9 ms·

> while your competitor says I can live anywhere and remote in I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for

by bko 5y ago

> while your competitor says I can live anywhere and remote in I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. Not sure about the other way around. That'll probably eventually change, but it could be a useful indicator. The median employee that chooses to live in X may be more productive that the median employee that chooses to live in Y. But that's yet to be seen

Dyac 5y ago
Any Facebook employee that wished to would surely find it trivial to use a VPS or something to mask their true location.
- selectodude 5y ago
  Playing games with your employer probably isn't the best idea if you're looking for a long term relationship with them.
- numpad0 5y ago
  I wouldn’t be so confident as to think Facebook won’t catch me lying for years.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Technology is not always the solution. If your employer asks you to affirm something, and you do that, and then cheat (because, let's say, cheating is technologically trivial), then you take a huge risk. A lot of people will not take that risk. It's enough to make example of 1 or 2 people who are caught, and the rest will fall in line in no time.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Is my opinion, the company is cheating the employee by paying them less for the same work just because they live somewhere else.
    - jkljkljkl1 5y ago
      No one forces employees to accept the terms offered edit: it's not cheating because the game is still of negotiation until it's in agreement, if you break an agreement, I see that as a cheat. No one made you accept the job or the pay.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        'Nobody forced them into slavery, why didn't they just go somewhere else?'
        xyzzyz 5y ago
        People actually were forced into slavery, and actually are not forced to work for Facebook. Do you often exploit slaves as a rhetorical tool?
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        Have you heard of the concept of 'wage slavery'? People at the lowest paid tiers of society do not have a choice
        HideousKojima 5y ago
        Slavery, by its very definition, involves force. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary: Someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot
        HideousKojima 5y ago
- enra 5y ago
  You and the company still needs to know/decide which locale you get taxed in and which regulation to follow. Even in California, SF has different payroll taxes and regulation than other cities in the area. Massachusetts requires employers to open a unemployment account in state. If the employee moves to a state the employer doesn’t have a employees previously, you need to register in the state and it might mean you have to now pay sales taxes on revenue in the state. So unless you become an independent contractor and deal with this things yourself, the employer needs to know where you live most of the tax year.
  - kgxkgxkhxoh 5y ago
    More and more remote companies use PEOs. No need to incorporate in 50 states, you just pay someone else to.
    - truffdog 5y ago
      I worked at a company that switched to a PEO, people seemed weirdly outraged.
    - enra 5y ago
      We use it too, but doesn't change the fact the the employer needs to tell the PEO where the employee is located. PEO also have limits, like MA example, the company still needs to open the unemployment accounts directly with the state. Sales tax is another thing that you have to do directly. My point was that main reason companies need to know where the employee is compliance, employment law, taxes and potentially IP protection. While the employer wouldn't care about the location because of pay scale, they still need to know for other reasons. Until we can all live in some United Kingdom of the Internet, the unfortunate fact is that local laws apply to companies and employees when the employee resides in the jurisdiction.
- sopooneo 5y ago
  I believe Facebook could catch them if it wanted.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Facebook probably has really good data on IP geolocation, probably much much better than anyone, both through data users willingly provide and data from attackers they are certain to be fending off constantly. They'll know you're on a VPS.
- inherently_juxt 5y ago
  Don't you have to give them your legal address when you start working for them?
- jjav 5y ago
  It's not just the company caring for their own purposes (although there's that as well), there are external requirements which depend on the employee location which force them to need to know. Such as which taxes and how much they are required to deduct and even which health plan choices are available.
mabbo 5y ago
I think some companies might do that. I think they'll wind up losing money as a result. If you're willing to pay more for identical work because your employee chose to live somewhere more expensive, you're encouraging your employees to live in the most expensive places. On the other hand, if you offer a fair wage for the work done regardless of location, your employees get better value by living somewhere inexpensive, which lowers the required compensation for the same employee. I think Facebook is simply creating more problems for themselves by bothering with this.
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  Most of tech either isn’t remote or hasn’t been for very long, so strong candidates with large scale prod experience are still concentrated in markets where these skills are most valued and attainable. If you want those candidates, you have to compete with offers from local big tech.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    > strong candidates with large scale prod experience are still concentrated in markets As I keep asking when this comes up, if this is true then why are salaries for FAANG engineers so much lower in London? London, as you may know is 100% not cheap, and yet salaries there for FAANG tech people are approximately 50% of those in SF/US.
    - wyclif 5y ago
      Because in the UK (where all of my ancestors are from) they don't value software engineers like they do in the US.
      - erik_seaberg 5y ago
        In the 1990s we were paid and managed like accountants. When the Web went mainstream, Bay Area VC companies created a sudden shortage which slowly spread.
88913527 5y ago
Practically, what does this look like? There's $3M beautiful coastal homes in my area, and a few miles inland, you can get what might be called a 'starter home' for $900k. Is my wage going to be based on the extremely expensive coastal area, or the marked up, but still comparatively affordable inland area? It's all the same 'location' if we're talking at the county level.
- dsizzle 5y ago
  I would think they use a metro-area scheme similar to what the government uses for their employees https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality Because, I mean, waterfront property has a premium everywhere, and even in the same exact "starter home" location I'm sure you could teardown and fit a $3M home. Those choices aren't determined by the metro area.
inherently_juxt 5y ago
If I were looking for work and I were a top tier candidate, I would not let companies play games by determining pay based on my location. I'd work with a company that pays me well no matter where I choose to live. After all, where I live should only concern them if there's some kind of tax implication. Top tier candidates aren't stupid, and ones that would willingly subject themselves to that are probably just looking for a year or two stint to bolster their resumes. Either that or they aren't as smart as they make themselves out to be.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. Not sure about the other way around. Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over how work is done and how it is compensated, but I believe market forces will kill efforts like ZIP code based compensation. In reality, if you're top tier talent, you can command top tier compensation no matter what your ZIP code is. Facebook's strategy relies on every other company colluding with them to suppress compensation based on locality.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over how work is done and how it is compensated, but I believe market forces will kill efforts like ZIP code based compensation. I think you're right, but I don't think the end game is that everyone gets FAANG-level salaries everywhere. When companies realize that they can hire people for a fraction of SF Bay Area salaries while still paying them 20-30% more than their local salaries, the overall compensation structure will slide downward toward that number. Then the next step is when they realize they can hire foreign people in similar timezones at another lower step on the compensation ladder (while still paying more than their local jobs would offer). The compensation then slides further down toward this average. > In reality, if you're top tier talent, you can command top tier compensation no matter what your ZIP code is. Works in theory, not as much in practice. There's still value to having people collaborate in person (I say this as someone who has primarily worked remote long before COVID). Companies paying top dollar have a lot of leverage to get employees to move and work in-person still.
  - drunkpotato 5y ago
    "A fraction?" How much less do you think they can pay? This sounds suspiciously like the myth of off-shoring, get the same work for a fraction of the cost, but from what I've heard the competent ones quickly command more pay and are certainly not "a fraction" of a SF salary.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. That's the official HR policy. In real life... key contributors are magically exempted. If you aren't making SV rates no matter where, that's a career red-flag.

