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Comment by benjaminjosephw | Hacker News Reader

Are they allowed to do that? It suggests a strong stance that the market rates of engineers is location specific not skill/capability specific. If you're part of a company that is built on a meritocratic culture, you should absolutely challenge this. You might even consider seeking legal advice.

Paying people living in one place more than people living in another place for the same work is a slippery slope that harms the interests of workers when it becomes acceptable practice across the industry. Maybe resisting the absurdity here could be your act of solidarity with those who are in the same position but without the freedom to speak out about it.

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It's perfectly normal for salaries to depend on location, even within one country, and even within quite a small country like the UK. So the problem here is the "level", the seniority/role/title/whatever, not the salary.

In general I do rather have the impression that the best way to have a "career" is to change employer every few years. I'd say, go for it.

"Paying people living in one place more than people living in another place for the same work" <-- is this not what companies all do, they use COLA adjustment to pay 2 different wages in 2 different places.

Note also that take-home pay might be very different due to employer costs (If you pay some one X, and it costs X+D in one place, in a different country/place, maybe for the same cost, the take home pay might very well be X/2 just because the "D" part inflates due to local regulation...).

Not saying this is a good thing, just pointing out it is already happening (i.e. it's slipped all the way down already!).

> they use COLA adjustment to pay 2 different wages in 2 different places

Except they then make the same profit in both markets.

Take for example the cloud market: VM pricing is mostly the same in the us or Europe or Asia. Same for non-vm prices.

Why would that matter, it doesn't give a candidate any leg-up in the negotiations.

So what? Prices for labor are based on supply and demand, not the potential profit of services in each market.

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