See also "Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37059857

FWIW, I disagree with this logic

  It has nothing to do with the CoL where you live, and everything to do with how much the company values you in that role.

It's not about cost of living, it's about supply and demand. If you want people in e.g Bay Area to consider you at all, you'll have to offer them more than you'd need to get the attention of people in Warsaw. That's why remote salaries can still vary by location.

▲ nlawalker 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If you want people in e.g Bay Area to consider you at all, you'll have to offer them more than you'd need to get the attention of people in Warsaw. That's why remote salaries can still vary by location.

Then why not take what you'd offer to people in the Bay Area and also offer that to people in Warsaw? That's what the author is taking issue with.

EDIT: This was posed as a question for rhetorical purposes, it's obvious that businesses don't do this because they don't have to and it's cheaper not to. Parent said they didn't agree with the author's logic, but the author's statement about companies paying based on value wasn't attempting to make a logical assertion, it was a lament about ethics.

	▲	kube-system 15 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> the author's statement about companies paying based on value wasn't attempting to make a logical assertion, it was a lament about ethics. The ethics is also not that simple either. Paying an equal nominal number of dollars to employees on opposite sides of the planet is not necessarily fair and equal in other ways. Those employees may have different benefits, legal rights, legal and tax obligations, and a different standard of life that they can purchase with that nominal amount of dollars.
	▲	Majestic121 16 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Because you don't have to: even a significantly lower salary than what would be good in the Bay Area would attract and retain people from Warsaw
	▲	x0x0 16 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Because employees are very expensive, and I don't live in magic pixie land where money is free. Every penny spent on an employee is a foregone opportunity to hire more employees, or require less sales to break even, or deliver dividends to the owners of the company, ie rent for the capital borrowed from them. You can see this in how engineers don't volunteer to take pay cuts so janitors and fast food employees get paid the same...

▲ mystifyingpoi 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Actually it's even more impactful when considering a whole country. To follow this example, renting in Warsaw can be easily 2-3x more expensive than in a random small city in Poland. You could slash the salary by 30-40% and still get people willing to work, as long as you keep it remote.