ivity" is being used.

A remote dev working for a Bay Area company from Spain can be just as
productive for his employer as one located in Los Gatos, CA. However the above
method would categorize this dev as "objectively less productive", which seems
counter-intuitive...

~~~
duckingtest
>However the above method would categorize this dev as "objectively less
productive", which seems counter-intuitive...

It wouldn't, it purports to explain the differences in local salaries, or more
precisely salaries paid by local entities to on-site developers.

It's true I didn't specify that explicitly in the first comment, along with
definition of productivity, so your reading of it was a reasonable
understanding. It's a good thing you helped me clarify the intended meaning.

One assumption is that foreign demand (for non-local use) for local on-site
developers is small enough to not change the workforce demand significantly.
So it won't work for India or other common offshore destination, but it seems
to explain pay differences between USA and Spain, Norway and Switzerland
reasonably.

~~~
pcrh
In other words, pay differentials are more closely related to locale than to
the amount or quality of work produced.

------
whamlastxmas
The article says the average salary in Spain is around $22k. Even at twice
that, it's not hard to see why developers are not working for (or maybe even
in) Spain. I suspect the problem has more to do with Spanish businesses not
being willing or able to compete for developers with market salary rates.

It's frustrating that they don't provide data like that in articles like this.
Instead of they a single data point anecdote about how a company can't find an
Agile project manager for "up to" $220k.

How about comparing the percentage of software developers in Spain to the US?
Or discussing how the education for technology is different? Or what
percentage of the unemployed are developers? Or software developer salaries
compared to rest of EU. Or the number of Spanish developers working abroad or
for c