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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

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simonw·

Because if you do that, they'll find another employer that doesn't force them to move.

Living in a high cost area is not a "bad life choice".

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I moved out of a high CoL area to somewhere I actually enjoy living. And brought the salary band with me.

No chance I'd work at Buffer, given they'd halve my salary because of my zip code. Other remote jobs don't. No brainier.

They state they pay 85% for Average CoL area and 75% for Low CoL area. So they wouldn't halve a developer's salary who moved from San Francisco to somewhere else. Working in San Francisco gets 100%. Now I don't know how their SF salaries compare to other companies though.

@imsofuture said they'd halve their salary, which is likely true. Every remote salary calculator I've ever used, even being generous with my qualifications and the vague dropdowns like "below average or above average experience" gives me a rate 15-40% below what I'm making now, even for the next level up.

There are plenty of skilled software developers in rural and suburban parts of nearly every country. I find it hard to believe the folks in San Francisco are that much better than the folks in Atlanta that it warrants ~2-3x the salary (using the Gitlab calculator as I can't see the Buffers apps since Drive is blocked at work) for an identical role.

Cost of living in the bay area is insane right now. You won't find a single family home under 1 million dollars on the peninsula or the entire south bay with the exception of deep east san jose and east palo alto (but even that is changing rapidly). I would bet that most of the salary adjustment is due to the housing crisis.

In general, CoL differences at relatively high salary levels are absolutely dominated by housing prices.

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