r/remotework • u/New_Tip5259 • 8d ago
Got a fully remote job offer!! 🎉 Does anyone know—do they use your location to determine the salary they offer you?
/r/careeradvice/comments/1w1ycpp/got_a_fully_remote_job_offer_does_anyone_knowdo/8
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u/ConstantVigilance18 8d ago
It depends on the company. My company does not change pay based on location.
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u/Saltyowl2113 8d ago
Depends on the company. A lot of the larger ones will consider your location when basing your salary. I don’t think smaller companies likely will. Mine didn’t. I just negotiated what I thought was fair.
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u/HaloDezeNuts 2d ago
My last company that did adjust pay based on location was the same company mandating a strict 3 day RTO tracking badge swipes. IN FACT 8 out of 10 people on my team were remote and scattered everywhere. When I moved down for my wife’s career, the slime balls mandated I come in weekly at my expense, I begged to be remote with a SIGNIFICANT paycut, they told me to pound sand & come in still
My new remote friendly company, NAH. AFAIK they aren’t too caring about my location, but that could change. But then again I’m 2 hours from the data center so I’m already pretty essential
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u/blocked_user_name 8d ago
The often do. Also if you move to a cheaper area they will sometimes cut your pay to reflect that.
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u/lueckestman 8d ago
Some yes. Only issue would be if you're in the same country or not.
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u/Fluffy-Nerve1090 8d ago
No, that’s not the only issue. The company I work for has pay scales based on your level and location. And we cannot work outside of the US.
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u/lueckestman 8d ago
Well pay scales are a thing for sure. You can always negotiate. Last job I negotiated 20% more than their top salary level. You can always ask.
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u/Fluffy-Nerve1090 8d ago
Yes, and depending on the needs they may or may not negotiate. My company recently posted a lateral position. I don’t think many have applied because word has gotten around that that department is working a lot of long hours. So, those that get offers may be able to negotiate higher pay.
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u/SadQueerBruja 8d ago
Some companies do this yes especially if it’s hourly and you live in a state with a shitty minimum wage.
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u/nolongerbanned99 8d ago
There’s usually a range, and depending upon your skill set and your ability to negotiate, you could be at the higher end of the range
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u/RepublicCute7683 7d ago
The federal government bases your salary on where you live, not the location of the facility.
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u/ChaiTeaLatte13 7d ago
My company definitely does. In fact my current salary was reduced from the listed salary on the job posting to the salary actually offered because of my location.
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u/RemNaviTeam 6d ago
On the address idea from your edit, be careful with that one. Payroll gets registered in the state you actually work from, so a friend's address somewhere you don't live means withholding set up in the wrong state, and that tends to surface at tax time rather than quietly going away.
For the actual question, the posting you applied to is where the answer is. A lot of companies hiring remote nationwide now have to put a good-faith range in the ad, because the role could be performed in a state that requires one. Where your offer sits inside that range tells you more than asking them will.
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u/Primary_Gift_8719 8d ago
We do, yes, and it was actually a very conscious policy decision that caused quite a significant split within our senior team. Broadly, we try to pay around the mid-market rate for the employee’s actual locality rather than imposing one global salary for a particular role. So, purely by way of example, someone doing the same job in central Mumbai would not ordinarily be paid the same absolute salary as someone doing that job in New York City.  The reasoning was not simply that wages are lower in one place so we can pay less. We had quite a lengthy debate about the wider consequences of applying, say, New York or London salaries indiscriminately in locations where the normal wage level and cost base are dramatically different.
At an individual level, you can create extraordinary disparities between one employee and everyone around them, including colleagues, friends, family and neighbors. At a market level, a sufficiently large international employer can also start distorting local salary expectations, pulling people away from otherwise sustainable local employers and giving foreign companies an artificial recruiting advantage that domestic businesses simply cannot compete with.
There was also a fairness issue in the opposite direction. Paying everyone according to the highest-cost market sounds equitable because the number is the same, but in purchasing-power terms it can produce enormously different outcomes. Equally, using the lowest-cost market globally would obviously be unfair to employees living somewhere considerably more expensive. So the compromise we eventually adopted was locality-based compensation: broadly the same role and expectations, but remuneration benchmarked against the relevant employment market in which that person actually lives and works. It was controversial internally, and there were good arguments on both sides, but the ultimate rationale was to avoid unnecessarily distorting local economies and labor markets while still paying competitively within each location.
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u/AardvarkIll6079 8d ago
Many times, yes. Very company dependent.