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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?

#351

Post by emirsavran »

I'm living in a country where the monthly minimum wage is $275, and I work for a US company with a good salary, at least in my country.

I understand the basics of economics, but I must say this pay gap is pretty disappointing for me too. Yes, I'm living in a country where the cost of living is much cheaper, but the same country is classified as "not free" by Freedom House. The only reason I still live here is to save money before I, hopefully, move to any first-world country.

I want everyone to understand that the cheap cost of living usually comes with restrictions on human rights and mental illness.

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

#352

Post by mtnGoat »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #349
robertlagrant wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no single one. Do you mean the market rate in the most expensive places to live in the world?

See that's kind of my question: Why and how is there no single market rate? If you have truly worldwide remote work, that's what you would expect, right?

Not exactly. Because not all locations have the same value. Ie; harder to travel to, less infrastructure, more latency, working hours not lined up with certain market hours, etc. Two prior doing the same thing in entirely different places, aren’t always equal.

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

#353

Post by ramtatatam »

I, like you, don't like it the way it is when it comes to remote IT job market, but it's very clear how this works. In country X average full stack developer charges Y dollars, recruiters know what average pay is so they will only offer pay within same range (or sometimes slightly more, like 5% more). Companies look for cheap labor and will not pay more than they really have to.

Where I live now the top pay is around $100k per year (fully remote full stack, but similarly dev/ops). Extremely rarely (maybe once in a year) I see an advert paying $200k and since everyone wants to earn this much the competition is enormous. This also applies to FAANG who don't pay more than average market rate.

I don't know if my observation is close to reality but from what I see better paid positions are usually not going through public job boards but through word of mouth and through networks.

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

#354

Post by dragonwriter »

closeparen wrote: post #320
dragonwriter wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The…

> 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.

Right, so pay-by-value will probably end up paying higher wages, on average, in tech hubs, without any resort to pay-by-location.

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

#355

Post by telecomsteve »

In theory I agree with the OP, but I am having the reverse problem now. My startup has an equal pay policy. I live in San Francisco and have a San Francisco salary, but cannot afford a home here without saving for many years and having a very lean budget.

Next to me are colleagues who live in countries where the cost of living is a fraction. They tell stories of the first and second homes they are building and how they agree with the pay policy. They are living a quality of life that is beyond anything I can have while living in San Francisco, and I partly resent this.

Within the company, people have and are still moving to low cost areas, because the company is fully remote. I however am married and my partner cannot as easily be relocated.

I don't give my company name here because it is very small with only a fraction or employees living in San Francisco.

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

#356

Post by wahnfrieden »

pyrodactyl wrote: post #71
pkrotich wrote: post #30

I agree with you that it's unfair and senseless but it's market dynamic (supply and demand) with capitalism bend to it. There are probably hundrends of people with your capabilities, where you're now, willing to work at your current pay scale and probably thousands elsewhere in poorer places willing to work for much less than you. Not to mention even more - who are as capable as you're - but lack the opportunity you…

Thanks for this, helps me that people understand me and I'm not being very unreasonable. From what I've gotten from my discussions on my post is 1) I will start looking for contract work. Not going to be easy, but the best way forward. 2) Use some of the negotiation techniques mentioned like bringing up the fact I'm not competing locally, but internationally 3) Negotiate with my company and threaten to leave? Not ful…

btw - drop me a msg on twitter (throwaway is fine), @aehlke if you'd like to connect on resources for going independent with dev work, I'm starting a full stack resource for this soon and would be happy to share. good luck

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

#357

Post by wahnfrieden »

pkrotich wrote: post #72
pyrodactyl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this, helps me that people understand me and I'm not being very unreasonable. From what I've gotten from my discussions on my post is 1) I will start looking for contract work. Not going to be easy, but the best way forward. 2) Use some of the negotiation techniques mentioned like bringing up the fact I'm not competing locally, but internationally 3) Negotiate with my company and threaten to leave? Not ful…

5) Become indispensable in the role you're (before #3). This is true even locally - why should I as an employer pay you more when I can get someone cheaper to do what you can do. 6) While contract work sometimes calls for a generalist (#1 above)... try to be a specialist by becoming an expert in a high demand field(s). At that point you can charge whatever you want regardless of your location. 7) Don't exchange your…

one way is to be good at integrating some common but specialized open source, for example helping companies who've adopted prosemirror (for features but maybe not their whole platform justifying an internal team)

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

#358

Post by senderpath »

The very concept of "fairness" won't help you and will likely hurt your efforts to succeed in life. Besides being somewhat subjective, a business must prioritize profit over fairness in order to survive in a competitive environment. Your employer will pay you what they believe (possibly erroneously) is their optimal for profit, modulo the legal environment and company politics.

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

#359

Post by phendrenad2 »

Your pay is based on your value to the company. Things that diminish your value to the company: Being in a timezone different from the main office, speaking a language or dialect different from the main office, having different laws than the country in which the main office is, being in a satellite office where management's chain of command is less effective, etc. MAANGA companies set up offices in Europe because despite all of these hurdles, European developer salaries are so low that it's worth it. If you want to increase that salary, work on destroying some of these hurdles. Either work with your company to get a product moved to entirely European development (a good example is Ubisoft doing development of some games in US, some in Canada, some in France, etc.), or try to break down some of the barriers like timezone, and vote in politicians who aren't driven by protectionist Europe-vs-US mindsets.

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

#360

Post by darth_avocado »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #247
darth_avocado wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

What you’re describing is a temporary setback and loss of productivity for the company. Almost never is it make or break situation for the company. You can hire someone who doesn’t care and is not motivated as the person who left, but the net effect to the company is marginal.

In the rare occasion that a single person is valuable enough that if they leave, the company would shut down, the person is well compensated.

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