[throwaway_qcjal]

I think this is making a whole lot of out nothing, or at least not much. Google would determine your pay based on your work location, regardless of whether that's your home or the office. As a result people that lived far from the office in a typically less expensive area could see their pay drop.

[Sacho]

Gitlab implements this compensation model openly(to the point where there is a calculator for it!) - I don't remember how well it was received when it was first announced, but looks like Google is applying a similar idea.

[chrisseaton]

I don’t think the calculator is public. It used to be and last time I tried it the results were terrible for my area I guess because there just aren’t any other technologists here so nothing to compare to - but that doesn’t say anything about me or how much I’m worth! Also when you looked in the data file you could see little pockets of higher paying areas - I guess if they can’t recruit you they create a little higher paying bubble for you. So I don’t think it works well and it’s also possibly open to distortion.

[ghaff]

My sense from looking at it a couple of times was that there was more and more "exception handling" over time, primarily to handle relatively high CoL places, e.g. nice college towns, in generally cheap rural locales.

[chrisseaton]

Right - and I guess the way you got an exception made was by making a fuss… which means it’s just as personality driven as before and isn’t really the open system it thinks it is.

[zrail]

The calculator is no longer public.

[smnrchrds]

That's a shame. When did they make it non-public?

[licebmi__at__]

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/commit/429302...

[bsagdiyev]

Exactly. When I left California I fully expected my pay to get reduced, I’m not going to blind myself and think that it wouldn’t happen because of my move to a lower cost of living area. I’m lucky that that wasn’t the case but it was a pleasant surprise more than something I expected and demanded.

[Jach]

I still think everyone should fight against it if they think it's going to happen, whether they've come to terms with it or not. I heard about an employee who moved to Canada, got her manager to agree to no pay cut, but HR went over the manager's head. Certainly a rage-quit moment if it had been me, though of course international concerns were a factor. Admittedly it's easier to fight if your move is domestic.

"Cost of living" is personal and largely not the company's business. If my spend is $X per month, it's $X, it doesn't matter what portion of that goes to rent or mortgage. When circumstances change that shifts the portion of housing, most people don't pocket the savings, but instead just shift it to other things. Sometimes even for better housing. It's a rare individual who will save instead, and even rarer to unnecessarily subject oneself to lower quality something for savings, like the SF Google employee living in his car, driving his cost of living as far as rent was concerned to $0, cheaper even than the corn fields of Iowa.

But companies will keep trying to do these "adjustments" so long as they keep getting away with it. Consider fighting it, and finding out how valuable you really are in the process. Similarly with WFH "adjustments" -- given intent for a coming pay reduction, you should instead counter with a demand for a pay increase, because you're no longer contributing to the costs of having an office space.

[bsagdiyev]

So I’ll be a little blunt about this: why does the employer care if the employee is good or bad at finances? I understand some places are expensive and that can’t be helped but living within your means and being financially smart are totally possible as much as people love to harp about the cost of living. I somehow manage to pay a mortgage, day care and still put $xxxx in savings every month. What’s keeping these people who move to cheaper locales from doing the same? They got used to an expensive lifestyle? That isn’t the fault of the employer.

[Jach]

> They got used to an expensive lifestyle?

That, among other reasons, like wanting more or nicer things, across many possible dimensions of meaning for 'nice'. Same reasons at play for why when people get a raise, or take a job with higher pay, the surplus is rarely converted fully into savings. Another though also not the only reason left is a simple "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality, though this problem may affect Americans more.

It's useful to be aware that the median American household has $1000/mo in surplus funds after all 'ordinary expenses', which notably are greater than 'necessary expenses' the 'living wage' people tend to focus on. But that $12k/yr typically gets spent rather than saved or invested.

> That isn’t the fault of the employer.

Nope, nor is it really their business, so they shouldn't try, and people should fight, these underhanded "adjustment" tactics of "oh, you moved to an area where the average rent is $1000/mo less, these common foods are a bit cheaper, etc., so clearly you can get by on less now, and so we'll cut your salary by x%." (Typically being a percentage cut rather than global absolute amount cut is another indicator of its badness.) Even the hypothetical reverse case of moving back and getting an increase is false generosity; if moving back raises my cost floor, I'm not going to do it unless I can afford to, automatic adjustment or not, and it's very possible the divined adjusted increase might not be high enough.

[biztos]

> "Cost of living" is personal

I live internationally, and the cost of moving between countries on a regular basis pretty much negates the savings of the cheaper locales vs the more expensive ones.

On the one hand, I don’t expect my employer to pay me more because I live this way, but on the other hand my salary expectations are not calibrated to the cheapest locale in the mix because that would be insane.

My hunch is the “WFH == pay cut” thing is just a cover for redistributing money to the employees with leverage, because they are (perceived to be) more valuable.

[foobar2021]

If you replace “cost of living” with “living wage” the mainstream opinion very much wants your salary to be the company’s business. Why this isn’t owned by some level (state, local) of government I have no idea.

[Jach]

My salary is already the company's business, they're paying it. What's worth fighting against is the idea that how I spend (or save) that salary, and worse how some average of how everyone independent of job and salary in a geographical area spends their money, should directly influence the salary itself.

[dqpb]

Do you think they should reduce salary for people who have paid off their mortgage? Those people also have lower cost of living.

[cableshaft]

How about people living with multiple roommates, or renting out part of their house (I used to live in one of those situations)? Those people have a lower cost of living as well compared to others in the area.

Or does it only count if you're talking someone's sole and primary mortgage and where that's physically located? Even mortgages can vary wildly. In my city I can buy a condo for $100k or I could buy a mansion for 5 million dollars. My cost of living will vary drastically depending on what I decide to get.

[dqpb]

Exactly!

[throwaway_qcjal]

The reality is that cost of living is really just a proxy in these conversations, really what we're talking about is the market wage for "premium" developers. I imagine over time remote developers will converge to a single market, but that it will take time, since there isn't as many opportunities for remote developers now there's not much pressure to move towards competing against remote offers. E.g., if I go to my employer and ask for a higher wage working remotely their likely response would be good luck getting a similar remote position. But as more remote opportunities open up you'll likely see more competition.

If there's enough remote positions and they're generally seen as equally desirable as in person positions we might even see everywhere going to a single market within national boundaries regardless of remote or in person, which would be quite interesting.

[dqpb]

I try to avoid commenting on downvotes, but I’m really curious to know. For those downvoting me, what is your job?

[usaar333]

It's a weird policy though. If I'm remote, why does my location matter to Google?

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

Because they no longer have to incentivize you to move to a very high cost of living location.

[usaar333]

Exactly, so why have disparate pay by location? I'd expect all remote workers to get the same salary, perhaps a bit lower than onsite workers to account for productivity loss.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

I'd still expect valuable employees to flock to population centers (e.g. for education), you want to remain competitive in those areas.

[usaar333]

In effect though, this is location pay discrimination which only makes sense if you believe the remote people have viable onsite alternatives where they are that drives their market salary.

If they are only going to work remotely (i.e. in a remote market), I don't see how this works steady-state. If there's no benefit to having an employee in SF vs. Austin, I'll just start paying a premium to non-SF residents and pull away non-SF talent from Google. Eventually, this should all equalize to remote workers being paid equally.

[gorbachev]

I'd bet a lot of money this doesn't apply to executives, however.

[dvtrn]

Since you asked:

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/google-exec-remote-work-wfh...