tech job pay since at least the late 90s. This doesn’t seem like anything new; companies have to pay you enough that you take a deal that’s better for you. You have to take low enough that the company still thinks it turns a profit by employing you.
- kelnos 5y ago
  With remote work becoming more common, I'd expect to see companies that embrace it refuse to hire remote-only workers who live in HCoL areas, or at least cap the number they're willing to hire.
  - tzs 5y ago
    That's assuming that companies will pay more for workers in HCoL areas. I don't see why that will be the case for remote work unless the company specifically wants to have workers in those HCoL areas. If you are in say NYC and a company is trying to hire specifically in NYC you can expect to be paid enough to live in NYC. It doesn't matter that the company could get the work done for 1/4 the cost if they were OK with the work being done in Smallville, Kansas. You aren't competing with the Smallville programmer. Your only competition also demands NYC level pay. When the company doesn't care where the work is done other than broad limits like "should be in the US" then you are competing with the Smallville programmer for the job. And with some dude in Hooterville. And in Lake Wobegon. And in Mayberry. You are in a market with a lot of people who will accept less than NYC salary. Actually this isn't all that different than how companies handle pay within metropolitan areas now. For example a company in downtown Los Angeles isn't going to have a different pay scale for their employees that live in Compton and the ones that live in Malibu.
    - erik_seaberg 5y ago
      Cost of living is only a small part of the pay differential. Strong candidates with large scale prod experience are concentrated in markets where these skills are most valued and attainable. You can fill headcount for less by hiring out of smaller markets, but not if you want the same candidates big tech is competing for. If everyone goes remote-first someday, market rates everywhere will equalize, but this hasn’t happened yet.
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Then why are London FAANG salaries so much lower then US ones?
        erik_seaberg 5y ago
        I’m under the impression that London’s tech market isn’t particularly hot apart from finance.

notreallyserio 5y ago

By all means, if my employer can find someone in another country that they think can do as well as I do for less money, they ought to hire them. It would be foolish and (frankly) shitty to feel otherwise, especially for folks like me that are in the US purely by luck of birth. If they're from a real poor country, maybe this practice will help their economy (not that that's a reason to do it necessarily).

musicale 5y ago

> The company is paying you the market rate, i.e as little as they can get away with, not how much value you create "As little as they can get away with, not how much value you create" sounds like a recipe for exploitation and dissatisfied employees. Which I suppose is exactly what we have. It would also seem to create a strange incentive for people to move to places where the cost of living is higher.

sokoloff 5y ago
People have been moving to the Bay Area chasing higher tech job pay since at least the late 90s. This doesn’t seem like anything new; companies have to pay you enough that you take a deal that’s better for you. You have to take low enough that the company still thinks it turns a profit by employing you.
kelnos 5y ago
With remote work becoming more common, I'd expect to see companies that embrace it refuse to hire remote-only workers who live in HCoL areas, or at least cap the number they're willing to hire.
- tzs 5y ago
  That's assuming that companies will pay more for workers in HCoL areas. I don't see why that will be the case for remote work unless the company specifically wants to have workers in those HCoL areas. If you are in say NYC and a company is trying to hire specifically in NYC you can expect to be paid enough to live in NYC. It doesn't matter that the company could get the work done for 1/4 the cost if they were OK with the work being done in Smallville, Kansas. You aren't competing with the Smallville programmer. Your only competition also demands NYC level pay. When the company doesn't care where the work is done other than broad limits like "should be in the US" then you are competing with the Smallville programmer for the job. And with some dude in Hooterville. And in Lake Wobegon. And in Mayberry. You are in a market with a lot of people who will accept less than NYC salary. Actually this isn't all that different than how companies handle pay within metropolitan areas now. For example a company in downtown Los Angeles isn't going to have a different pay scale for their employees that live in Compton and the ones that live in Malibu.
  - erik_seaberg 5y ago
    Cost of living is only a small part of the pay differential. Strong candidates with large scale prod experience are concentrated in markets where these skills are most valued and attainable. You can fill headcount for less by hiring out of smaller markets, but not if you want the same candidates big tech is competing for. If everyone goes remote-first someday, market rates everywhere will equalize, but this hasn’t happened yet.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Then why are London FAANG salaries so much lower then US ones?
      - erik_seaberg 5y ago
        I’m under the impression that London’s tech market isn’t particularly hot apart from finance.