[raihansaputra]

This is a big point of contention. I recently had a conversation on this with someone in Marketing/Creative industry. He lives in SEA while being contracted with a Big Brand in USA. The Big Brand employs people all over the world, and they pay disparately according to location.

I asked him about fairness and he thinks it's fine. He finds that CoL should be paid according to area. When the company has a regional meet-up, he knows that people from around the region have the same capability to buy "tertiary" things, and that's a signal of fairness to him.

I'm not saying this is the right approach; just maybe a thought that companies have done this for longer than software companies.

For example, if I put in my own level on the compensation calculator of GitLab [0](Junior level, Learning The Role, FE Engineer, 0-2 years experience, living in Jakarta, Indonesia), I get $48k/year. That is pretty much the top 5% income bracket, not considering level. Entry level programmers here are paid $500-$1500 here, amounting to $18k/year at the most. That is a really large gap, and the vast majority would take it.

[0]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/global-compen...