Borders bender the rich. It’s simple, it’s dumb
Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
151–160 of 385 posts
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Alienation from the fruits of your labor. It's disgusting we expect people to tolerate it, and act like it's not a totally optional choice by management to exploit labor resources to get a better return on investment for the already wealthy. A modern take on colonization.
On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely cheaper. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead. What the submitter should be asking themselves, is whether they can pull a higher wage working from their current location with any other company. If they can do that, the…
Well, we agree that "cheaper labor" is desirable because it's more profitable to the company right? So let's apply transitivity to your first paragraph:
"The only reason the company hired someone overseas was to make more money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely more profitable. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead."
Yeah, what you are describing is practically the definition of exploitation of labor by capital, and alienation of the worker from the value they create.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#153Your pay is based on the cost to hire your replacement. That’s it. There’s no crazy conspiracies, there’s no moral failing, they’re not running a calculator of how much value you generate. Would it sap your motivation to learn there are people doing your same job at FAANGs making double what you make? Or that some other job makes more money than you? Location based pay is just another variable. As with everything in…
If that were true companies would never hire in the Bay Area, or even the United States. There’s always a cheaper alternative. The question is, once the company has decided it wants you, what’s that going to take? Making national median offers to Bay Area candidates essentially swears off of ever hiring them. That could be a choice, but for now it remains a bench of talent and experience that companies want to draw f…
Bay Area companies hire in the Bay Area, for the same reason companies are founded in the Bay Area to begin with: because most of the VCs in the US live in the Bay Area. And Bay Area investors care a lot about having a package of colocated staff "human assets" that put an acquihire-based floor on the company's acquisition price.
Companies that don't operate from the Bay Area, almost never hire Bay Area remote workers; and companies that are headquartered outside of the US, almost never hire US remote workers. Precisely because they cost too much, for a company that gets no advantage from doing so. (Source: we are a Canadian company; we hire from everywhere but the US.)
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#154Your pay is based on the cost to hire your replacement. That’s it. There’s no crazy conspiracies, there’s no moral failing, they’re not running a calculator of how much value you generate. Would it sap your motivation to learn there are people doing your same job at FAANGs making double what you make? Or that some other job makes more money than you? Location based pay is just another variable. As with everything in…
If that were true companies would never hire in the Bay Area, or even the United States. There’s always a cheaper alternative. The question is, once the company has decided it wants you, what’s that going to take? Making national median offers to Bay Area candidates essentially swears off of ever hiring them. That could be a choice, but for now it remains a bench of talent and experience that companies want to draw f…
> Making Bay Area offers to rural candidates is giving them 4-5x their next best option, which is characteristic of either a) the devil, or b) rich people making expressive displays rather than business transactions.
No? If you budget to hire two employees at Bay Area salaries and don't care where they work, you should pay them Bay Area salaries regardless of where they work.
Plenty of companies do this. It's fine. I don't see anything devilish or expressive about paying all your staff the same wages.
> I will add that if you think calibrating an offer based on the worker’s alternatives is crass
I think you're foolish if you don't expect a worker's alternative might be in the Bay Area salary range in the year 2022.
> Even a mediocre SWE salary is way too high.
It's not. The dollar-value delivered by a mediocre SWE has been significantly high for a long time, often orders of magnitude the salary.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would it be less exploitative if firms refused to hire people in lower cost countries?
Yes, because the workers would not be contributing labor to the company's output. To put it another way: Yes, zero exploitation of OP's labor is less than "some" exploitation of OP's labor. It clarifies things for me to replace "cheaper labor" with "more profitable labor". Why would a company refuse to hire more profitable labor? How could the company not having any relationship with OP exploit his labor more than hi…
The employee is welcome to work for a local company at local rates. It seems they prefer the colonizer? Is that exploitation any more than the US employee not getting paid 2x or 5 or 100 their current rate?
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#1561. Your excuse here is not good enough to debunk this excuse. Cost of living is a general cost for people living in that location. Family support is not available for everyone. If you move to this location, you will not like if they use family support as an excuse.
Location pay also affects the amount of taxes to be deducted.
2. I do not understand this. If your manager thinks you are not as talented as your juniors then you have to find a better work place.
3. Again, this seem subjective. However, you are sounding like you do not have any option. If you do then use it, if not then be grateful for what you have,
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's 100% correct that's simply a negotiation, and this is another variable. But if you came at me and told me I had to pay you what I pay my US employees, my first response would be "alright, but you have to work US hours and speak perfect American English." Honestly, that's a good part of why we try to hire in one general area, in this case the US. There is a real cost to foreign developers who only speak passable…
Sounds like you should hire Canadians!
Definitely surprising it’s taken so long for this to take off. But maybe because CA has a tiny population probably too small a pool?
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#158The answer is the same here as for anyone else who wants a substantial raise. You need to find a new job. It’s possible your current employer could match a new offer or even pay you more, but first you need to show them you’re serious about leaving.
I second this. Another option is the one Manish Pabrai took: do just enough work to not get fired, and spend the excess time and energy building your own business.
This is only a good advice if your own business works. If not you are wasting your time.
Also you dont know where the "enough job" is going to be rated. Your manager will determine that
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but why is a company willing to suddenly pay more for someone depending on where they live? I get that competency and likelihood to succeed play a role, but if you have those I don't see why location should play a role at all. I'm not saying they should give more/better offers to people in 'cheap' locations, I'm saying location shouldn't influence the offer at all.
Many companies can't hire people in 'any' location due to how their legal entities are setup in different countries, how many of them they may or may not have and possible complications with tax etc. Once you get past that basic hurdle, you might find that the company is willing to pay more because they want a given skilled worker to be co-located with the team they will be joining to increase productivity which migh…
> you might find that the company is willing to pay more because they want a given skilled worker to be co-located with the team
That's making a big assumption — that the team is in an HCOL area, such that "colocated with the team" is synoymous to "costs more."
There are a lot of companies who are headquartered in LCOL areas of the world; but still do location-adjusted pay, such that they might be paying someone working remotely from an HCOL area more than they pay the local team.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that were true companies would never hire in the Bay Area, or even the United States. There’s always a cheaper alternative. The question is, once the company has decided it wants you, what’s that going to take? Making national median offers to Bay Area candidates essentially swears off of ever hiring them. That could be a choice, but for now it remains a bench of talent and experience that companies want to draw f…
Bay Area companies hire in the Bay Area, for the same reason companies are founded in the Bay Area to begin with: because most of the VCs in the US live in the Bay Area. And Bay Area investors care a lot about having a package of colocated staff "human assets" that put an acquihire-based floor on the company's acquisition price. Companies that don't operate from the Bay Area, almost never hire Bay Area remote workers…
> Source: we are a Canadian company, and hire from everywhere but the US.
I don't follow. This isn't true at all in my experience, plenty of companies in Canada and the US hire across Canada and the US. It's practically the norm.
If you work for a Canadian company that doesn't hire in the US then you're comically underpaid. Wages are converging very fast. Many companies are paying parity and frankly folks are selling themselves short if they don't fight for parity.
(If you're not talking about software development, then ignore me)