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

Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

open.buffer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 64 posts

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#41

Post by humanrebar »

moxious wrote: post #18
chrisan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya.. I don't get how they can call this a "remote-first" approach or adheres to "Do the Right Thing" for the employees The reason these high cost of living places exist is because they are in high demand due to all the benefits. Someone living in North Dakota (sorry anyone who is, I'm sure it is great!) won't have all the culture, food, weather, entertainment, night life, etc of someone living in the bay area. A "Do…

If people were truly paid for what they did and not where they were, this would probably exclude most Bay Area people since they're at the top of the market. Perhaps your company has adjusted to the normalcy of SF rates? OTOH, location matters a lot. Otherwise your company wouldn't be in the Bay Area. Centers of gravity are a thing. Why not pay for location? Even if an employee is remote only, if they network well wh…

> OTOH, location matters a lot.

Or it matters very little for most things and companies choose the Bay Area for shared reasons: preferences of independently wealthy executives, signalling of some sort, etc.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#42

Post by pleasecalllater »

moxious wrote: post #22
jasonkester wrote: post #15

To me, this seems like it will ensure your company only ever has average developers. A good developer can negotiate a bette rate if he wants, or at the least, he'll be offered gigs at above average rates. By sticking to the exact market average according to their salary surveys, they're only able to select from the list of candidates who don't meet the above criteria. That is, the below average ones, and the occasion…

Not all developers care about salary first. I see this overall approach as more like flying a flag and publicly indicating culture because there's a particular crowd they want. This is how they advertise what's important to them and draw like minded people closer. That seems 100% legit to me, and super useful for any dev considering them that they're so straightforward. No one has to like it or choose it for themselv…

Yea, so an employee should work hard to make money for the pleasure of the CEO buying another home this month? I rather work for my family, not for the CEO's one. If a company doesn't want to pay me enough, I'm sure I will find another one.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#43

Post by humanrebar »

jasonkester wrote: post #26
moxious wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all developers care about salary first. I see this overall approach as more like flying a flag and publicly indicating culture because there's a particular crowd they want. This is how they advertise what's important to them and draw like minded people closer. That seems 100% legit to me, and super useful for any dev considering them that they're so straightforward. No one has to like it or choose it for themselv…

Negotiating your market rate isn't caring about money 'first'. It's caring about money 'at all.' They're different. Leaving $50k/year on the table at age 30 will move your retirement date back ten years. It takes a lot of culture to make up for that.

Right. If it's not about money, just issue me blank checks every month.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#44

Post by pleasecalllater »

Oh, so the average salary in your city is $100 per month? Oh, cool, so you get $300 per month from us, work like we do in SF, and buy that $2k computer, so you can have stuff like we have. Oh, and don't forget to work hard enough, our CEO needs to buy another car this month.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#45

Post by [deleted] »

moxious wrote: post #17
ploggingdev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp recently started paying all employees SF salaries : https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-... They are a class act, I'm not aware of any other company that does this.

That comes across to me really strange. Labor is a market just like bananas or mobile phone data. How does it make sense to pay the ceiling price of all markets, everywhere? I'm all for personally earning more money, but this also disproportionately rewards people who live in cheap places.

[deleted]

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#46

Post by humanrebar »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #34
moxious wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all developers care about salary first. I see this overall approach as more like flying a flag and publicly indicating culture because there's a particular crowd they want. This is how they advertise what's important to them and draw like minded people closer. That seems 100% legit to me, and super useful for any dev considering them that they're so straightforward. No one has to like it or choose it for themselv…

They should. All companies care about money first, so why shouldn't the employees? Having an awesome work culture should be something every company strives for and shouldn't make up for mediocre pay practices.

"Awesome work culture" for me looks a lot like "a place productive for technical work". This includes places to collaborate, freedom to network, empowerment of individual contributors to innovate and pitch, etc.

I'm not sure anyone except college hires (though we should be skeptical here, too) pick a company for the foosball tables, beer fridges, and intramural bowling teams. Having those things signals to me that I'm probably free to network with a contributor from another team to share some ideas, though.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#47

Post by StavrosK »

greysteil wrote: post #38
StavrosK wrote: post #3

I really dislike adjusting salaries of remote employees by location. Oh, you live in San Francisco, where everything costs a lot because it's trivial to network and get a multitude of job offers the minute you change your LinkedIn status? Let us pay you for the privilege double what we pay someone in Kenya who has none of these opportunities! Or, alternatively, "You don't live in SF so we don't have to compete with a…

That's not quite how the economics works here. A fully rational company should be thinking "what do I have to pay to get the work I need doing done?" If that work can be done remotely then that optimisation works out as: - Who can I hire in low cost locations and pay less for, without sacrificing quality (which I'm using VERY broadly to represent ANY differences in the work, team interactions, etc.). - If I can't hir…

You're overcomplicating this. At any given point, a rational company hiring remote is thinking:

"Who is the cheapest person I can hire that passes a quality bar?"

Why should they care about location at all? They just want the job done.

> Don't feel too sorry for people in low-cost centres who work gets redistributed to at a lower cost - in the long term work from the high-cost centres is shifting to them, unless there are quality reasons for it to stay in the high-cost areas.

I don't feel sorry for them (us), I just dislike it because I see job postings from companies I'd like to work at that say "Come work for us! Oh, you live in ? We can only make you an offer that's a fourth of what you're currently making at , sorry. Feel free to move to SF and our offer will go up fivefold, though!".

In the end, it's a free market and everyone does what they want, but these companies end up missing out on good people because they artificially restrict their search to high-cost areas (because people in low-cost areas won't work for these companies when they can get higher-paying work elsewhere). It just irks me to see that a company I like is engaging in misguided, indirect area targeting when they purport to do remote.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#49

Post by humanrebar »

scrumper wrote: post #37
pawelkomarnicki wrote: post #28

"Cost of living" factor is the most idiotic thing ever.

Why's that? Food, housing, and transport cost different amounts in different locations.

I wouldn't use the word "idiotic", but cost of living is highly situational. The cost of living adjustment for someone who can have three roommates is different than the cost of living adjustment for a family of five.

Also, cost of living adjustments should only be applied to subsistence-level, locally-priced expenses (i.e. rent, gas prices, fresh groceries, etc.). You don't want the $X you are putting into savings every year to be adjusted down because you moved to a cheaper zip code.

Re: Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0

#50

Post by karrotwaltz »

scrumper wrote: post #37
pawelkomarnicki wrote: post #28

"Cost of living" factor is the most idiotic thing ever.

Why's that? Food, housing, and transport cost different amounts in different locations.

But everything else is the same price. If my rent is twice the price of yours, should I really have twice your salary?

If the formula for salary was (basic expenses * life factor) + (benchmark * role * experience) I would understand, but we're nowhere near that.

Post reply on HN