<story><title>Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did</title><url>https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-san-francisco-but-now-we-pay-everyone-as-though-all-did-3ee87013cfc2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>overcast</author><text>No way on this earth, $150,000 is anywhere near normal in the Bay Area, let alone in other less expensive metros. Most people are absolutely not making that much money writing code. People have serious tunnel vision on HN.</text></item><item><author>pmorici</author><text>150k sounds way low for the Bay Area you can get that in other much less expensive metro areas.</text></item><item><author>CiPHPerCoder</author><text>People often tell me, &amp;quot;Yeah the Bay Area is expensive but the tech salaries make up for it.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;By being able to get a Bay Area salary (e.g. $150k&amp;#x2F;year) while working from anywhere in the world (e.g. any city where $40k&amp;#x2F;year is considered comfortable living and $80k&amp;#x2F;year is considered &amp;quot;well off&amp;quot;), the incentive to continue saturating the area with local talent decreases.&lt;p&gt;Same salary, lower cost of living, AND the ability to be a homeowner in the foreseeable future? That&amp;#x27;s a hard deal to beat.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Basecamp is selling all over the world. What should their salary level be like? Bay Area because that’s where a lot of the larger tech companies are situated? Washington State (Microsoft, Amazon)? Copenhagen (where one founder, DHH is from)? Sudney where one major competitor, Jira, is from? I’d say whatever the market is that they hire in. If you wanna pay above market rate, by all means do that. If you can attract employees in Chicago for less than Copenhagen or Bay Area salaries, then by all means, feel free to do that. Employees are free to leave.&lt;p&gt;What I don’t see is why all companies should follow Bay Area salaries.</text></item><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>Well done. Personally, as a remote developer, I always make a point of billing at my &amp;quot;Bay Area Rate&amp;quot;, even though I&amp;#x27;ve never lived there.&lt;p&gt;There was a point, early in my guy-on-the-beach-with-a-laptop era where I would cut my bill rate in half while working from the beach with a laptop. Clients were happy about that, and it more than paid for beers and thatch huts. Then one time I tried &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; cutting my bill rate in half on a proposal. Nobody but me seemed to notice. So now I don&amp;#x27;t do that anymore.&lt;p&gt;As the article so nicely points put, the work you&amp;#x27;re doing is exactly the same regardless of where you do it from. Charge accordingly.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s true that living costs are less in other places. It makes a lot more sense for that difference to be captured by &lt;i&gt;me&lt;/i&gt; rather than somebody else&amp;#x27;s company.&lt;p&gt;Glad to see these guys stepping up and setting an example from the employer side.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>compumike</author><text>(Disclosure: I work for Triplebyte and helped publish our salary dataset recently.)&lt;p&gt;$150K is below the median base salary offer we see for &lt;i&gt;senior&lt;/i&gt; software engineers. See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;triplebyte.com&amp;#x2F;software-engineer-salary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;triplebyte.com&amp;#x2F;software-engineer-salary&lt;/a&gt; -- with a few notes:&lt;p&gt;* This is base salary only. Total compensation is significantly higher once you include factors like equity compensation, bonuses, benefits.&lt;p&gt;* This does vary a lot with stage of company. Earlier-stage startups use more equity and less salary. We work with companies from pre-series A to public megacorp.&lt;p&gt;* This is for senior engineers. Less experienced engineers do typically earn less.&lt;p&gt;* We&amp;#x27;re fairly selective in the engineers we work with, but it&amp;#x27;s based on the abilities you demonstrate in our multiple-choice quiz and technical interview, rather than your credentials.</text></comment>
<story><title>Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did</title><url>https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-san-francisco-but-now-we-pay-everyone-as-though-all-did-3ee87013cfc2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>overcast</author><text>No way on this earth, $150,000 is anywhere near normal in the Bay Area, let alone in other less expensive metros. Most people are absolutely not making that much money writing code. People have serious tunnel vision on HN.</text></item><item><author>pmorici</author><text>150k sounds way low for the Bay Area you can get that in other much less expensive metro areas.</text></item><item><author>CiPHPerCoder</author><text>People often tell me, &amp;quot;Yeah the Bay Area is expensive but the tech salaries make up for it.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;By being able to get a Bay Area salary (e.g. $150k&amp;#x2F;year) while working from anywhere in the world (e.g. any city where $40k&amp;#x2F;year is considered comfortable living and $80k&amp;#x2F;year is considered &amp;quot;well off&amp;quot;), the incentive to continue saturating the area with local talent decreases.&lt;p&gt;Same salary, lower cost of living, AND the ability to be a homeowner in the foreseeable future? That&amp;#x27;s a hard deal to beat.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Basecamp is selling all over the world. What should their salary level be like? Bay Area because that’s where a lot of the larger tech companies are situated? Washington State (Microsoft, Amazon)? Copenhagen (where one founder, DHH is from)? Sudney where one major competitor, Jira, is from? I’d say whatever the market is that they hire in. If you wanna pay above market rate, by all means do that. If you can attract employees in Chicago for less than Copenhagen or Bay Area salaries, then by all means, feel free to do that. Employees are free to leave.&lt;p&gt;What I don’t see is why all companies should follow Bay Area salaries.</text></item><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>Well done. Personally, as a remote developer, I always make a point of billing at my &amp;quot;Bay Area Rate&amp;quot;, even though I&amp;#x27;ve never lived there.&lt;p&gt;There was a point, early in my guy-on-the-beach-with-a-laptop era where I would cut my bill rate in half while working from the beach with a laptop. Clients were happy about that, and it more than paid for beers and thatch huts. Then one time I tried &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; cutting my bill rate in half on a proposal. Nobody but me seemed to notice. So now I don&amp;#x27;t do that anymore.&lt;p&gt;As the article so nicely points put, the work you&amp;#x27;re doing is exactly the same regardless of where you do it from. Charge accordingly.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s true that living costs are less in other places. It makes a lot more sense for that difference to be captured by &lt;i&gt;me&lt;/i&gt; rather than somebody else&amp;#x27;s company.&lt;p&gt;Glad to see these guys stepping up and setting an example from the employer side.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>carlivar</author><text>May want to browse the countless compensation discussions in the app Blind. Lots of Bay Area offer info there.&lt;p&gt;Note that salary is a misnomer. The term now is &amp;quot;total compensation&amp;quot; which has a significant RSU portion.</text></comment>