Google staff squirm as remote workers face pay cuts

In an aggressive hiring market for engineers, this is a decision Google is making which will increase potential churn risk for some engineers. As a Xoogler myself, I know how much they invest into thinking about talent acquisition and retention and would venture to say they are aware of this. I suspect none of this is as &quot;hot take&quot; to them.<p>At the same time, Google&#x27;s stock is up massively over the last two years. Google has been relatively aggressive with RSU allocations. That appreciation in RSU value will act as an offset for a subset of those who would churn. This must also factor into their current policy decisions. The team&#x27;s at Google try very hard to optimize for retaining their best people, but they are dealing with very large numbers of individuals during an unusual time. Further, they have traditionally been leading the charge for geographic proximity and density for product teams. Lots of change for them to manage through right now.<p>That said, as a CTO at a startup (which counts Google Ventures as an investor) I have hired many engineers from Google over the past 18mo. Approximately half our engineers are ex Google, Amazon, Microsoft. Beyond our product and ENG culture, our policy is fully distributed work (within the US - compliance reasons) and that is the one benefit ex FAANG engineers seem to value the most, currently (small N, selection biases acknowledged). Over all roles, I would estimate more than half the company consists of ex FAANG employees. Many were tired of being locked into a geography which did not make them happy.<p>So I view this as a change in the market dynamics which is allowing startups like mine to help make these engineers happier. We have engineers that have joined, and immediately moved to Hawaii, or purchased a rural farm in the Midwest - and we are 100% supportive of them having a work&#x2F;life that makes them happiest. Also, we&#x27;ve removed policies of paying differently based on the traditional tier 1, 2, and 3 geographies.<p>This is a market advantage that favors engineers, and as such - I&#x27;m very supportive :)

A lot of the discussions here never mentioned one issue that might arise if the companies didn&#x27;t adjust for CoLiving:<p>What would happened to the existing employees of the same company that already accepted lower salary for being in LCOL?<p>Google Mountain View pays differently than other Google branches (heck for a while, the pay in Google Seattle was slightly lower compare to HQ).<p>Now you have Google Señor Developer in LCOL accepted the fact that they get paid less than their compadre in Mtn View, but your Mtn View compadre decided to be your neighbour while refusing your level of pay. Wouldn&#x27;t that create tension?

It took me a long time to realize that these weren&#x27;t CoL adjustments.<p>Companies want to be competitive in your local market so they can retain you and so they can &quot;hire the best&quot;.<p>Where this gets murky is now everyone is remote so is there really a local market?

Get real. Arguments about CoL or geography or stock are all smokescreen. They pay for Engineers is whatever the market will bear. It&#x27;s quite curious that Engineers accustomed to calculating efficiency and tradeoffs will get mired in imaginary discussions about &#x27;correct&#x27; hiring.<p>If arguments about CoL or geography or nationalism quite being persuasive to potential hires, the hiring organization will simply switch to some other arguments. It&#x27;s just business.

In my career, cutting salary without just cause was viewed as a request to change employment. Or, a signal that the company was in dire straits and extreme cash management was required. I think we can assume google does not fall into the latter category. And cutting salary when it will improve retention and hiring “reach” and enable the company to better manage real estate costs strongly suggests it’s a stealth layoff, aiming to remove any peg developing a bit of square-ness. Round pegs fit the holes best, eh?<p>And remember, having the worker exit on their choice costs the company nothing.

Why does google (or any company for that matter) think this is a good idea? Especially with jobs in the tech industry being so abundant and people chomping at the bit to hire SWEs&#x2F;SREs.

Google made $19B profit on $65B revenue last year. Whatever this is, it is NOT about being able to continue paying their workers what they already make.

A lot of people seem to be under the assumption that this is based on &quot;cost of living&#x27;.<p>Where I live has a higher CoL than almost all of the US, and local salaries are a fraction.<p>It&#x27;s about google paying competitively compared to local companies. Nothing to do with cost of living.

Pre-pandemic real-world scenarios at my employer:<p>1. Employee switches to 100% at home situation, same team, same role. But they remain in the employer’s town, they don’t move away.<p>2. Same as scenario #1, but they move away to somewhere with a cheaper cost of living.<p>#1 suffers no pay reduction, but #2 does.

&quot;What is it about my work that is somehow less valuable in a different location?&quot;<p>That person is either incredibly naive or dishonest. If she&#x27;s naive, she should start by asking herself why is she paid multiple times what someone doing the same job in Hyderabad is.

Companies exist to inflate real estate prices, so they must pay based on local costs! &#x2F;s

I dont understand how this makes any sense.<p>Seems mean and greedy to me.<p>I use MY resources, My power&#x2F;internet&#x2F;aircon&#x2F;floor space to do a job for my employer. Why should I be paying for that?

An opportunistic smash and grab, they&#x27;ve found some leverage they can use to their advantage. It&#x27;d be fair if the workforce were unionised.

While I sympathize with the principle that two people providing the same value should be paid the same, in these discussions it seems to me almost everybody is forgetting we live in a capitalist world and the offer and demand law applies.<p>If a company can get the same or better quality of engineers in a lower cost of living area at a cost discount (example: Canada where salaries were about half than in SV and about 50% less than say Midwest US), why are they going to not take the discount? And this &quot;arbitrage&quot; is what it seems to be happening, with US companies hiring fully remote Canadians at 25% discount for them and still the Canadians making 25% more than they used to. (Obv this doesn&#x27;t address existing employees who moved to LCOL)

This is a great way to finally lower the massive engineering bloat that plagues FAANG.

People making hundreds of thousands of dollars complain because they don&#x27;t get to keep their insane salaries when moving to less competitive areas.

If the company was willing to pay me $X for the work I&#x27;m doing, then they should continue to pay me at least $X if I change locations. The work has already been valued.<p>Does the company exist to support the HR department, or does the HR department exist to support the company and employees? At google, we know the answer.