[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation,...
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Ask HN: Location based pay is killing my motivation, how do others
handle it?
Recently I got to know the pay scales that my peers and even junior
developers are getting in the US/EU. It is substantially more even
though we do the same work. Though I've known about this policy,
getting to know the numbers is extremely jarring. It's causing a
lot of resentment and detachment to work from my side. I've raised
this issue with my manager and they've told me that I can transfer
if i want those pay scales but that's not a possibility for me. If
the company is willing to pay me that amount in a different
location, why can't it pay me the same here? The reasons they've
given me are weak and I want to debunk them. 1) cost of living - a
lot of my colleagues are in locations where they can buy
independent houses which are cheaper than an appartment in the city
I live. Real estate in my country runs on black money, and I'll
probably never be able to own a house. Some of the EU countries
provide free health care and education, I'm just a major health
issue away from poverty. Most of them come from nuclear family
cultures, where as I take care of my retired parents and younger
siblings, and if i get married that's a whole new family. 2)
talent - if they are more talented than me then why am I in a more
senior role than them. And my talent won't change if I change
location so why should my salary 3) something about not trapping
in a high salary job - I dont even know what to say about this. I
would love to be in that trap instead of the one I'm in right now
where I'm being forced to migrate, where I would loose my family,
friends and all the support structures I've built around me, to
receive the same benefits as my peers. This seems senseless to me.
What would the company gain if I work from a different location
that they would pay me more? It feels like a poverty tax and I've
never felt more like a cog in a machine. What do others think
about this and how do you deal with this?
Author : pyrodactyl
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-09-04 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
| danielfoster wrote:
| The answer is the same here as for anyone else who wants a
| substantial raise. You need to find a new job. It's possible your
| current employer could match a new offer or even pay you more,
| but first you need to show them you're serious about leaving.
| christophilus wrote:
| I second this. Another option is the one Manish Pabrai took: do
| just enough work to not get fired, and spend the excess time
| and energy building your own business.
| soueuls wrote:
| The reverse would be unfair as well.
|
| If someone have to live in San Francisco to make 250k/year but
| pay a high rent etc. And you make 250k/year living in Ho Chi Minh
| that would be unfair to them. And would be a little bit unfair to
| your local people, the selected few (employees) able to work
| remotely would literally make 80x time the local salary.
|
| There is no way to solve this problem, if you want your
| compensation to be independent from your local area. Become an
| expert, start being a contractor and cross your fingers.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Your employer is missing out by not paying by value. I suggest
| you find a new role at a new company.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| It depends on your size of company. You might get a small company
| doing a one-off equalization that pays you way above the local
| rate but the reason most companies have presence in foreign
| markets is that labor is cheaper. When that labor increases then
| they move elsewhere to keep costs down. It's the whole reason for
| having foreign locations for most US companies. If it got to the
| stage where wages are starting to get such that the RoI isn't
| there then the company will pull out and bring the jobs home.
| mavelikara wrote:
| Does this same logic also apply to the price of goods and
| services you consume? For example, when you go to a restaurant in
| your location, do you pay them the same as an equivalent meal
| would cost in US/UK? The chef there is just as talented as one in
| the US, and the value of satisfying a human's hunger should be
| the same irrespective of location.
| calculated wrote:
| Difference here is that we live in the digital world where
| location isn't a constraint to providing services.
| mavelikara wrote:
| OP said: > I've raised this issue with my manager and they've
| told me that I can transfer if i want those pay scales but
| that's not a possibility for me.
|
| Looks like location is a constraint to them.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Well the product this company makes is uniformly priced across
| all locations. So if i wanted to consume the product my company
| makes I would be paying the same price as US/UK.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| "If the company is willing to pay me that amount in a different
| location, why can't it pay me the same here?"
|
| Because capitalism. Or more specifically because your company has
| very little incentive to pay you more than the market rate in
| your locale, unless you give them one. You can either try to do
| that as an individual by basically saying "I'll quit if you don't
| pay me more" or you can try to do it collectively with your
| fellow devs by organising and engaging in collective bargaining.
