Hacker News Reader

Comment by justinsteele | Hacker News Reader

Why not hire remote?

Yup. Hire remote and pay tech hub rates. It's that simple. You'll also get much more loyal, dedicated employees. Currently in this situation and it's really the best job I've had out of dozens.

what did you mean by tech hub rates?

Companies usually scale pay based on the cost of living in the city where the worker lives. Tech hubs tend to be high cost of living areas. A $115k job in NYC becomes a $90k job in Omaha based on the premise that it costs 25% more to live in NYC.

This accurately reflects the buying power in the two different cities but base pay also generally translates percentage-wise into other benefits like 401k matching and your negotiating position for salary at your next job.

Pay them like they live in SF regardless of where they live.

Pay market rates equal to that in SF / Silicon Valley as it's the most expensive area in the country currently.

Same here ... I'm working full time with a distributed team, and it's beyond fantastic for me. I go a few times a week to a co-working place to get my fill of geeky watercooler talk and lunch with people. My collaboration is done primarily over chat (hipchat, but can easily be irc, slack, etc.), and we have a video conference once a week for the team to sync up ... not to mention git, etc.

I totally get that there's lots of enterprises that just aren't set up, culturally, to work with a distributed team ... but you know what, maybe that's how you (OP) can differentiate yourself from your competitors; by hiring the best talent, regardless of where they are physically located. It works, there's tons of companies that are moving to this model and getting great work done.

This. I live in NYC and work remotely for a company in London. I'd be just as happy to do it for a US company.

It sounds like they want to only pay coastal prices.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com