by bko 5y ago

Dyac 5y ago

Any Facebook employee that wished to would surely find it trivial to use a VPS or something to mask their true location.

selectodude 5y ago
Playing games with your employer probably isn't the best idea if you're looking for a long term relationship with them.
numpad0 5y ago
I wouldn’t be so confident as to think Facebook won’t catch me lying for years.
credit_guy 5y ago
Technology is not always the solution. If your employer asks you to affirm something, and you do that, and then cheat (because, let's say, cheating is technologically trivial), then you take a huge risk. A lot of people will not take that risk. It's enough to make example of 1 or 2 people who are caught, and the rest will fall in line in no time.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Is my opinion, the company is cheating the employee by paying them less for the same work just because they live somewhere else.
  - jkljkljkl1 5y ago
    No one forces employees to accept the terms offered edit: it's not cheating because the game is still of negotiation until it's in agreement, if you break an agreement, I see that as a cheat. No one made you accept the job or the pay.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      'Nobody forced them into slavery, why didn't they just go somewhere else?'
      - xyzzyz 5y ago
        People actually were forced into slavery, and actually are not forced to work for Facebook. Do you often exploit slaves as a rhetorical tool?
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        Have you heard of the concept of 'wage slavery'? People at the lowest paid tiers of society do not have a choice
      - HideousKojima 5y ago
        Slavery, by its very definition, involves force. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary: Someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot
        HideousKojima 5y ago
enra 5y ago
You and the company still needs to know/decide which locale you get taxed in and which regulation to follow. Even in California, SF has different payroll taxes and regulation than other cities in the area. Massachusetts requires employers to open a unemployment account in state. If the employee moves to a state the employer doesn’t have a employees previously, you need to register in the state and it might mean you have to now pay sales taxes on revenue in the state. So unless you become an independent contractor and deal with this things yourself, the employer needs to know where you live most of the tax year.
- kgxkgxkhxoh 5y ago
  More and more remote companies use PEOs. No need to incorporate in 50 states, you just pay someone else to.
  - truffdog 5y ago
    I worked at a company that switched to a PEO, people seemed weirdly outraged.
  - enra 5y ago
    We use it too, but doesn't change the fact the the employer needs to tell the PEO where the employee is located. PEO also have limits, like MA example, the company still needs to open the unemployment accounts directly with the state. Sales tax is another thing that you have to do directly. My point was that main reason companies need to know where the employee is compliance, employment law, taxes and potentially IP protection. While the employer wouldn't care about the location because of pay scale, they still need to know for other reasons. Until we can all live in some United Kingdom of the Internet, the unfortunate fact is that local laws apply to companies and employees when the employee resides in the jurisdiction.
sopooneo 5y ago
I believe Facebook could catch them if it wanted.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
Facebook probably has really good data on IP geolocation, probably much much better than anyone, both through data users willingly provide and data from attackers they are certain to be fending off constantly. They'll know you're on a VPS.
inherently_juxt 5y ago
Don't you have to give them your legal address when you start working for them?
jjav 5y ago
It's not just the company caring for their own purposes (although there's that as well), there are external requirements which depend on the employee location which force them to need to know. Such as which taxes and how much they are required to deduct and even which health plan choices are available.

