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Comment by e40 | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure there are, even right now, plenty of decent developers who would take seemingly lower salaries in exchange for working in a much lower cost of living area, provided the company itself is still fairly modern and forward-thinking both technically and culturally.

You would think, right? The last two offers I made where to people in very low cost of living places. I offered them our "Bay Area, not Google $$ salary" and they both said they expected Google salaries and turned down the offer. Until that point, everything had been clicking perfectly.

EDIT: last three people.

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I know it's awkward, so I understand if you don't answer, but even wide number ranges would make this a lot less abstract. What is the range of "Bay Area, not Google $$ salary", and what do you alternatively think is reasonable and affordable to you?

Salaries of $125/yr were turned down. They were looking in the range of $150-175/yr. They where in areas where the $125/yr was equivalent to $75k/yr. We were looking at experienced developers only.

As I said elsewhere, we had a developer poached from Google for $250k.

Thanks for the data!

> They were in areas where the $125/yr was equivalent to $75k/yr. We were looking at experienced developers only.

It sounds like you offered $75k a year [which you calculated as equivalent to a $125k/year offer for their location].

I'd turn that down too. People try to pull that adjustment trick on me all the time when I was looking to relocate, I'd go up there and they'd give me a number the day after I got home and I'd be like "...that isn't equivalent at all." and then politely decline.

Just fyi, maybe I misunderstood.

No, I offered $125k.

The other question is where and how you're doing your recruitment. There are a lot of "under the radar" developers who work primarily for non-tech companies in a tech role. These folks are not rockstars, but many are competent enough and much cheaper (sub-6 figures) than a startup/tech developer.

You may be surprised by how many hidden gems, you have in your own network. It probably applies if you have worked for a long time (10+ years). Some months back, I was able to hire an ex-colleague, who is a great developer. Who took a paycut to join my company for privileges like work from home, and freedom to work on cutting-edge tech (relatively, by leaps, from his prior long held position in a corporate).

FYI... My monthly living expenses in the midwest, for everything, are less than $1500, and I have a family and a mortgage. If I were single, I could live nicely on < $1K/mo. Starting salaries here are $60K and senior engineers expect > $100K.

Value drives the discussion. If you're not paying $120k + 25% overhead for skilled/good tech people, you're catching people who don't know the market, are in a bind or underestimate their worth.

I think there is a phenomena where people measure themselves by salary more strongly than quality of life, because it is easier to compare apples to apples. When I was graduating from Business school (twenty years ago when people did that so don't throw shade) people compared themselves against their other classmates in terms of salary almost exclusively.

In retrospect it may have been more important to get your foot in the door of a company or industry that you wanted to stick with for a career. Alternately, if you get paid a lot when you are young it becomes your quote. In my experience, people who don't get paid a lot at the start tend to get paid less for the rest of their working lives.

> I offered them our "Bay Area, not Google $$ salary" and they both said they expected Google salaries and turned down the offer. Until that point, everything had been clicking perfectly.

Can I ask what number you went with?

The reason I ask is I don't live in the Bay Area and do live in a lower cost of living area [but still not cheap] but the figures for any decent senior engineer here are still $100k+.

See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948416

So... what does that practically mean? Bay Area salary = $100k+benefits, Google salary = $200k?

I definitely know folks who claim Bay Area $ to be $60-$70k and play the numbers game... but then they play the numbers game (and 3 isn't a numbers game).

See my reply here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948416

How many times does it have to happen before it makes sense to offer a higher rate?

That would create problems for existing developers. Last thing I want to do is piss off my current, valuable staff who absolutely love working for me. Many have been on the job for 10+ years.

Okay, but then the question becomes, how often would it have to happen before you increased the salary of your current staff as well as the offer to new hires, to reflect the new market reality?

I mean, the broader question seems to be, is this just a thing we're going through or has the world changed and are developers just demanding more money for the kind of work you're doing?

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