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What do you think when someone with 3 years experience gets paid more than someone with 12 years experience simply because they live in California, when the 12

What do you think when someone with 3 years experience gets paid more than someone with 12 years experience simply because they live in California, when the 12 year lives in Alabama?

esteth 5y ago
Not OP, but isn’t that the reality of labour markets? The alternative is that everyone in non-SF areas of the world is competing for SF salary remote positions. It’s even worse at established tech giants like FAANG, where everyone working at anywhere other than SF would optimally declare fully remote for the free salary increase
- ghaff 5y ago
  >everyone in non-SF areas of the world is competing for SF salary remote positions They're mostly not. It's really not a race to the top. If you can get a job with FB and get a Bay Area salary from them, most companies will effectively tell you to go for it. (So they are competing in a sense. But many are opting out.)
TameAntelope 5y ago
I think about how strange it is we measure level of ability by years on the job, rather than level of achievement during those years.
- badpun 5y ago
  I believe it’s because the latter is simply too easy to lie about and too hard to verify.
  - alecbz 5y ago
    It’s not even about lying, you can think you’ve done amazing things and just not be in sync with what the interviewer’s expectations. “Led a project” can mean anything from actually being critical to the project’s success to pushing some papers around so other people could do the work.
- davidmurdoch 5y ago
  Sure, but for sake of conversation here it's a decent metric. Another way to frame it: one was recently promoted to senior, the other is an engineering lead who has been managing teams of seniors for 7 tears.
t571882899 5y ago
People frequently demand equal pay for equal performance when it comes to receiving the cheque themselves, while taking advantage of unequal pay for equal performance when it comes to giving the cheque to others. The only two options I see are 1) you accept that markets are different across the globe, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, or 2) you want equal treatment regardless of location, but then you also have to live up to your own standards. And just to make that clear: I don’t know or assume how the author goes about that, I’m just pointing that out as a general pattern.
franciscop 5y ago
This happened notably for example where the creator of Redux Dan Abramov, who is also one of the main maintainers of React and Create React App was employed by Facebook in London. Discussing salary it appeared that he was making less than your average React developer in San Francisco: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22331478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22331478
cookie_monsta 5y ago
On the face of it, if they're doing the same work, it seems like there's another problem there - either the 12-year has been coasting for 9+ years or the company doesn't offer interesting opportunities for advancement to senior employees. Of course, it's hard to generalise about situations where specifics are key.
- davidmurdoch 5y ago
  You would never default to thinking that a surgeon, plumber, athlete, etc, with 12 years of experience may demonstrate these problems, so why would you with software engineering? Maybe you are are just ignorant to the fact that so many companies default to actually paying remote employees double, and even more, if their location is in the right spot in the USA... for the SAME years of experience, job, and work. I personally know people who pay rent in a 1:1 in New York just for the salary, but actually live and work from South America.
  - cookie_monsta 5y ago
    > You would never default to thinking that a surgeon, plumber, athlete, etc, with 12 years of experience may demonstrate these problems, so why would you with software engineering? Thanks for telling me what I would think, but honestly it would be no different for any of those professions. If you're still doing exactly the same job 9 years later, the real problem is elsewhere. And CoL-adjusted salaries kind of make sense and have always seemed fair to me when I've been offered one. If people are scamming the system, that would be something for the company to worry about, no? I guess a better question would be: what would be fairer?
    - davidmurdoch 5y ago
      Sorry, I should have said "I presume you would never...". Honestly didn't mean it to come off that way. > it would be no different for any of those professions Do you want a surgeon with 12 years of experience or 3? The issue at hand, unequal pay, has nothing to with experience in the first place, so making up an imaginary scenario where the experienced employee is a slacker is a strawman fallacy anyway. The point is that if someone from a low pay area moves 50 miles in one direction they could suddenly be worth 2-3x as much to the company? Additionally, most tech companies don't actually pay based on cost of living, they pay based off of cost of the local competition. There are generally* 3 pay tiers in the United States; Hawaii is a Tier 3 state (lowest pay) despite being one of the most expensive places to live. The most expensive zip code in the USA is in Florida, but again: it's a Tier 3. Anything above the cost of living is money the employee can choose to spend on quality-of-life improvements that are generally the same price no matter where in the USA you live (think investments, tuition, cars, boats, shopping, etc). The Tier 1 employee gets more money for those fixed-price items than the Tier 3. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense; it's an artificial constraint made even worse when companies exploit the timezones of an employee because they desire a globally diverse workforce. * Note: I only have experience with two businesses that collect salaries from mid to large (100+ employees) business subscribers in exchange for information about what others in their sector pay their own employees on average. It's a legal form of wage fixing.

