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Comment by lgieron | Hacker News Reader

I wish companies were more open about their salaries, esp. in remote roles. The discrepancies between what companies offer can be so big (like up to 3x for essentially the same job), that I often don't apply based on my prejudices ("they don't look like they'd be willing to pay too much") - and with time, I've found that my prejudices can sometimes be dead wrong.

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The phrase "we want to hire passionate people" tends to re-enforce that prejudice to me. It frequently seems like marketing speak for "we want people who will write code for us outside business hours without reasonable compensation".

Oh, yeah. The word itself is pretty close to a dealbreaker for me.

Luckily, none of the sort. We'd like to hire people who think and think independently. There's no such thing as you've mentioned here. Good point about the wording, though, haven't thought it's used like this.

I thought you tempered your use of "passionate" with specific examples that showed it wasn't exploitive or BS. It was clear you were looking for people who could write really high quality code and who had strong thoughts on what was right.

It's when you see "passionate" without any context that it becomes a turn off.

I'd be interested to know too, they are based in Poland so I suspect pay Polish salaries [0]. The thing is an English speaker in Poland could just as easily get a remote job for a company in London and get double the salary.

When you open up to remote people, do you have to put the salaries up to reflect this?

[0] Glass door shows software engineer salaries in Poland are around zt6000/mo or £1200/mo.

Yeah £1200/mo sounds like a reasonable middle level developer salary in Eastern Europe (I am from Lithuania).

It's a good point about English speakers. I think it has to do with network and comfort zone. When you are 25 and have spent all your life in your home country, you usually have some kind of network, some reputation. Makes it easier, and comfortable.

While getting a client from the States or UK is something unfamiliar, out of comfort zone, maybe some tried and got disappointed by oDesk/elance etc (I find their application process totally soul crushing, when you might spend ~30mins to write a nice customized proposal and hear nothing back).

I am based in Poland (working remotely for US-based company though). I'd say the 6k zl is a bit low, in big cities an experienced dev can get 2x times that, or more (and outliers like Google pay much much more).

> I often don't apply based on my prejudices

I feel the same way. As a solution I always refer to job description to ballpark what the company prepare to offer.

1. If the company are looking for the best. Up to you.

2. If its for normal, somewhat replaceable job(meaning you have equivalent colleague on that position). Median between the company and your location.

3. If its for menial task. You're usually bounded by your location average salary, or even lower.

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