Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remote First at Brex

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Remote First at Brex

#31

Post by enra »

gyulai wrote: post #18

For a remote company to adjust pay to employee's geography: so not cool. Offering remote and paying people based on what they're worth to the company: Part of the solution! (The problem being: Structural deficits in certain regions yield lack of adequately-compensated employment opportunities for the highly-skilled. This makes the highly-skilled relocate. This makes it difficult to overcome structural difficulties).…

So how do you imagine hiring people with similar experience/skill level SF if they base salary offers are $200k and Europe people are happy with $100k since their rent/mortgage/livingcost is about 5-10x less?

Pay everyone $200k or $100k (essentially stop hiring in high cost location)?

Until the markets/remote salaries align, you kind of have to pay based salaries the people are able/need to receive in their respected market.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#32

Post by crashedsnow »

ryanSrich wrote: post #23
kag0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain the rationale behind geographically based pay in remote-first companies? I don't necessarily disagree with it, but I don't know what aspects of the issue companies are actually looking at to decide that geo-based pay is the way to go.

It's a relic, and a bad one. I run a remote-first, remote-only company and we pay everyone based on experience and merit. Not location. If you want to stretch $150k in San Francisco go for it. Good luck having to live with 3 other roommates. However, if you want to take that same $150k and live like a king in the middle of Kansas that's an option as well. Adjusting someones pay simply because they're logging onto the…

I don't see it as a relic, or a bad one. Some people can't just up and move to a cheaper location for a job they don't know they'll have in a year's time. How do you decide what to pay? Paying based on "experience and merit" needs to be anchored on something, so you just end up either massively over-paying someone in a location that's cheap, or massively under-paying someone in an expensive area. If you want to pay everyone like they live in Zurich, then more power to you but doesn't seem sensible from a business management standpoint and the person in North Carolina would probably be over the moon at half that. Any company with shareholders is accountable first to them (for good or bad) and I'm not sure your board or CFO would agree that paying peak makes sense

Re: Remote First at Brex

#33

Post by thebean11 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #11

> What happens to my compensation if I move? Brex pays by geographic market, so we will ultimately adjust an employee’s Total Compensation Value (TCV) if they relocate to where pay rates are different. However, for current Brex employees who relocate before Sep 1, 2021, Brex will not make any compensation adjustments until Sep 1, 2024 to help each of us manage through the unusual circumstances associated with COVID-1…

Sounds like a great way to guarantee losing most of the people relocating when 2024 hits.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#34

Post by _AzMoo »

enra wrote: post #31
gyulai wrote: post #18

For a remote company to adjust pay to employee's geography: so not cool. Offering remote and paying people based on what they're worth to the company: Part of the solution! (The problem being: Structural deficits in certain regions yield lack of adequately-compensated employment opportunities for the highly-skilled. This makes the highly-skilled relocate. This makes it difficult to overcome structural difficulties).…

So how do you imagine hiring people with similar experience/skill level SF if they base salary offers are $200k and Europe people are happy with $100k since their rent/mortgage/livingcost is about 5-10x less? Pay everyone $200k or $100k (essentially stop hiring in high cost location)? Until the markets/remote salaries align, you kind of have to pay based salaries the people are able/need to receive in their respected…

If an employee is worth $200k to your company in SF, why are they not worth $200k to your company in Europe?

Re: Remote First at Brex

#35

Post by nrmitchi »

enra wrote: post #31
gyulai wrote: post #18

For a remote company to adjust pay to employee's geography: so not cool. Offering remote and paying people based on what they're worth to the company: Part of the solution! (The problem being: Structural deficits in certain regions yield lack of adequately-compensated employment opportunities for the highly-skilled. This makes the highly-skilled relocate. This makes it difficult to overcome structural difficulties).…

So how do you imagine hiring people with similar experience/skill level SF if they base salary offers are $200k and Europe people are happy with $100k since their rent/mortgage/livingcost is about 5-10x less? Pay everyone $200k or $100k (essentially stop hiring in high cost location)? Until the markets/remote salaries align, you kind of have to pay based salaries the people are able/need to receive in their respected…

You're discussing "markets" across countries, which had much more reason for adjustments to be made. Social services, taxes, and healthcare are all different. There is not necessarily free movement between countries, and large goods that most people purchase in their lives (cars, education, healthcare) have very different costs.

In my opinion that is different that companies doing large-scale adjustments within a country, where social services, taxes (for the most part) and general cost of goods is the same.

