[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
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Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
the salary of remote job depends heavily on the current location of
the person but if we took out rent from the equation what should a
person be getting?
Author : marmoure
Score : 13 points
Date : 2021-04-25 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
| yhavr wrote:
| The person should get what the market process decides. If a
| person lives in a "poor" country, it changes nothing. They can
| spend less? Sure, but peeping in other's pocket under capitalism
| is a huge communist red flag :-) Maybe the person has
| opportunities to relocate to a "developed country", but chose
| deliberately to get more money instead of "social support".
| marmoure wrote:
| no when you look at it they are not spending less(beside rent)
| they are just buying lower quality stuff to sustain life an
| iphone is an iphone all around the world you wont find it for
| 50$ if you are getting paid 100$
| yhavr wrote:
| What do you mean by "lower quality stuff"? (edit:typo)
| notsag-hn wrote:
| Living in a poor country shouldn't be a reason to get a low rate.
| But this is really common, mostly because companies look for
| people in third-world countries to get the same level of
| employees waaay cheaper. I'm from Uruguay and have had
| interviewers thinking they're doing me a favor for extending me
| an offer in USD, even if it's ridiculously low for my experience.
| In the end it depends on how the potential employee negotiates
| their salary
| g3rv4 wrote:
| ha, I'm also from Uruguay. A couple months ago I received 3
| offers. One of them explained their offer was "the salary from
| Philadelphia adjusted to the local market". The other two
| offers where comparable to what I've been making (similar to a
| US salary). I didn't go for the "local-market adjusted" one.
|
| The only thing they're doing is missing on some talent, but
| that could be ok for them.
| g3rv4 wrote:
| Also: nice to see you here as well, this is a small scene :P
| it took me a bit to recognize you!
| work_for_x wrote:
| I worked at a remote first company once, where EVERY developer in
| the team earned 150k USD. We had one person from Nigeria, a bunch
| from Austin and a few all over Europe!
| marmoure wrote:
| what was the salary for the person from Nigeria?
| RuffleGordon wrote:
| "EVERY developer in the team earned 150k USD"
| smt88 wrote:
| This is great, but extremely rare
| ANarrativeApe wrote:
| Assuming that there should be a universal salary, I seem to
| recall a lesson an economics lesson on the interaction of supply
| and demand in determining price.
|
| The bigger question is whether there should be a universal job
| salary for remote working jobs.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| They should be paid relative to the value their skill set
| provides the employer. Not all employees are equal.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| Long ago I was part of startup based in developed country which
| was hiring people from one of developing countries. Salary
| offered was lower than if it was somebody from startup's area,
| but it was very competitive on the market where developers was
| recruited from. Developers was very happy to be offered salary
| higher than their peers, in the same time startup was happy to
| get qualified engineers for less money than it would have to pay
| if sourced locally. This would not work today because salary
| expectations are now similar in both countries - this same
| startup is now bringing those jobs back to the local market.
|
| I was observing similar situation 15 years ago in one of big
| corps who outsourced everything to India. For a price of one
| engineer from developed world they was getting many engineers in
| India, and those engineers could afford services like personal
| chauffeur. I could not believe when I heard it first time from
| friends I have there. Again - situation now is much less in favor
| of big corp, which is now trying to bring some of those jobs back
| to the local market.
| hubert022 wrote:
| It should be dependent solely on the negotiations skills of a
| candidate
| marmoure wrote:
| most devs will take whats given or just ask for lowest possible
| alot of people in the dev community never negotiate on a thing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932978 this thread
| highlight it well
| anm89 wrote:
| This is a nonsensical question and of course there is no answer.
|
| Any time you are asking about universals in regards to the lived
| experiences of human beings you need to take a step back. This
| principle applies to issues many orders of magnitude less
| complicated than employee pay which i think goes to show how
| absurdly far off track this question is.
|
| To illustrate the point,say you conclude some "universal pay"
| (good luck even defining what that means, who it applies to and
| when it applies) . Why do I care? I'm still going to go live my
| life and maximize my pay for my particular situation. So your
| universal pay is already not universal after the thought
| experiment of trying to apply it to the first person who you
| cannot directly control .
|
| You'd be just as good debating how many angels can dance on the
| head of a pin.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| I second this opinion. From experience, as I was on both sides
| of hiring desk, if market offers better pay than the one
| candidate accepts, it is almost certain candidate will be gone
| a few months later. I cannot imagine how "universal pay" would
| work here. If market is forced to pay X then one of the sides
| would be unhappy and would seek to change the situation.
|
| Also people face different circumstances, like person with
| mortgage vs person without mortgage, person with savings vs
| person without savings, person with family vs person with no
| family. Different circumstances will translate to different pay
| that will look good in the one's eyes.
|
| Maybe we have some opportunity at the moment (on both ends) -
| that opportunity will probably be gone after some time, as more
| people take advantage of it. Market will even out until "the
| next thing"..
| ipnon wrote:
| Some studies suggest happiness per dollar salary peaks around
| $65k to $90k USD. So for an international corporation where
| obviously most people will have cheaper cost of living than the
| United States, that seems a good starting point. This is low for
| Silicon Valley salaries so it may dissuade those accommodated to
| salaries in that high range.
| shams93 wrote:
| For Los Angelrs such a happiness per dollar will only buy you
| homelessness when average rent is $4000 a month and suppose you
| have family obligations
| beforeolives wrote:
| This isn't how any of this works. You're completely ignoring
| the rest of the job market. "It may dissuade" - no, you're
| moving your operations abroad with extra steps.
| iExploder wrote:
| some studies suggest some studies are full of BS
| drouffithesix wrote:
| Interesting and what if i work remotely from a poor country?