What do you think when someone with 3 years experience gets paid more than someone with 12 years experience simply because they live in California, when the 12 year lives in Alabama?

esteth 5y ago

Not OP, but isn’t that the reality of labour markets? The alternative is that everyone in non-SF areas of the world is competing for SF salary remote positions. It’s even worse at established tech giants like FAANG, where everyone working at anywhere other than SF would optimally declare fully remote for the free salary increase

ghaff 5y ago
>everyone in non-SF areas of the world is competing for SF salary remote positions They're mostly not. It's really not a race to the top. If you can get a job with FB and get a Bay Area salary from them, most companies will effectively tell you to go for it. (So they are competing in a sense. But many are opting out.)

TameAntelope 5y ago

I think about how strange it is we measure level of ability by years on the job, rather than level of achievement during those years.

badpun 5y ago
I believe it’s because the latter is simply too easy to lie about and too hard to verify.
- alecbz 5y ago
  It’s not even about lying, you can think you’ve done amazing things and just not be in sync with what the interviewer’s expectations. “Led a project” can mean anything from actually being critical to the project’s success to pushing some papers around so other people could do the work.
davidmurdoch 5y ago
Sure, but for sake of conversation here it's a decent metric. Another way to frame it: one was recently promoted to senior, the other is an engineering lead who has been managing teams of seniors for 7 tears.

t571882899 5y ago

People frequently demand equal pay for equal performance when it comes to receiving the cheque themselves, while taking advantage of unequal pay for equal performance when it comes to giving the cheque to others. The only two options I see are 1) you accept that markets are different across the globe, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, or 2) you want equal treatment regardless of location, but then you also have to live up to your own standards. And just to make that clear: I don’t know or assume how the author goes about that, I’m just pointing that out as a general pattern.

franciscop 5y ago

This happened notably for example where the creator of Redux Dan Abramov, who is also one of the main maintainers of React and Create React App was employed by Facebook in London. Discussing salary it appeared that he was making less than your average React developer in San Francisco: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22331478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22331478

cookie_monsta 5y ago

On the face of it, if they're doing the same work, it seems like there's another problem there - either the 12-year has been coasting for 9+ years or the company doesn't offer interesting opportunities for advancement to senior employees. Of course, it's hard to generalise about situations where specifics are key.

davidmurdoch 5y ago
You would never default to thinking that a surgeon, plumber, athlete, etc, with 12 years of experience may demonstrate these problems, so why would you with software engineering? Maybe you are are just ignorant to the fact that so many companies default to actually paying remote employees double, and even more, if their location is in the right spot in the USA... for the SAME years of experience, job, and work. I personally know people who pay rent in a 1:1 in New York just for the salary, but actually live and work from South America.
- cookie_monsta 5y ago
  > You would never default to thinking that a surgeon, plumber, athlete, etc, with 12 years of experience may demonstrate these problems, so why would you with software engineering? Thanks for telling me what I would think, but honestly it would be no different for any of those professions. If you're still doing exactly the same job 9 years later, the real problem is elsewhere. And CoL-adjusted salaries kind of make sense and have always seemed fair to me when I've been offered one. If people are scamming the system, that would be something for the company to worry about, no? I guess a better question would be: what would be fairer?
  - davidmurdoch 5y ago
    Sorry, I should have said "I presume you would never...". Honestly didn't mean it to come off that way. > it would be no different for any of those professions Do you want a surgeon with 12 years of experience or 3? The issue at hand, unequal pay, has nothing to with experience in the first place, so making up an imaginary scenario where the experienced employee is a slacker is a strawman fallacy anyway. The point is that if someone from a low pay area moves 50 miles in one direction they could suddenly be worth 2-3x as much to the company? Additionally, most tech companies don't actually pay based on cost of living, they pay based off of cost of the local competition. There are generally* 3 pay tiers in the United States; Hawaii is a Tier 3 state (lowest pay) despite being one of the most expensive places to live. The most expensive zip code in the USA is in Florida, but again: it's a Tier 3. Anything above the cost of living is money the employee can choose to spend on quality-of-life improvements that are generally the same price no matter where in the USA you live (think investments, tuition, cars, boats, shopping, etc). The Tier 1 employee gets more money for those fixed-price items than the Tier 3. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense; it's an artificial constraint made even worse when companies exploit the timezones of an employee because they desire a globally diverse workforce. * Note: I only have experience with two businesses that collect salaries from mid to large (100+ employees) business subscribers in exchange for information about what others in their sector pay their own employees on average. It's a legal form of wage fixing.