Re:Ask HN: Local vs. remote salary gap
by michaelt on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @07:00PM
(#7974007)
Let's say market rate for a programmer in San Francisco is five times the market rate for an equally good programmer in Bangalore.
Why would you hire one guy in Bangalore and pay him five times market rate, when you could hire five guys and pay them exactly market rate, and presumably get a bunch more work done?
(Obviously it isn't quite this simple, programmers are special snowflakes who cannot be substituted, it's worth paying more for talented people who get more stuff done, larger teams have greater management and communication overheads, remote workers will be in inconvenient timezones etc but my point remains even if you decided to hire three guys at 60% above Bangalore market rate)
Why would you hire one guy in Bangalore and pay him five times market rate, when you could hire five guys and pay them exactly market rate, and presumably get a bunch more work done?
(Obviously it isn't quite this simple, programmers are special snowflakes who cannot be substituted, it's worth paying more for talented people who get more stuff done, larger teams have greater management and communication overheads, remote workers will be in inconvenient timezones etc but my point remains even if you decided to hire three guys at 60% above Bangalore market rate)