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Comment by imsofuture | Hacker News Reader

These are remarkably dishonest and bad reasons.

1. This is meaningless.

2. This is FAR more a factor of lifestyle choices than CoL. I've lived in extremely high and extremely low CoL places and there is not a big difference. I have a $1500 mortgage instead of a $1700 lease. Maybe apples are 20c cheaper a pound?

3. "It's better if we pay you less, really!" PS Other remote employers pay significantly more than you.

4. Pay people competitively for the role instead.

5. Pay people competitively for the role instead.

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Paying people competitively is exactly what they are doing. They are paying exactly as much as they need to to hire the talent they want.

I suppose that's inarguable, even if by definition.

So why all the dishonesty? Let's just write that (or nothing at all). That could be respected.

Sure, but what I can't fathom is why they would pay more to hire a dev in SF or NY when they could easily hire a better dev for the same price from somewhere else. Allowing remote work is a big benefit from the employee perspective, so I can see why they could get away with paying less than certain other employers, especially if they're hiring people from areas with less competition from other high-paying employers...but why would they then throw those savings away by hiring someone from an expensive city and paying them a premium when the whole company is remote anyway?

They claim they want a "geographically diverse team", but without saying what benefit that brings them, that doesn't really explain anything.

> hire a dev in SF or NY when they could easily hire a better dev for the same price from somewhere else.

Hiring is hard. Sure there may be a theoretical "better hire" outside of the Bay Area, but if they have someone in front of them who seems like they would do a great job and wants to work for them, it behooves them to hire that person now, even if it costs more. The cost of not hiring them is probably more, in lost time and productivity.

Maybe as they get bigger and each individual role becomes less critical, they can start to focus their recruiting on areas outside of SF. But right now, given that the founders are in SF, it's probably a lot easier to recruit people here.

They can get a "geographically diverse team" without paying anyone in NYC or SF.

I think that's not true. My 800sqft apartment in Berlin in a "hip area" is 1k EUR all in, London or SF would probably be 2.5x that. Essentially to live in SF my salary would need to atleast double to have the same standard of living.

No, your salary would need to be 1500 * 12 to have the same standard of living. I did napkin math a while back, and someone on 100k in SF, after taxes and rent will still end up with more than most developers in the UK gross.

Nah that is the same stuff as with story about Nigerians hired to train AI on pictures. If GitLab would be paying everyone the same they would make trouble for themselves and people that they hire. Having gangs of people in low wage countries that you feed with money is not recipe for healthy company.

It is the same with factory workers, ideally you should pay them all the same and as much as you can. But when you start doing it all kinds of problems pop up like it is not sustainable because people want more, and factory does not earn as much. Then they strike and factory goes bankrupt, no more work.

If you will get concentration of people from one locale it is big risk for remote company. If company at some point will have to pull out from that locale because politics/taxes change for instance that is huge risk for those employees.

Social justice is not as easy as "give people because they deserve".

2. Counter anecdote: I went from $700/month (80,000 JPY/month) to $3,050/month in rent for essentially the same size/location/convenience by moving from Osaka to NYC.

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