mabbo 5y ago

I think some companies might do that. I think they'll wind up losing money as a result. If you're willing to pay more for identical work because your employee chose to live somewhere more expensive, you're encouraging your employees to live in the most expensive places. On the other hand, if you offer a fair wage for the work done regardless of location, your employees get better value by living somewhere inexpensive, which lowers the required compensation for the same employee. I think Facebook is simply creating more problems for themselves by bothering with this.

erik_seaberg 5y ago
Most of tech either isn’t remote or hasn’t been for very long, so strong candidates with large scale prod experience are still concentrated in markets where these skills are most valued and attainable. If you want those candidates, you have to compete with offers from local big tech.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  > strong candidates with large scale prod experience are still concentrated in markets As I keep asking when this comes up, if this is true then why are salaries for FAANG engineers so much lower in London? London, as you may know is 100% not cheap, and yet salaries there for FAANG tech people are approximately 50% of those in SF/US.
  - wyclif 5y ago
    Because in the UK (where all of my ancestors are from) they don't value software engineers like they do in the US.
    - erik_seaberg 5y ago
      In the 1990s we were paid and managed like accountants. When the Web went mainstream, Bay Area VC companies created a sudden shortage which slowly spread.

88913527 5y ago

Practically, what does this look like? There's $3M beautiful coastal homes in my area, and a few miles inland, you can get what might be called a 'starter home' for $900k. Is my wage going to be based on the extremely expensive coastal area, or the marked up, but still comparatively affordable inland area? It's all the same 'location' if we're talking at the county level.

dsizzle 5y ago
I would think they use a metro-area scheme similar to what the government uses for their employees https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality Because, I mean, waterfront property has a premium everywhere, and even in the same exact "starter home" location I'm sure you could teardown and fit a $3M home. Those choices aren't determined by the metro area.

inherently_juxt 5y ago

If I were looking for work and I were a top tier candidate, I would not let companies play games by determining pay based on my location. I'd work with a company that pays me well no matter where I choose to live. After all, where I live should only concern them if there's some kind of tax implication. Top tier candidates aren't stupid, and ones that would willingly subject themselves to that are probably just looking for a year or two stint to bolster their resumes. Either that or they aren't as smart as they make themselves out to be.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. Not sure about the other way around. Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over how work is done and how it is compensated, but I believe market forces will kill efforts like ZIP code based compensation. In reality, if you're top tier talent, you can command top tier compensation no matter what your ZIP code is. Facebook's strategy relies on every other company colluding with them to suppress compensation based on locality.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over how work is done and how it is compensated, but I believe market forces will kill efforts like ZIP code based compensation. I think you're right, but I don't think the end game is that everyone gets FAANG-level salaries everywhere. When companies realize that they can hire people for a fraction of SF Bay Area salaries while still paying them 20-30% more than their local salaries, the overall compensation structure will slide downward toward that number. Then the next step is when they realize they can hire foreign people in similar timezones at another lower step on the compensation ladder (while still paying more than their local jobs would offer). The compensation then slides further down toward this average. > In reality, if you're top tier talent, you can command top tier compensation no matter what your ZIP code is. Works in theory, not as much in practice. There's still value to having people collaborate in person (I say this as someone who has primarily worked remote long before COVID). Companies paying top dollar have a lot of leverage to get employees to move and work in-person still.
- drunkpotato 5y ago
  "A fraction?" How much less do you think they can pay? This sounds suspiciously like the myth of off-shoring, get the same work for a fraction of the cost, but from what I've heard the competent ones quickly command more pay and are certainly not "a fraction" of a SF salary.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. That's the official HR policy. In real life... key contributors are magically exempted. If you aren't making SV rates no matter where, that's a career red-flag.