| Both paths are risky because your local employer might call your
| bluff (how special are you?) or even if you manage to get a
| collective bargaining agreement, there is no guarantee the parent
| company won't take a look at your division, decide that the
| numbers no longer add up and offshore your job somewhere even
| cheaper.
|
| "What would the company gain if I work from a different location
| that they would pay me more?"
|
| Having you, pyrodactyl work from a different locations? Your
| employer would probably gain nothing. Having a presence and hence
| a team in another location with a pyrodactyl-like employee doing
| pyrodactyl-like things. Probably quite a lot. Which is why
| companies don't generally off shore the entirety of their
| development teams even though that would be cheaper.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| "Having a presence and hence a team in another location with a
| pyrodactyl-like employee doing pyrodactyl-like things. Probably
| quite a lot."
|
| Though this is absolutely true for traditional companies, this
| company is actually a fully remote one so they don't have a
| presence as such? I would just be wfh but in a foreign country?
| I still don't see the point in my perticular case
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| The cost of living point is very valid. A great salary in Hanoi
| is most likely to be a very low wage in San Francisco. You can't
| expect an employer to pay way above the local market rate for a
| position. Bottom line, they will always find someone to work if
| they offer a bit above the local market rates. The salary,
| whatever miles away makes no difference.
|
| As far as how to deal with it, look a round you I bet your salary
| is a very good wage for the area you live in. If not then find a
| job with a local company that pays better. Software developers
| get paid well all over the world relative to where they live.
|
| BTW, even with the wages in Silicon Valley, most developers there
| can't afford a house close to where they work. Inability to buy a
| house with local wages is a common problem in the big cities of
| the world so it's not an issue related to your area alone.
| rtlfe wrote:
| > You can't expect an employer to pay way above the local
| market rate for a position.
|
| This would certainly be true for a business where all the
| employees and clients are local, but doesn't have to true for a
| global company with fully remote jobs. If I'm providing as much
| value as an SF-based employee and demand a raise to 80% of SF
| pay, the company would be foolish to let me leave.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| "the company would be foolish to let me leave"
|
| Fundamentally, if they can find a replacement at a lower
| cost, they will. Businesses are about the bottom line. No
| matter what their size is. Fighting that truism will only
| lead you to frustration.
| rtlfe wrote:
| > if they can find a replacement at a lower cost, they will
|
| If that was easy for them, they wouldn't have SF-based
| employees in that role.
| sinenomine wrote:
| > What do others think about this and how do you deal with this?
|
| One word: counter-offer
|
| Welcome to the world ( _plane?_ ) of zero-sum games and
| adversarial strategies! Appealing to fairness doesn't help in
| this world - because the values and corresponding strategies of
| your management and yourself are _fundamentally adversarial to
| each other_ - that is, your delta of profit is their delta of
| loss. People like to argue sophisticated game theoretical takes
| that serve to obfuscate this simple truth.
|
| For a more esoteric take: You could as well model our life as a
| trajectory unfolding across a stack of "planes" - most common
| people manage to constrain their limited & valuable attention to
| "narrative plane" or "social plane" where the main "control
| points" (as in Bezier curves) are mainly various narratives
| floating around and signals of social (dis)approval applied to
| you. Compared to the harsher plane of adversarial game theory I
| mentioned earlier this social plane is much more fuzzy and
| forgiving (main message - be a nice person, get an average nice
| life). Yet for all its self-evident harshness, keeping one's
| attention away from the adversarial plane (where the main control
| points are hard decisions, often legally-powered, decisions
| bearing heavy financial and business implications) leads one to
| sub-optimal outcomes.
|
| If you play this game by its true rules, your score will
| increase. That being said, I agree with the increasingly common
| sentiment that this is long-term unsustainable (sobering
| statistic: https://florentcrivello.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/09/image... ). Some solution is increasingly
| becoming necessary, and this solution is likely some form of UBI.