| would i be subject to the same salary as them?
| smt88 wrote:
| You can always apply for those remote jobs and ask for the same
| salary.
|
| As someone who has always been on fully remote teams, I've
| found that ease of communication and time zones are a big deal.
|
| If someone is harder to communicate with (English is a second
| language) or doesn't overlap with the rest of the team's work
| day _and costs the same_ as a dev in the US, I may end up going
| with the dev in the US.
|
| People who says pay should be about value provided are ignoring
| several things, including: 1) I have no idea how valuable
| someone is before I hire them, and 2) it's much easier to trust
| employees who are in the same legal jurisdiction as me (which
| has a value).
|
| For example, I have two devs in South Asia who cost half of a
| US dev each, but they're also not very independent and they
| have very limited skills. They make a _lot_ of money for their
| country and the price for the value is exactly right for me.
| tharne wrote:
| This is my experience too. People, including myself
| initially, vastly underestimate the impact of a language
| barrier and time zone issues. I'm not in charge of how we
| hire where I work, but if I were, I'd happy trade 5 Asia-
| based devs for 2 U.S.-based devs. And the offshore folks I
| work with have solid skills, but the communication challenges
| and time zone differences really hamper productivity.
| notsag-hn wrote:
| If you aren't able to estimate how much value somebody would
| bring to the team before hiring them, you maybe should oil
| your hiring process a bit. Also assuming you can trust
| somebody more or less depending on their legal jurisdiction
| says a lot about your company's culture
| smt88 wrote:
| > _If you aren 't able to estimate how much value somebody
| would bring to the team before hiring them, you maybe
| should oil your hiring process a bit._
|
| I can't interview someone for a few hours and predict how
| they will be as an employee. No one can.
|
| Sometimes you hire people and are under-paying them,
| sometimes you're over-paying them.
|
| > _assuming you can trust somebody more or less depending
| on their legal jurisdiction says a lot about your company
| 's culture_
|
| So are you saying that all countries have the same laws,
| and all those laws are equally enforced?
|
| If one of my US employees embezzles money from a client
| using Stripe credentials, I can easily find and prosecute
| that person (as long as they're still in the US). Anyone US
| employee would know this and weigh it against their reasons
| for wanting to embezzle in the first place (if they have
| any).
|
| If one of my employees in (let's say) Pakistan did the same
| thing, there is absolutely nothing I can do. I have no
| recourse. They would easily get away with it.
|
| It is common and normal to trust people more when they're
| in the same jurisdiction as you and abide by the same laws.
| LimaBearz wrote:
| Yes. Products companies produce aren't cheaper in say India or
| Mexico then they are in the US.. because they are valued at a
| certain dollar amount they deem fair.
|
| Why should a human being be any different? A good engineer
| produces certain value, regardless of where they live
| Leherenn wrote:
| The value you produce is just the upper bound of you salary.
| The salary you need to survive is the lower bound. Then what
| you get is in-between, based on supply and demand.
| tharne wrote:
| Humans aren't products.
| beforeolives wrote:
| Because it isn't about the value you produce and it never has
| been. It's about your and your company's positions in the
| rest of the labour market. The people who are wishing for
| globally universal remote salaries are joining a sad race to
| the bottom.
| ceffio wrote:
| Companies price discriminate.
| yulaow wrote:
| A thing I never understood is, what happens if, let's say, I stay
| in a HCOL area until I am doing interviews (eg Switzerland) and
| then when hired I move back instantly to a LCOL area (eg
| Albania): what happens now to my salary? Do I get a cut just
| because I decided to move?
|
| And what if I am a digital nomad and know I want to change nation
| in which I stay every x months?
| offtop5 wrote:
| Even if, why not just legally live of your uncle who has an
| apartment in San Francisco, while you defacto live in South
| Alabama.
|
| With remote jobs I don't understand why someone living in a
| cheaper City should get less.
| Leherenn wrote:
| It's not a matter of should. It's just that, on average,
| someone in a cheaper city will accept less than someone in an
| expensive city because what is too little to cover rent in
| some places allows you to live like a king elsewhere.
|
| It's just supply and demand. Give 50k in a poor country, and
| (assuming there are enough qualified people), you will have
| quite a lot of choice. Give 50k in SF and people will be
| laughing at you. Why give 200k in the first instance when
| there's enough supply with 50k?
| offtop5 wrote:
| At least in America no one who makes 50k in Alabama will be
| worth 200k in SF.
| notsag-hn wrote:
| Agreed, globalized salaries should also consider people moving
| around and shouldn't depend on current location (unless of
| course money is not enough to live in the current location). I
| had an interview the other day with a local company that
| offered very sweet remote packages and a not-that-sweet on-site
| one. I said I would leave the country when I got the job and
| work in a digital nomad way, and they said that because of my
| current location I would only be offered the local package.
| Weird situations like this make me think we're not quite there
| regarding fair remote work yet
| noahtallen wrote:
| I think it depends on the company. Some companies (GitLab) seem
| to (or used to) build location into their salary calculations.
| Others (Automattic, where I work) don't, or at least try not
| to. But even expanding that to situations where you move, both
| companies I mentioned state that they don't reduce salary in
| general.
|
| At Automattic, that means you would get paid the same if you
| started in HCOL and then moved to LCOL. But at the same time,
| you might theoretically start out making a bit more than
| average in LCOL or a bit less than average in HCOL, depending
| on your situation and experience.
|
| Some more info: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/26/how-
| automattic-pays-its-re...
|
| Disclaimer: I don't know the exact specifics of these programs,
| just sharing some basic info :)
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