Can you name a few who will pay a Senior Software Engineer the same salary in Bay Area vs say Bangalore, India ? I am curious.

Just a few months ago this[0] jobs platform for exactly that - remote, location-independent salary - was discussed on HN [1].

[0] https://remotewide.co/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31225138

Ok I will bite. I randomly checked one company called "MotorK" [0] and I found this line in the job description "Work remotely from any of the countries we operate in". So thats not work from anywhere in the world. I am sure devil is always in the details. I know this is 1 example but I doubt a company will hire from anywhere in the world and pay the same salaries to you. There always will be restrictions.

Ok now I am more curious. I looked at another company "Expensify" [1]. They actually want you to ideally relocate to one of their office locations :). So again, not fully remote anywhere in the world. I think employers say it casually but in practice, it is extremely difficult.

Why would I pay the same salary to a good developer in NYC vs India/Thailand. If that's the case, why would I hire from a totally different timezone and not to mention add legal, HR and compliance issues.

[0] https://remotewide.co/listings/6IBsLC9CWYb4sO8h8xAT

[1] https://remotewide.co/listings/ncCWVkYCZx0dhK0m5Z8v

> and I found this line in the job description "Work remotely from any of the countries we operate in".

Outside of contracting and business-to-business deals, I think we're still in a world where it's hard to legally employ people in countries where you don't have a legal presence (outside of cases where that has been explicitly agreed-upon, like EU).

Something as basic as tax withholding can be literally impossible without creating a subsidiary in that country.

Looking at remotewide.co, they don't say anything about having to accept applicants from all over the world. That is, think SF vs Idaho, not SF vs Siberia.

Pay remote.com $500/mo per employee in a country you don't have a presence in and you're done.

> Ok now I am more curious. I looked at another company "Expensify" [1]. They actually want you to ideally relocate to one of their office locations :). So again, not fully remote anywhere in the world. I think employers say it casually but in practice, it is extremely difficult.

Out of curiosity, what makes you think Expensify wants you to relocate?

Relocation was not required or suggested when I interviewed with them last year. Their current job ad shows that they support working from anywhere: "Our employees work from all over the world" and "we spend a month abroad working from a remote location as a team".

I hypothesize that the part about visa sponsorship / relocation assistance might give the wrong impression:

> if you're looking for a change of scene we offer visa sponsorship and relocation assistance to join us at one of our rad locations...

Thanks for sharing this. That's correct, we are 100% remote first and you are not required to move to a city where we have offices. It's an optional perk.

I agree some companies don't really mean it when they claim to be remote first, but at Expensify we truly are. Please apply if you like the sound of our open roles :)

https://we.are.expensify.com/#workwithus

So how many developers do you actually hire out of Thailand? The prime minister of Thailand earns 3804 USD per year. If you seriously hire them at $380k, that's 100 times what the leader of their country earns. The US equivalent would be $40 million a year. Seemingly, every even remotely qualified person in the country would be rushing to apply. No need to immigrate and go through the Visa process? Earn enough money to buy your entire hometown within a few years?

Surely, there has to be some sufficiently motivated and intelligent person born in Thailand who is able to do the work you require. Have you hired any of them?

I only see one recent applicant from Thailand, but we welcome applications regardless of where they live (with a few obvious exceptions). I don’t want to dox any colleagues by listing individual countries as we’re a relatively small company, but we have hired from 6/7 continents in the last 12 months (all except Antarctica).

Also happy to answer any other questions you have. And again, if anyone reading this is interested, please take a look at our open roles [0]. This is one of many, many things which makes the company great [1].

[0] https://we.are.expensify.com/#workwithus [1] https://we.are.expensify.com/benefits-perks

What percentage of your employees are Asian who work from Asia and what are their average salaries ?

Maybe Fly? Not sure.

https://fly.io/about

We do at Stellate: https://stellate.co/blog/one-job-one-pay

Do you guys share the distribution of title by location? Maybe Engineer 2 gets paid the same everywhere, but maybe San Francisco is all Engineer 10s and India is all Engineer 1s.

37 Signals. https://37signals.com/19

Last I checked they only hired in the US

37signals hires outside the US, see their HN ad from June, 2022[1]:

> The salary for candidates matched as Programmer is $165,410. The salary for candidates matched as Senior Programmer is $197,819. Irrespective of where in the world you live.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31583175

We do at Expensify. A good % of our team works fully remote: https://we.are.expensify.com/benefits-perks

Also, check out remotewide.co for a list of remote companies with location independent pay. I think this is exactly what you're looking for.

We're US only, but our salaries are flat across the US. Same salary in the Bay area and say, Moscow, Idaho.

Company?

If you want to get the same pay for remote work no matter where you are, just become a contractor.