|
| Why our politics is dominated by various local and global _non-
| sequitur_ causes and not this sobering issue of rising necessity
| of UBI is an exercise left to the reader.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Haha, this seems important but I don't fully understand what
| you're saying. Will need sometime to process this.
| sinenomine wrote:
| It's ultimately simple: many people, especially people from
| professional-managerial class (PMC) which keeps rising in its
| aggregate wealth & prominence during the recent past, will
| tell you (maybe in a comment section on HN or some other
| media) that using "counter-offers" as a career strategy is
| unethical, akin to blackmail. This is a (often performative)
| niceness narrative common to the social plane.
|
| Be aware that it very well could be the same PMC people who
| consistently use various tricks to lowball (google it) offers
| for productive people like you and me in their day to day
| hiring practice, _simply because they can_ - this is the
| logic of harsh business plane.
|
| There is no contradiction here.
|
| Counter-offer is something _you can_ use as well.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There's no real winning these on a point by point basis because
| the entire system of wage labor is set up to separate you from
| the value you create for owners as much as the market will bear.
| Employers agree with this openly every time they talk about how
| this is a market, though they avoid the charged language and
| obfuscate it by drawing focus to other ideas.
|
| These kind of logical points from employers are not rules or
| based in any reality except for ones where they simply have power
| over you to suppress your pay. Hence why these "rules" shift over
| the years as standards shift in favor or away from workers. These
| are among myriad tricks for fighting a class war against labor
| and maximizing extracted value. The best way for workers to beat
| these pay systems is to apply organized pressure collectively,
| not for you to have a private conversation with your boss or HR.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Thanks for verbalizing this so well, I've been thinking the
| same recently and that's what's causing me to withdraw from my
| work.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Remember also that they prefer demoralized workers leave on
| their own since there's no need to provide exit
| compensation/benefits. Look out for employers "quiet
| quitting" on YOU.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Quiet firing as it is being referred to if I'm not wrong.
| And it is working.
| amelius wrote:
| > The best way for workers to beat these pay systems is to
| apply organized pressure collectively
|
| Telling HN could be a first step for that.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Or they could switch jobs to a company that pays more rather
| than spending potentially years organizing which may not even
| work in the end.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| they've been given a bunch of tactics. and sometimes it takes
| weeks rather than years.
| seibelj wrote:
| antisthenes wrote:
| > My problem with these arguments is that there is supposedly
| a permanent class of "owners" and one of "workers", and the
| workers are completely without agency nor ability to become
| owners themselves.
|
| That's because there is. Whatever workers become owners is
| usually through a lucky windfall, e.g. finding a niche, being
| a market first-comer, marrying to a person who is an "owner",
| etc.
|
| It doesn't scale, so any tales of mass upward mobility are
| usually exaggerated and not applicable in practice.
|
| However, none of these are an excuse to stop doing anything.
| You can still play by the capitalist game and improve your
| station, even without becoming an owner. That still requires
| some luck (e.g. having a decent childhood and education), but
| it is at least attainable.
| rtlfe wrote:
| You should be able to make a decent income and be treated
| fairly without having to take the risk and stress of business
| ownership.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| I see that my post might come off as complaining, but I asure
| you it's not the case. I do "hustle" as you call it, and
| that's why I wanted to know other opinions on this.
|
| And I'm not coming at this from a class based marxist
| ideology. I'm asking for equal pay for equal work, which
| isn't a radical idea.
|
| Also, though I do work in a software company, I am not a
| developer or deal with serious tech in anyway.
| seibelj wrote:
| Your other post said you were demoralized and "quiet
| quitting", or collecting a paycheck and fucking around.
|
| That may work for a while, but long term you will be
| unfulfilled and miserable. It's time for a change
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Definitely a time for change, but that doesn't invalidate
| my argument about equal pay
| andrepd wrote:
| The "anybody who objects or suggests improvements to the
| current system are lazy bums who just complain all day" is a
| trope as old as time.
