4 ms·
Ask HN: Remote work – global rate or local cost of living?
How do fully-remote companies set their pay scales? Two possibilities are:
a) Global rate for the role, based on skills and experience, totally independent of worker location. If the worker moves, the pay stays the same.
b) Role-based scales are normalized to a Cost of Living (CoL) index at the worker's location. If the worker moves, the pay changes.
I am interested in factual reports on which companies use which policies, but also a discussion about which one seems the most fair.
It is said that "Silicon Valley startups are a mechanism for nerds to work very hard to pass huge quantities of money from VCs to landlords."
Localized pay seems to subsidize and perpetuate entrenched CoL differences.
Global rates seem to encourage geographical dispersion, CoL equalization, and reward talent in low CoL regions of the world.
- ogarten 3y agoMost of what I have heard so far is somewhere inbetween. Global rate range but adjusted to CoL to some extent. Cant pay someone 200k if someone else on the team only makes 20k because they live in a cheaper country.
- mikhailfranco 3y agoIt seems the tern geo-adjust has been used to describe CoL indexing. Supabase does not geo-adjust. https://supabase.com/blog/why-supabase-remote https://supabase.com/blog/why-supabase-remote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015239 "We're strongly of the opinion that you should get the same pay for the same job, geo-adjusted pay always seemed bizarre to me."
- mikhailfranco 3y agoRemote ( i.e. the company called Remote ) does geo-adjust. https://remotecom.notion.site/people-Total-Rewards-1945bce8d3924ece9421ba8630f57b0c https://remotecom.notion.site/people-Total-Rewards-1945bce8d...
- mikhailfranco 3y agoBlockFi (RIP) did not geo-adjust - much - AFAICT. For example, it did not reduce salary if someone moved to a cheaper region. There may have been some boost for those in SF or NYC, not sure.