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Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

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Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#311

Post by Beltiras »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #272
kleinsch wrote: post #22

Your 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 your replacement. That’s it. That's not quite true. The cost of hiring your replacement is only the maximum they'll accept to pay you. But they will pay you only slightly above what they think you'll find elsewhere. So your pay is the MIN(cost of your replacement, what they think you can get elsewhere). That explains location-based pay for remote jobs. Because they take into ac…

As a remote worker I have to disagree. My value is the local value for the employer. I could decide (and recently did) to move countries and it might change taxation and labor laws but for the most part they don't care about where I am situated. What they care about is the speedy resolution of feature requests and trouble tickets.

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#312

Post by vultour »

herbst wrote: post #267
amelius wrote: post #24

Start your own company or become a freelance worker.

Not sure why you got downvoted. I travelled SEA and did some freelancing at Swiss rates. Now I live in Switzerland and earn internationally. By far the best I could do for my mental health once the wage slave thought took over.

How did you find clients?

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#313

Post by louhike »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #95

Kind of depends what you are getting paid, but if it is less then $100k say, you can easily find remote jobs that pay more, play them off against each other. The companies are using sharp business practice to get you as cheap as possible, you can do the same to get as much as possible. Apply for 100 remote jobs, interview, smash the interviews, ask for top $ from all of them. See https://remoteok.com/ , etc. If on he…

When I look for remote jobs, it seems most of them require to be in the same country or the salary isn’t that great.

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#314

Post by nprateem »

kodah wrote: post #232
kleinsch wrote: post #22

Your 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…

> there’s no moral failing, Sorry, but this logic needs to stop. If a company is selling a product online for a fixed cost to an entire region then the people who contribute to that product that do the same thing should be paid the same amount. That is, indeed, a moral failing. If a company wants to pay workers less based on where they live then their product should be similarly cheaper. We just don't see this though…

You don't understand cost vs customer value.

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#315

Post by robertlagrant »

spullara wrote: post #297
robertlagrant wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's 3 - the role has to be valuable enough to pay for: MIN(cost of your replacement, what they think you can get elsewhere, your value to the company)

they can't calculate 3 so it doesn't come into the conversation

If they can't calculate 3 then how is there budget to hire you?

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#316

Post by nprateem »

pyrodactyl wrote: post #56
soneca wrote: post #33

It is a negotiation not a fairness discussion (even though fairness is part of the negotiation arguments). I asked about it in my current job before accepting the offer and was able to successfully negotiate it. In your situation, it seems that the only way is to look for a new job. Anyway, the way I negotiated was very simple. Basically a version of ”I understand that this is a good salary relative to my local marke…

Great advice on negotiation. I'll definitely use this going forward. Thank you!

It's a BATNA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#317

Post by spullara »

robertlagrant wrote: post #315
spullara wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they can't calculate 3 so it doesn't come into the conversation

If they can't calculate 3 then how is there budget to hire you?

i don't know if you have worked in these organizations but they don't know.

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#319

Post by redditor98654 »

patrulek wrote: post #250
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'm just imagining this dude quitting and his manager suddenly realizing that no one else knows anything about the parts he worked on and how fucked they are now. Just because a bunch of people could take your job doesn't mean they'll give a shit about the job. Good, well motivated, employ…

> I'm just imagining this dude quitting and his manager suddenly realizing that no one else knows anything about the parts he worked on and how fucked they are now. I would bet its rarely a case. We like to think that we are irreplacable, but after our quit company/project is still moving on.

100%. I recently quit a job (FAANG) after 13 years and I thought I have so much institutional knowledge that mu departure would be impactful for at least a little while.

And while I was under no illusion of my importance and did not expect any breakdown of the team or anything like that, I did think I would get at least ONE question after I left from my previous teammates about some obscure thing that I thought only I knew.

Nada. No one asked me anything - they had no issues for which they had to reach out to me. Team did a re-org and things just kept moving. It was a humbling realization to say the least.

Re: Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others handle it?

#320

Post by closeparen »

dragonwriter wrote: post #310
closeparen wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If your revenue isn't locale dependent then it makes perfect business sense. The delta between the wage needed to get & keep the candidate vs. the wage you're actually paying them is essentially a charitable donation here. Of course businesses regularly do philanthropy, nothing wrong with that. Their own upper-middle-class employees are a weird choice of beneficiary though. Business sense would be to keep the money…

> The delta between the wage needed to get & keep the candidate vs. the wage you're actually paying them is essentially a charitable donation here If you are doing location-based pay, the difference between the wage you are paying in inflated regions and the wage for a similar candidate in the least expensive region from which a candidate is available is a charitable donation. Location-based pay means systematically…

>for a similar candidate in the least expensive region

Right, if you can find them. But the distribution of talent isn't random: bright ambitious people were responding to incentives to migrate to tech hubs at least up until the pandemic. People grew from intern to senior working in the industry's most respected engineering shops there, learning from the best. And that includes global talent: H1Bs are everywhere. There's a case to be made that this cohort is overrated or overpriced and you don't need them - fine. But if you want to hire them in numbers, you're going to have to pay wages that are competitive where they live.

I agree you wouldn't want to hire very junior or unimpressive candidates from the Bay Area/New York/Seattle for remote work, when you can get similar candidates for much cheaper in LCOL regions or countries. But if you're looking to hire from the top end, and your offers aren't competitive there, you're going to miss a lot of great options.

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