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Comment by crashedsnow | Hacker News Reader

I don't see it as a relic, or a bad one. Some people can't just up and move to a cheaper location for a job they don't know they'll have in a year's time. How do you decide what to pay? Paying based on "experience and merit" needs to be anchored on something, so you just end up either massively over-paying someone in a location that's cheap, or massively under-paying someone in an expensive area. If you want to pay everyone like they live in Zurich, then more power to you but doesn't seem sensible from a business management standpoint and the person in North Carolina would probably be over the moon at half that. Any company with shareholders is accountable first to them (for good or bad) and I'm not sure your board or CFO would agree that paying peak makes sense

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> Any company with shareholders is accountable first to them (for good or bad) and I'm not sure your board or CFO would agree that paying peak makes sense

Good thing I have neither a board or a CFO.

But to respond directly, I think you're down playing how much of an advantage over paying (as you've put it) can be for acquiring great talent. Great companies are built by great people. Paying them well for the work they're doing regardless of where they live shouldn't be a controversial opinion.

In a post-covid, SaaS based world I just don't see how location matters at all. If I'm in Omaha Nebraska I pay the same amount for an item on Amazon as someone living in downtown San Francisco. The internet flattens.

I understand the ideal of it, but the main reason why it doesn't work is simple supply and demand. Your employment opportunity will seem compelling for folks that live in LCOL areas, or folks trying to escape HCOL. But for the 5x as many programmers that live in HCOL areas, your pay isn't competitive.

If you want to reduce your candidate pool by 70 or 80%, by all means, go for it, but there's a clear market reason why folks are paid geographically.

Where are you sourcing your stat from? It's hard believe that the millions of developers in China, India, SE Asia, East Europe, etc. are outnumbered by people in New York and San Francisco.

Cripes, US$150k is good money in London and that's a considerably higher cost location than rural Kansas.

Usually remote means US only for US based remote companies.

This is the reality, it’s supply and demand, not “fairness”

I agree that the internet flattens distance. Thank you for paying employees like it's 2020, not 2000.

One thing it does not flatten is time zone. When two team members have 11 hours difference, their ability to collaborate is very limited. It's reasonable to discount the pay of employees who are too far in time. Alternatively, avoid hiring people outside of +/- 4 hours from the mean (unless they are the best in the world in something).

I generally agree with you, but I do struggle with the amount of risk taken by paying the top end salaries. Great companies are made by great people, yes, but great salaries are made by all kinds of people.

Then do you have to pay US salaries at all?

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