I was wondering what makes companies be willing to pay Bay Area packages for engineers in only a few tech hubs. Supply and Demand? But then at least FANNGs have a hard time finding talents in European countries too, at least in Germany. And the number of engineers they hire is small compared to that in the US, so the companies could afford larger packages, right?
If it were not supply and demand, then it's puzzling to me why companies didn't want to pay packages comparable to the Bay Area in cities like London or Berlin. Is it because these cities do not have teams that own sufficiently mission-critical products or systems? If that's the reason, then why can't the cities own more products?
There is an inertial mass of engineers still in the USA at the tech hubs, and top leadership at those companies still don't want them to be remote. They rather pay more and have them not remote than to have them remote.
And even if they don't want them in the USA anymore with US compensation, it can take a long time to build up staff and still not have a huge core of them in the US.
If it were not supply and demand, then it's puzzling to me why companies didn't want to pay packages comparable to the Bay Area in cities like London or Berlin. Is it because these cities do not have teams that own sufficiently mission-critical products or systems? If that's the reason, then why can't the cities own more products?