|
| Man I'm just glad not everyone shares your "praise the statu
| quo" mindset, or we would never have had any progress at all.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There's a difference between an indie dev flipping an idea
| into a profitable app with their own hands vs say the
| approach taken by the Fast CEO. I didn't even get into
| ideology stuff or politics, only a material description of
| what he's seeing - but looks like you are repeating a bunch
| of rw talking points there without helping the OP.
| seibelj wrote:
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| nah I gave OP a bunch of specific tactics for increasing
| pay that don't require them to necessarily rip themselves
| out of their current community and move etc. You're also
| getting needlessly and inaccurately nasty, you don't know
| me at all but you are happy to assign a bunch of labels
| to "my ilk" just because I don't simp for a boss. I'm
| also not a socialist or a marxist
|
| edit: thanks!
| seibelj wrote:
| Best of luck to your software development union
| collectively organizing to raise wages
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Easy solution, get a p.o. box in a higher cost of living
| location, and use that as your 'business' location, base your pay
| off that rate. Make sure it's somewhere the company doesn't have
| physical locations.
|
| Deceptive you say? Well, why do you even need to disclose where
| you live in the first place? Everything you need can be done
| remotely, again you can get a forwarding postal mail address from
| anywhere if they need to drop you snail mail.
| kleinsch wrote:
| Your pay is based on the cost to hire your replacement. That's
| it. There's no crazy conspiracies, there's no moral failing,
| they're not running a calculator of how much value you generate.
| Would it sap your motivation to learn there are people doing your
| same job at FAANGs making double what you make? Or that some
| other job makes more money than you? Location based pay is just
| another variable. As with everything in jobs - if you don't like
| the comp structure, it's very rare you'll argue them into
| changing it. If there are other companies who have comp
| structures you like more, go get a job there. If you can't find
| any, you've probably learned something about the job market.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Its not a crazy conspiracy, I know it's pretty clear why it's
| being done. And I know I can't do anything about it other than
| look for new opportunities.
|
| But should location based pay be just accepted because that's
| the norm? There are variables that can't be used to do
| discriminate like age, gender, race, sexual orientation etc.
| We've accepted equal pay for equal work in these cases. Is it
| that far fetched that even location should be treated the same?
| 1659447091 wrote:
| If looking at it from a company perspective, I'm not sure I
| would see much benefit for them in doing so. If a company is
| based in the US/EU and pays the same wage to workers in
| someplace like Asia, they would not gain much(financially) by
| hiring in Asia in the first place (companies that have no
| _need_ to hire in Asia). Why bother dealing with the
| grumbling at home about exporting jobs to outside locations
| if they are just going to pay the same anyway. Might as well
| be the hero providing jobs to local workers at home and keep
| the money circulating there. As for the other, age, gender,
| race etc. All of that is also at home, so not discriminating
| against it is beneficial. What is not at home are foreign
| located workers.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| You're missing the point. Location based pay is not the norm,
| the norm is paying you as much as it would cost to find an
| equivalent replacement. That just happens to be location-
| dependant.
|
| It's got nothing to do with discrimination, it's purely about
| hiring for the lowest cost. They have to pay more in EU and
| US to get employees, and less wherever you live.
| rtlfe wrote:
| > Your pay is based on the cost to hire your replacement.
|
| That's not necessarily true. Many fully remote companies hire
| from anywhere and pay location-adjusted wages. So it's a roll
| of the dice whether the replacement makes more or less than
| you.
| contravariant wrote:
| What exactly is the rationale there? Why wouldn't companies
| just hire the people willing to work for a lower salary?
| vivegi wrote:
| It is simple economics and markets in action.
|
| It appears you are probably employed somewhere in Asia and you
| are comparing with similarly titled roles within your
| company/outside your company in other geographies like US/EU.
|
| Salaries are generally local labor market and demand-driven.
| Think of it this way. If you leave the company, chances are the
| company backfills your position with someone having the same job
| skills from the same local market. If there is a certain supply
| of labor force in your local market at a certain salary level,
| your company is going to use that to peg your salary; not the
| salary level at which they get similar skills in
| Amsterdam/London/New York/San Francisco.
