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New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

open.buffer.com

41–50 of 169 posts

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#41
post #22

Open salaries are only great if you’re some introverted, beta developer that can’t speak up for themselves. “Everyone’s the same. Hooray Marxism!” If you’re good and you have any sort of gumption, negotiate hard and take the money the feeble leave on the table.

Probably the worst comment I have seen on HN. Almost feels like r/TD.

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#42
There is a lot of typical HN negative analysis in this discussion. Let's step back and applaud the fact that this is open. Who else does that? People don't do it because they are afraid of this type of negative analysis. This is a very cool comparison for those who don't have concrete numbers to take into HR. Thanks for sharing Buffer!

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#43
post #22

Open salaries are only great if you’re some introverted, beta developer that can’t speak up for themselves. “Everyone’s the same. Hooray Marxism!” If you’re good and you have any sort of gumption, negotiate hard and take the money the feeble leave on the table.

Unhelpful if you're a female: PDF https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf

Even trying to put yourself in a position to negotiate doesn't work: PDF https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/orsc.1110.069...

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#44
post #8

Why do companies continue to pay out higher salaries to devs in high cost of living areas? In this case, their payscale pays out 30-50K more in high cost living areas vs low cost areas. Rather than blow revenue rewarding bad life choices, offer to move them to an area with lower costs of living. Do that for only 10 employees and you have 300-500K EVERY SINGLE YEAR to re-invest into your company. In practically any ot…

You've got it backwards. They're paying people in low cost of living locations less not the other way around. If you frame it that way the economics make a lot more sense; one of the reasons places like SF and NYC are so expensive is because everyone wants to be there for all the jobs. Competition is high and salaries adjust accordingly. Also, speaking from experience (biased toward the financial side of things), you save money just on the talent differential alone hiring in tech hubs vs taking advantage of cheap real estate in a less trafficked area.

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#46
post #12

Wow, this is really terrible. This looks like a PR explanation for why they're slashing everyone's salaries. A cursory glance shows everyone either staying the same or dropping. > One of the toughest decisions we made with the new formula was to remove the annual 3% loyalty increase given to teammates for each anniversary from their start date. > We looked at a lot of options and in the end decided to remove it as it…

Yes, but I assume the SF scale is indexed to that annually (ie: the bay SF pay will go up itself probably more than 3% anyway).

That is a very salient point. I don't recall it specifying when the SF prices are recomputed, but maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#47
Initially when I saw this open salary approach and especially the calculator I was intrigued. But you cannot make salaries into a formula and get 100% good results.

The approach Basecamp (37signals) has with picking a location, then paying people based on 95% percentile (top 5%) market rate regardless of where they live is just much easier to explain to employees than some arbitrary multiplier thing that just leads to endless discussions.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d...

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#48
post #8

Why do companies continue to pay out higher salaries to devs in high cost of living areas? In this case, their payscale pays out 30-50K more in high cost living areas vs low cost areas. Rather than blow revenue rewarding bad life choices, offer to move them to an area with lower costs of living. Do that for only 10 employees and you have 300-500K EVERY SINGLE YEAR to re-invest into your company. In practically any ot…

I'm going to target in on "bad life choice", most people end up where family are, especially if they have kids, schools are good, jobs are available. I don't think anyone who works remote starts in Nashville then goes to NYC on some thought they could get a salary increase to cover.

I don't think anyone who works remote starts in Nashville then goes to NYC on some thought they could get a salary increase to cover.

I may be misunderstanding what you're saying, but people definitely move from places like Nashville (where I live now) to places like SF and NYC (where I'm moving next year) to increase their salary.

No one pays devs mid-six-figures in Nashville, but you can make that in SF and NYC (not easily, but possible).

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#49

Whoa $121k in Spain that's a superstar salary for a programmer there. Average for programmer according to glassdoor is 35,000 euro = ~42,000 usd.

yeah thought the same. 100k USD is next to impossible for a web developer in Berlin for example, and salaries for devs in Barcelona are considerably lower than here, maybe a max of 80k USD. That guy is living like a king.

Re: New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator

#50
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you do that, they'll find another employer that doesn't force them to move. Living in a high cost area is not a "bad life choice".

I moved out of a high CoL area to somewhere I actually enjoy living. And brought the salary band with me. No chance I'd work at Buffer, given they'd halve my salary because of my zip code. Other remote jobs don't. No brainier.

They state they pay 85% for Average CoL area and 75% for Low CoL area. So they wouldn't halve a developer's salary who moved from San Francisco to somewhere else. Working in San Francisco gets 100%. Now I don't know how their SF salaries compare to other companies though.
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