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Comment by vitus | Hacker News Reader

We are indeed still conducting interviews (I had one just on Friday). Whether that transfers to actual offers extended during this time, I have no idea.

What I can say we are absolutely not doing at this time is rescinding offers, even for new grads.

There certainly have been some shifts over the past year or two to prioritize growth in cheaper markets (for lack of a better term) -- one manager I talked to mentioned that the headcount tradeoff was basically "one engineer in Mountain View, or 3-4 in Warsaw" (which is an accurate reflection of the salary disparity).

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"We" being...?

(Without country the anecdote is not meaningful in this context)

Sounds like Google given the reference to Mountain View.

Are Googlers in general okay with the idea that their contributions are worth 1/4 as much if they live in Warsaw?

By then accepting their contract, yes?

if it's the best offer you can get, would you quit just because someone else on another continent is being paid more?

> contributions are worth 1/4 as much if they live in Warsaw?

Under the "free market", compensation isn't some objective number etched into a tablet somewhere in the universe. Instead, it is the result of market forces.

If they’re not they can apply for a transfer after 2 years to Mountain View and they’ll get it, unless US Immigration vetoes it. I hear the Zürich office pays pretty well too and if you’re Polish I believe immigration is very easy as they’re EU citizens.

Yes, usually rationalizing it as "but it's cheaper to live in Warsaw", which is true. That being said it is a reflection of market reality, where some (many) people are definitely unwilling to move for 4x the salary. This doesn't of course mean that SV is "4x worse", but rather is a pricing of their other activities/personal relationships.

There are definitely issues with Google's comp system, but the fact that pay depends on location is IMO not unreasonable.

Especially so given that there's often a lot of flexibility with regards to location.

For example, I chose to relocate from London to Zürich (without changing teams/project). I did it for quality-of-life reasons but the comp also increased quite significantly, even adjusted for cost of living.

And I am not some special snowflake: everybody around me who wanted to be based somewhere else had their relocation requests approved.

Pre-Brexit?

Post-Brexit. Why?

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