|
| Also, if the company has established offices in say US/EU and
| India, they are trying to play a cost arbitrage play. Certain
| goods/services cost higher in US/EU and lower in Asia (and vice
| versa too). Labor costs are higher in US/EU compared to Asia
| (most locations).
|
| Unfortunately, this is the norm and has been for centuries.
|
| My advice:
|
| 1. Stop doing exchange rate conversions of foreign labor market
| salaries for the similar positions and losing your mental peace.
|
| 2. If you are in a position where you can immigrate to the
| foreign country, consider doing that (if not permanently, at
| least for a few years).
|
| 3. If that does not work for you and if you have selling/business
| development skills, you may consider freelancing for clients from
| the US/EU regions and bill them as a contractor at rates they are
| used to domestically (this is a whole another ball game and you
| need to build a client roster and work may/may not be steady).
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Immigration is not currently possible. I'm still quite new to
| the work force so i guess I'm being easily affected by these
| thoughts.
|
| The contracter route seems feasible and actionable. I'll give
| this a serious shot. Thanks for bringing this up.
| amelius wrote:
| Start your own company or become a freelance worker.
| abcd_f wrote:
| It's in part the cost of living (which is a _very_ valid
| argument) and in part basic supply /demand.
|
| If there is an oversupply of qualified people in your country
| willing to work for lower wages, _that_ is what you are competing
| with, not people in the EU /US.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| nothing valid about it except that it's an established
| coordinated behavior of employers to reduce pay based on region
| instead of anything to do with value produced
| tlb wrote:
| Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time,
| in any industry.
|
| Although there may be some coordination, coordination isn't
| necessary for wages to be unrelated to value produced,
| because that's the default condition. It would take some
| impressive central planning to have wages actually match
| value produced.
|
| Doctrinaire economists used to argue that value produced sets
| an upper bound on pay, since why would a company pay someone
| more than the value they produce? But there are plenty of
| exceptions to that, discussed for instance in David Graeber's
| book Bullshit Jobs.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I'm just pointing out the coordination because it's typical
| for employers to shame workers for talking pay while
| engaging in it themselves and lots of people I know believe
| it at face value. Owners shame people over it because
| they're scared of it because it works
|
| I loved Graeber/Wengrow's last book, transformative, need
| to read BS Jobs (do other yc folks read graeber? I know for
| instance he tears down a few points others like andreessen
| and horowitz take for granted as axiomatic to their
| ideologies based on a recent interview with them; pardon
| the surprise to see you reference it)
| tarakat wrote:
| The reasons they gave are lies. They're paying you less because
| (they think) they can. That's all there is to it.
|
| Another reason is because they know where you live, and the
| salaries in that location. Keep that in mind when someone says
| they have "nothing to hide" - this is how companies use such
| information. To better determine the absolute minimum they can
| offer you (or maximum they can sell you).
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| And they have publically published those lies like it's
| something to be proud of? Reading the link my manager shared
| with me about these reasons, which is publically accessible,
| made me want to puke.
| philippejara wrote:
| Well, calling them "lies" is a bit out there, but not
| entirely incorrect, rationalizations is probably the best way
| to describe it. The reason it's done is because people where
| you are from take those jobs at these rates and aside from
| maybe a different tax burden specific to your country, that's
| about it.
|
| I don't know the size of the company or how the split is
| regarding the area you're from and the US/EU but they might
| have allocated budget to employment counting on this split
| and not be able to pay for a generalized change, hence why
| they'd offer if you moved, but offering while being where you
| are could be "dangerous" as other people in the same position
| as you might ask for raises as well.
|
| I can't make sense of the "trapping" argument however.
|
| Now, those are the reasons I can see for the policy to be in
| this way, you are free to disagree, as do I, but the only
| real answer is going to come from the higher ups. If it's a
| public company sometimes these kinds of things are listed in
| their releases with some notes, could be another place to
| look at.
| pkrotich wrote:
| I agree with you that it's unfair and senseless but it's market
| dynamic (supply and demand) with capitalism bend to it.
