You wont be able to change their minds on a policy like this.
My advice would be to look around and find another position with higher pay.
Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
281–290 of 385 posts
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> 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. Probably only after they get to a certain scale and cannot find more talent in Canada? When did Shopify start hiring in the US - right from the beginning?
Shopify does not pay well
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#283Your 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…
> Your pay is based on the cost to hire replacement What is being described here is supply/demand economics. If you think you’re being underpaid, quit, find something else that pays you more. The reason why you won’t quit is the reason why the company doesn’t pay you more. You don’t have other options, and if you quit, they know there will be 10 other people ready to take you place for those wages. Part of the reason…
Or organise.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#284Which scenario are we talking about here? Is it: You live in a poor country making $50k-$100k, and the US devs are making $100-200k. You live in a poor country and get paid sub $30-50k, and US gets paid $100k+? I used to live in Ecuador, and the “official” min wage monthly is ~$300USD/mo. So essentially you can hire a full time nanny, cook, etc for sub $1200 easy. That’s never going to happen in the US with less than…
> So in US 150k+ is top 20% of income or there abouts.
It's top 8% (92th percentile) according to: https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#285Your 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…
Wouldn't your replacement cost the same, regardless your location? They don't have to replace you with someone from the same location.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
nothing valid about it except that it's an established coordinated behavior of employers to reduce pay based on region instead of anything to do with value produced
Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry. Although there may be some coordination, coordination isn't necessary for wages to be unrelated to value produced, because that's the default condition. It would take some impressive central planning to have wages actually match value produced. Doctrinaire economists used to argue that value produced sets an upper bound on pay, since why wou…
> Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry.
Yep. The prices of anything (incl. price of labor) are never about the value produced alone. The delivered value only sets a ceiling on the price (i.e. no one will pay for something more than they will get out of it), but, if the commodity in question is abundant, its price may be very well below the value it creates. For example, drinking water is necessary for survival, so the value it delivers is essentially infinite (i.e. you'd give anything and everything for water if you don't have any and are dying of dehydration), but at the same time it's so abundant that its actual price is almost zero.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#287No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#288Your 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…
Wouldn't your replacement cost the same, regardless your location? They don't have to replace you with someone from the same location.
They could, but if you’re on a team of 6, all of whom work in the same general area (even if remote), there’s a cost to hiring someone 4 time zones away, let alone 8 or 10.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#289No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The opportunity cost of not having that senior dev on board for more than 3 months is damaging for rest of the team and company goals/time lines. I work with HR team who sets compensations for our global workforce. If you think that HR and leadership does not take this opportunity cost in consideration when setting policies, you are badly mistaken. They are very rational in their decision making.
But then, why would the company agree to an increase in compensation if OP moved elsewhere? This is the point that doesn't make any sense. If it costs them X in OP's locale and 2X in EU, the company should kick them out if they decided to move and replace them with someone in the original locale, or maybe someplace even cheaper.
Most people who haven’t already moved countries won’t when offered that rebuttal. (Some can’t. Many more won’t, for some good and practical reasons.)
Because of that, the rare employee who does move can be paid the new location wage without increasing the costs of the people who don’t move. Companies don’t care about the costs of the 95% who don’t.
(Side note: There are companies who budget in headcount and work like GP suggests. I think most companies budget in money and work like you suggest.)