They’re usually looking to discount your salary by 30-50% by some arbitrary cost of living factor.
You bring the same value - whether that’s delivered from New York City or Des Moines Iowa.
The real downside was that I had minimal mobility because most of the tech world is still in the dark ages of management by proximity. Doing a job search in the startup world in the age of Covid, I assumed that there would be an explosion of WFH jobs, but most are not.
The even crazier notion is this - you shouldn’t have to concede anything. If they landed a dev in SF, they’d be willing to pay them the appropriate SF comp.
It’s in their budget. Press harder. Money gives you options, even if you’re not a big spender, it’s security. Why not you?
Demand more.
I've been on the hiring side - if you want a very senior engineer and want to vet them properly, there's nothing fast about the process.
You have access to a million senior engineers but who cares if you only have two engineers on your side that are qualified enough to interview them and those engineers are still expected to ship code, do code reviews, alongside doing interviews?
If you can deliver a fantastic interview where you code on demand, talk architecture tradeoffs intelligently, the leverage still belongs to you as the engineer.
Regardless of the number of candidates.
In my experience, less than 1/4 of the organisations and projects I help go remote / distributed do it for cost reasons. Most do it for brain power and efficiency. It's easier to recruit globally, especially when you're looking for very good people. We have strong data that asynchronous transparent communication increases efficiency, agency, autonomy, and decreases both the rate and cost of mistakes. It also drastically reduces the necessity of coordination management.
I wonder if anyone has tried moving to NYC/SF for a year and then moving back to lower cost of living. Would these remote-only companies really give you a paycut?
However: In the long term if employees stay with the company long term, salaries tend to get bumped up to approximately the same. So you might get started lower, but your yearly pay bump will be higher.
What??? Only in SV could a company get away with saying it’s “healthy” to not pay people their value. Usually, golden handcuffs refer to retirement and other benefits, not base compensation.
Team members in low-wage regions being in golden handcuffs and sticking around because of the compensation even when they are unhappy.
A concentration of team members in low-wage regions, since it is a better deal for them, while we want a geographically diverse team.
Honestly, the whole thing is just a huge rationalization. They could just have said "we adjust for location because we can".
The value you bring may be the same, but if you commoditize yourself it's possible your employer will agree. Then react accordingly. Remember, nobody wants a shovel. They want a hole.
Sell your value, not your price.
You go ahead and keep holding out for your extra 30-50%. I'm very happy to fill that spot. It's not like they pay Des Moines employees $3/hour. Six figures goes a long way out here on the lake.
But don't kid yourself - your ability to be thrifty isn't a virtue in this context. You steal experiences from yourself, your family, and you jeopardize your health and safety by not demanding appropriate compensation for the value you bring.
I don't know you, but you're probably a great engineer. And if they can pay some guy on the coast a fantastic salary, then they can find a way to pay you the same fantastic salary.
There are people who can do what I can do who get paid $250,000/year. There are people who can do what I can do who can't find a job because they are holding out for $250,000/year. I'm ok making $50/month less and getting the pick of the litter.
This is called capitalism. I'm a big fan.
> They’re usually looking to discount your salary by 30-50% by some arbitrary cost of living factor.
Discount off of what? The local max in SF?
Google Does this now. Are you angry that Google isn't paying employees the same in SF and India?
Remote IS a benefit. Lack of commute. Full control over workspace. In true remote "full control" over your schedule (lunch with friends. Time shifting work at a whim. More integrated lifestyle.)
Like I said 6 months ago, please attack "physical" company comp with the same vigor as remote company comp.
(I work at GitLab, these views are my own, etc etc etc and I'm still tired of this naive hot take.)
Yes, yes I am. If Jeff Dean moves to India are his commits suddenly worth 10% of what they were when in the Bay Area?
There are high performing employees - regardless of where they contribute from that bring a ton of value.
No, but his options have probably changed and negotiating positions have probably shifted. Have you considered that others may view compensation as a negotiation?
It sounds like you're operating from some variant of the labor theory of value and treating this approach as a moral imperative. If value is realized, compensation should be according to value, and nothing else should matter. Is that an accurate summary of your position?
If that's accurate, might I suggest that this position is something an entrepreneur is ideally positioned to use to their advantage? Surely the world is full of excellent software engineers who would jump at the chance to be paid according to their value.
A-level players will try and get compensation what they think they deserve by negotiating discreetly. However most of the CRUD peddlers who are not in tech hubs remain aware they are not going to get Silicon valley salaries while living in some remote Indian town.
Push back on the employer. You bring value regardless of location. They desperately need your services. If you make the cut, you have the leverage in the negotiation.
Quit being “Midwest nice” and you will probably get much more than you thought.
And yes, I'd criticize my current employer too if they'd try to cut my salary for moving.
Here’s a question I had on GitLab’s policy:
Let’s say I move to SF for a few months starting out at GitLab. I then move back to a lower cost of living area, for family reasons. Is the paycut immediate, or is there some room for negotiation? Surely very few people are going to be happy have a loss of pay.
Take the $25K cut and buy a house with a pool.
If your cost of living goes down 25% and your standard of living goes up 25%, wouldn't it be silly of you to be unhappy about a 20% loss of pay?
As you can read here, talk to people ops about the plan and get approval.
This could actually be a great startup idea - virtual "hacker houses" located in expensive cities that people can use as virtual home bases. We will take 5% of your tier-1 income to handle all your paperwork so you can be free to live where ever you want.