[nolaspring]

I work for a company based in a major west coast city from a non-major city in the southeast. My employer has different buckets it puts cities in and then limits your base pay based on those buckets. Even with that limitation, my compensation is much higher than what I would make at a local company but not the rate I would get in a 'premium' market.

The most impactful benefit for me is I get to work on $big_city problems with $big_city talent. $Small_town problems and the $small_town talent are mind-numbing and deeply frustrating to work with

[aantix]

Strangely, you could be getting paid from the premium bucket. They have that budget. It’s there. You provide the same value as Adam from SF.

Why not you?

[klodolph]

Short reason is because the market is driven not only by what value you provide, but how strong your negotiating position is.

As an analogy, imagine someone from NYC traveling to Mexico City to get tacos from a cart on the street at 9 pesos a pop (about 50¢ US). Those tacos are better than the tacos in New York, so why aren’t they paying $4 each?