|
| There are probably hundrends of people with your capabilities,
| where you're now, willing to work at your current pay scale and
| probably thousands elsewhere in poorer places willing to work for
| much less than you. Not to mention even more - who are as capable
| as you're - but lack the opportunity you have because things like
| infrastructure (internet access for example).
|
| On the flip-side your colleagues are probably looking at you as a
| saleout - depressing thier already-high (to you) wages. And yes,
| they're absolutely right beause beside your skill-set, the
| company is saving money by paying you less and in addition to
| having more laverage on you. Remember the outsourcing debates in
| the past years? Someone else is probably saying you stole their
| job too! What do you say to such person yourself?
|
| Even here in America, Silicon Valley salaries can be truly
| shocking for some of us outside the valley. I think it's a little
| unfair to us smaller campanies without millions of VC money to
| burn but such is life. If you started a company where you're -
| will you be paying American salaries?
|
| I agree with you that you shouldn't migrate to get paid the same
| for the same job. Hopefully as jobs become location agnostic - we
| can only look into the future on how the market will change and
| balance out the unfairness you're feeling.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Thanks for this, helps me that people understand me and I'm not
| being very unreasonable.
|
| From what I've gotten from my discussions on my post is
|
| 1) I will start looking for contract work. Not going to be
| easy, but the best way forward.
|
| 2) Use some of the negotiation techniques mentioned like
| bringing up the fact I'm not competing locally, but
| internationally
|
| 3) Negotiate with my company and threaten to leave? Not fully
| sure of this. More alligend to leaving anyway as I find the
| excuses for location based pay pathetic. Will be leaving as
| soon as I can.
|
| 4) Always talk compensation with co-workers
| pkrotich wrote:
| 5) Become indispensable in the role you're (before #3). This
| is true even locally - why should I as an employer pay you
| more when I can get someone cheaper to do what you can do.
|
| 6) While contract work sometimes calls for a generalist (#1
| above)... try to be a specialist by becoming an expert in a
| high demand field(s). At that point you can charge whatever
| you want regardless of your location.
|
| 7) Don't exchange your time for money - get paid for your
| skillset (related to #1 & #6)
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Switch jobs to one that pays better or move
| spicyusername wrote:
| Simple supply and demand. If nobody accepts the pay, it will
| rise.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| This is best accomplished in coordination, just as employers
| coordinate against workers (whether illegal anti-poaching
| agreements or by sharing market data with each other etc.)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| other resources - no judgment, just what I've observed in
| worker movements:
|
| - overemployment: take multiple remote jobs, meet expectations
| on performance but not on hours-in-seat
|
| - "indie dev" path with recurring saas/IAP is also worth
| considering but obviously doesn't work at scale to solve these
| issues (ancaps would have you believe that the solution is for
| every person to become a business)
|
| - talk compensation with your coworkers (check your labor
| rights) and organize
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Talking compensation has opened my eyes to this. We need to
| stop this culture of being secretive about compensation.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it benefits no one but the employer, and talking about it
| is usually legally protected (though look out for illegal
| retaliation). the ridiculous double standard of employers
| shaming workers for talking pay is that they all spend time
| and money organizing regional pay standards with other
| employers, whether through their VC firms, exec
| connections, or research firms. It's time we really take
| their advice to "act like owners".
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Honestly, I'm very conflicted about this.
|
| My issue is not directly with my salary. It's more with the
| fact the I'm being payed less when compared to my peers in
| other locations while I'm doing the same/more work.
|
| Location doesn't influence output, why should it influence the
| pay scale?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| because you're not being paid on your input, markets don't
| run on the labour theory of value. You're being paid for the
| lowest amount that you, or someone else, is willing to do
| your job, and that amount happens to be lower in a place with
| lower cost of living.
|
| people earn more in San Francisco because the rent is a
| gazillion dollars and if they got paid Indian wages nobody
| would show up at the office.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| It's not just location that warps salary. I've worked with
| plenty of people senior to me that contributed less than me
| but got paid more. The only solution I've found is to change
| jobs
| giantg2 wrote:
| You can't argue with your bosses because they don't care about
| the points you make. They have the power and know it. You can
| migrate, or find better job. Maybe look into unionizing (no idea
| about your country).
