4 ms·

This line of reasoning doesn't consider equity, and the fact that people want to move - especially out of low socioeconomic areas. If you're paid a local wage,

This line of reasoning doesn't consider equity, and the fact that people want to move - especially out of low socioeconomic areas. If you're paid a local wage, there's basically no way you'd ever be able to relocate to somewhere more expensive since selling your house wouldn't put a dent in the price of a home elsewhere.

inferiorhuman 4y ago
Sure, but paying a high wage relative to the local prevailing wage is different than paying the same high wage everywhere. Part of the problem in the Bay Area is that tech companies distorted the local wages so dramatically.
- criley2 4y ago
  People are going to min-max whatever system you offer. If you don't pay equally and you adjust for cost of living, people are likely going to go for high CoL locations and make you pay the most. If you don't adjust for CoL, you'll likely see your devs leave high CoL areas for lower ones. While you might be "overpaying" them according to their chosen CoL, you're likely underpaying what the high CoL would have demanded. It seems counter-intuitive but I imagine that not doing CoL adjustments actually lowers total payroll.
  - inferiorhuman 4y ago
    > It seems counter-intuitive but I imagine that not doing CoL adjustments actually lowers total payroll. That's not the problem that forty was talking about. The issue is that when you drop a ton of employees in an area whose wages are well beyond the norm you create larger societal problems.
    - criley2 4y ago
      I don't really think you do. Even poor rural communities have working rich like doctors and lawyers. There are rich rural folk 5 hours from every city. Adding a developer here and there is just a new face of the same working rich, the top 1-2%. In fact, concentrating developers in one place like SF is pretty clearly the far greater social evil than ~evenly dispersing them around the country and letting them live in states/cities that perhaps desperately need the benefits of highly trained skilled workers who will pay a ton of taxes. I would say that packing most developers into SF and California is far worse for America than letting educated and productive workers find communities around the country, potentially growing tech industries all over. Likely far better for equity, diversity, tax outcomes, and social good. I really can't see any argument for packing them all in California and letting all the other states rot.
      - inferiorhuman 4y ago
        > I don't really think you do. Even poor rural communities have working rich like doctors and lawyers. There are rich rural folk 5 hours from every city. Adding a developer here and there is just a new face of the same working rich, the top 1-2%. Those doctors and lawyers aren't getting paid big city salaries.
        criley2 4y ago
        Sure, they are primary care providers making $110k or real estate attorneys making $120k, instead of $400k in private practice in a rich area or partner at the big firm making millions. But most developers aren't making that either. I get that there are some few who are making $400k to millions, but the median developer pay in every software field according to the stack overflow survey is ~80k. Your average small town doctor is likely out-earning your average developer, so I think it's a good comparison.
      - forty 4y ago
        Well the examples I have seen here in France did not work out so well. There were large arrivals of rich, well paid Parisians to cities like Nantes and Bordeaux, and it completely messed the local housing market, forcing many people who were living there to leave the city because they couldn't afford the rent anymore. Of course it creates a lot of resentment and tensions.
        criley2 4y ago
        To be fair, France and the US are very very different. When we talk about rural areas in the U.S., we're not talking about Bordeaux, one of the most famous and prestigious wine growing regions in the entire world, a literally world famous rural area beloved by the elite of dozens of nations. We're talking about flyover country. The kind of place that rich Parisians would only ever fly over and would never for any reason consider actually going to. We're also talking about having so much space that the idea that developers could mess up local housing markets is crazy! In the US, packing developers together ruins housing markets (see the SF housing market ruined by tech companies) and spreading them out across the other 49 states and ~thousand+ rural locations prevents most out-sized effects, except in a few prestigious places known for elite vacations.
ok_dad 4y ago
Gitlab should just offer to cover moving expenses for employees 1 time per X years, then even the poorest-paid person working there would have that freedom (aside from any immigration concerns). I don't think it's in their best financial interests, but would cost maybe 10k at most and whatever the additional salary per year is and garner more support for their "local pay scale" strategy.

inferiorhuman 4y ago

Sure, but paying a high wage relative to the local prevailing wage is different than paying the same high wage everywhere. Part of the problem in the Bay Area is that tech companies distorted the local wages so dramatically.

criley2 4y ago
People are going to min-max whatever system you offer. If you don't pay equally and you adjust for cost of living, people are likely going to go for high CoL locations and make you pay the most. If you don't adjust for CoL, you'll likely see your devs leave high CoL areas for lower ones. While you might be "overpaying" them according to their chosen CoL, you're likely underpaying what the high CoL would have demanded. It seems counter-intuitive but I imagine that not doing CoL adjustments actually lowers total payroll.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  > It seems counter-intuitive but I imagine that not doing CoL adjustments actually lowers total payroll. That's not the problem that forty was talking about. The issue is that when you drop a ton of employees in an area whose wages are well beyond the norm you create larger societal problems.
  - criley2 4y ago
    I don't really think you do. Even poor rural communities have working rich like doctors and lawyers. There are rich rural folk 5 hours from every city. Adding a developer here and there is just a new face of the same working rich, the top 1-2%. In fact, concentrating developers in one place like SF is pretty clearly the far greater social evil than ~evenly dispersing them around the country and letting them live in states/cities that perhaps desperately need the benefits of highly trained skilled workers who will pay a ton of taxes. I would say that packing most developers into SF and California is far worse for America than letting educated and productive workers find communities around the country, potentially growing tech industries all over. Likely far better for equity, diversity, tax outcomes, and social good. I really can't see any argument for packing them all in California and letting all the other states rot.
    - inferiorhuman 4y ago
      > I don't really think you do. Even poor rural communities have working rich like doctors and lawyers. There are rich rural folk 5 hours from every city. Adding a developer here and there is just a new face of the same working rich, the top 1-2%. Those doctors and lawyers aren't getting paid big city salaries.
      - criley2 4y ago
        Sure, they are primary care providers making $110k or real estate attorneys making $120k, instead of $400k in private practice in a rich area or partner at the big firm making millions. But most developers aren't making that either. I get that there are some few who are making $400k to millions, but the median developer pay in every software field according to the stack overflow survey is ~80k. Your average small town doctor is likely out-earning your average developer, so I think it's a good comparison.
    - forty 4y ago
      Well the examples I have seen here in France did not work out so well. There were large arrivals of rich, well paid Parisians to cities like Nantes and Bordeaux, and it completely messed the local housing market, forcing many people who were living there to leave the city because they couldn't afford the rent anymore. Of course it creates a lot of resentment and tensions.
      - criley2 4y ago
        To be fair, France and the US are very very different. When we talk about rural areas in the U.S., we're not talking about Bordeaux, one of the most famous and prestigious wine growing regions in the entire world, a literally world famous rural area beloved by the elite of dozens of nations. We're talking about flyover country. The kind of place that rich Parisians would only ever fly over and would never for any reason consider actually going to. We're also talking about having so much space that the idea that developers could mess up local housing markets is crazy! In the US, packing developers together ruins housing markets (see the SF housing market ruined by tech companies) and spreading them out across the other 49 states and ~thousand+ rural locations prevents most out-sized effects, except in a few prestigious places known for elite vacations.

ok_dad 4y ago

Gitlab should just offer to cover moving expenses for employees 1 time per X years, then even the poorest-paid person working there would have that freedom (aside from any immigration concerns). I don't think it's in their best financial interests, but would cost maybe 10k at most and whatever the additional salary per year is and garner more support for their "local pay scale" strategy.