I'm not sure we will ever be able to treat different countries as a single market, but I do think that a single country (or hell, even state) should be able to be treated as a market.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#36

Post by CPLX »

mStreamTeam wrote: post #9
Aperocky wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sense.. offices are not being used while staff is as productive (probably not as happy though? but that's case by case) at home. A lot of offices may go bankrupt in the coming years, even when this whole thing is over.

Its just interesting to see all these layoffs and cost cutting measures right after they raised a ton of money. In case you are unaware, Brex's business model is to lend money to startups. The kicker is they lend money to startups that banks and investors won't touch. They advertise themselves as a tech company but in reality they are closer to a high risk VC firm.

Is that actually true? I thought it was the other way around, and they only "lend" money to companies that have millions od dollars in VC investment already in the bank.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#37

Post by tempsy »

I blame FB for setting this bad precedent. Now that they've set the standard for remote compensation every company now has cover to adjust compensation using some flawed cost of living calculator.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#38

Post by aero142 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #22
gyulai wrote: post #18

For a remote company to adjust pay to employee's geography: so not cool. Offering remote and paying people based on what they're worth to the company: Part of the solution! (The problem being: Structural deficits in certain regions yield lack of adequately-compensated employment opportunities for the highly-skilled. This makes the highly-skilled relocate. This makes it difficult to overcome structural difficulties).…

I also suspect, but don't have evidence to back it up, that it will also further contribute to socioeconomic divides. You grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and decide to live close to family? Here is a pay package at X. You grew up in a poverty-stricken area in a poor state, and need to live close to home to support your family? Well the cost-of-living there is 60% cheaper, so here is a pay package at X*(1-0.6). Peop…

Seems like there is a pretty strong market force here where it is much easier to recruit employees in cheaper cost of living cities by beating that offer.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#39

Post by ponker »

enra wrote: post #31
gyulai wrote: post #18

For a remote company to adjust pay to employee's geography: so not cool. Offering remote and paying people based on what they're worth to the company: Part of the solution! (The problem being: Structural deficits in certain regions yield lack of adequately-compensated employment opportunities for the highly-skilled. This makes the highly-skilled relocate. This makes it difficult to overcome structural difficulties).…

So how do you imagine hiring people with similar experience/skill level SF if they base salary offers are $200k and Europe people are happy with $100k since their rent/mortgage/livingcost is about 5-10x less? Pay everyone $200k or $100k (essentially stop hiring in high cost location)? Until the markets/remote salaries align, you kind of have to pay based salaries the people are able/need to receive in their respected…

Yeah, essentially stop hiring ordinary skill in high cost locations. Why would you? Why would you pay $200K to someone in San Francisco for work that can be done for $100K in Alabama? Unless the person in San Francisco is higher skill, in which case they will be hired at a higher level/comp package, which has nothing to do with geography.

Pay adjusted to location is an unearned bonus for people living in expensive areas. People arguing for non-location-adjusted comp want wages to race to the bottom, allowing the people living in the poorest areas to earn that money, which makes sense from a social justice point of view but is going to really suck for the people who have gotten used to earning $200K entry level in San Francisco.

Re: Remote First at Brex

#40

Post by ryanSrich »

crashedsnow wrote: post #32
ryanSrich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a relic, and a bad one. I run a remote-first, remote-only company and we pay everyone based on experience and merit. Not location. If you want to stretch $150k in San Francisco go for it. Good luck having to live with 3 other roommates. However, if you want to take that same $150k and live like a king in the middle of Kansas that's an option as well. Adjusting someones pay simply because they're logging onto the…

I don't see it as a relic, or a bad one. Some people can't just up and move to a cheaper location for a job they don't know they'll have in a year's time. How do you decide what to pay? Paying based on "experience and merit" needs to be anchored on something, so you just end up either massively over-paying someone in a location that's cheap, or massively under-paying someone in an expensive area. If you want to pay e…

> Any company with shareholders is accountable first to them (for good or bad) and I'm not sure your board or CFO would agree that paying peak makes sense

Good thing I have neither a board or a CFO.

But to respond directly, I think you're down playing how much of an advantage over paying (as you've put it) can be for acquiring great talent. Great companies are built by great people. Paying them well for the work they're doing regardless of where they live shouldn't be a controversial opinion.

In a post-covid, SaaS based world I just don't see how location matters at all. If I'm in Omaha Nebraska I pay the same amount for an item on Amazon as someone living in downtown San Francisco. The internet flattens.

Post reply on HN