Piggybacking. This should be no surprise. When your job becomes remote, you now compete with people willing to earn half or less because they choose not to live where you do. Basic econ. Don’t be entitled, it’s no surprise most of the country hates tech workers.
You don’t get paid based on the value you bring. You get paid based on supply and demand. Once they can hire from anywhere in the US, the supply increases.
But the time to properly screen senior engineers remains finite.
Who are the people that can properly vet senior-level talent? A few other senior-level engineers that are on the team?
So you want them to ask questions that are beyond the superficial, phone screen 50 candidates, all the while they're supposed to continue to do product development, fix bugs, comments on PR? Something will suffer - either the hiring process or product development.
For every potential hiree that rejects an offer, an engineer that gets into the late stages of the interview process only to be hired away by a better offer is time wasted by your engineering team.
Engineers in the late stages of hiring have the upper hand. Repeat it to your self. "I have the leverage."
With an offer on the table, push back and counter offer. They don't want you to walk away.
Living in Des Moines and they already have a senior team in SF? Awesome. Ask for the SF salary or walk. They'll counter. And if they don't? You can salvage the deal by approach them in two days with another counter. In two days, they have _not_ lined up another qualified senior engineer.
They've already burned so many resources. The company knows this. Now you do too.
We are living in a post-Covid world. All of the money losing companies are laying off people leaving the FAANGMs that have a real business model and making money the only companies hiring at inflated salaries. Now you have both increased supply because they are expanding outside of the west coast and more “smart people” (tm) who spent years at the leetCode alter looking for jobs. You also have reduced demand with VCs not willing to throw good money after bad anymore.
No, because people are trying to “hack” the system by getting SV wages living in Des Moines IA. This will introduce upward pressure on cost of living everywhere else. No, you don’t deserve a 6000sq ft mansion that a doctor living in the same region cannot afford. Besides not making sense, since as I mentioned, there are people willing to make half as much who live in these areas.