|
| I learned this a few years ago. I can make great arguments but it
| doesn't matter. The boss has his mind made up and he'll say
| anything, even blatant BS, to justify it.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| I agree that these are blatant lies. Unionizing seems
| impossible? I'm not sure what it entails and how would one even
| go about it.
|
| Someone else mentioned about taking up contract work, which
| seems like something I can give a shot at.
| soneca wrote:
| It is a negotiation not a fairness discussion (even though
| fairness is part of the negotiation arguments). I asked about it
| in my current job before accepting the offer and was able to
| successfully negotiate it. In your situation, it seems that the
| only way is to look for a new job.
|
| Anyway, the way I negotiated was very simple. Basically a version
| of _"I understand that this is a good salary relative to my local
| market, but I am not even looking for jobs in my local market. I
| am comparing your offer to offers from other US-based companies
| that I received for remote work."_
|
| That was it. The part of other offers was true of course (even if
| for companies that I wasn't too excited to work for). No need to
| even reply to their arguments of "company policy", "cost of
| living", whatever. I only have to state my point of view.
|
| There is also the topic of me not receiving benefits like health
| care and 401k and other stuff that American employees get. I
| didn't use this argument (didn't occur to me), but I have the
| impression that this was considered in their calculation in how
| much to raise their offer.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| Good advice. I do think the arguments these companies use is
| ridiculous. I think it's possible that these companies are
| knowingly exploiting OP because he comes from a lower economic
| background. I say this as an Australian where tech jobs here
| pay about half or a third as much as a US startup job yet I've
| never had any startups try offer me an Australian rate.
|
| I wonder if there's more to this story? E.g. does OP work for a
| consulting company, an outsourcing company, freelance, does he
| use project-based job marketplaces? I am just wondering the
| situation.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| I work for a software company that's product based BUT I'm
| not in a software role as some people are assuming
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Great advice on negotiation. I'll definitely use this going
| forward. Thank you!
| bot41 wrote:
| Pass some of the workload to the people getting paid more
| johnmorrison wrote:
| Silent duality here is that many engineers are being paid top-
| level US compensation without actually living there, sometimes
| 2-10x+ their local counterparts.
|
| Their secret is negotiation. Many US-based large companies and
| well-funded startups that pay in those top ranges know very well
| that there are engineers in low cost-of-living countries who are
| just as productive for their company, so they _will_ compete for
| those engineers.
|
| The deciding factor in whether each of those individuals actually
| makes a regional salary or a top level salary (or anywhere in
| between) is purely based on whether they are willing to refuse
| lower offers and only accept the same pay the locals in top-
| paying areas like SF/NY do. Some employers will never budge, but
| many will, because you're still worth just as much as the locals
| they pay the same rate.
|
| TL;DR If you've got the skill, only accept the top range of pay
| and that is what you will make.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| > What would the company gain if work from a different location
| that they would pay me more?
|
| More that if you are in a different location, they pay you less.
| You are flipping the default here, which is almost certainly
| American salaries.
| pyrodactyl wrote:
| Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm not from America, so moving
| there or to EU would increase my pay.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Your company is gaslighting you. None of those reasons are valid.
| The first one is the _closest_ to the accurate answer, but the
| real answer is "because we can hire people in your area for this
| rate". Try contracting, for a US company, for US rates; set a
| rate that's comparable to what other US contractors charge, and
| don't take clients that want to negotiate your pay based on your
| location.
|
| You might also try building some reputation on Open Source
| projects with a strong community, the type that's regularly being
| hired for. Get referrals from your colleagues in that project for
| people looking for employees or contractors. Cite the rates your
| colleagues make, and don't accept location-based reductions.
|
| (Also, make sure you have a job or contract lined up _before_ you
| leave, unless you 're really confident you can get one at the
| rate you want.)
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