For workers in the global south, where wages are on average one-fifth of those paid to northern workers, the benefits of location-agnostic remuneration are manifold. Living in Peru, Adrian Salazar’s jobs had mostly been with US-based tech startups, and in his most recent role, he had peers in New York who were earning twice as much as him. “I was constantly trying to convince employers that it was a good idea to pay me the same as someone from Europe and the United States,” says Salazar. “I dropped out of high school, so I always had imposter syndrome, but automatically earning less because of where I lived certainly didn’t help.”
After joining SafetyWing as head of culture in 2021, Salazar moved to Medellin, Colombia, and he says that earning the same as his counterparts has boosted his confidence. “I know I shouldn’t need a salary to feel that way, but it validated my worth,” he says. For graphic designer Abril Carli, the package enabled her to move from her hometown in Argentina, where design work was scarce. “I was doing three jobs to pay the bills and rent a place by myself,” says Carli, who has since made a base in Andorra, with plenty of nomadic working in between.
SafetyWing isn’t the only remote tech company to offer elements of location-agnostic pay—Basecamp, Gumroad, Daily, Sourcegraph, HelpScout, RevenueCat, and Wildbit have all removed geography as a consideration when determining a salary, with all employees who do the same job earning the same amount. However, an entirely flat salary hierarchy like SafetyWing’s also deals with gender parity issues that most businesses have been unable to make progress on. Gender pay equity in almost every country has been depressingly slow—and in some cases, even regressed. In the UK, for example, the gender pay gap has stagnated at 9.4 percent since 2017, with opaque pay structures only serving to bake this in.
At one stage, Icart worked at the same company as her then boyfriend and discovered he was earning more than her, despite being on the same level. “He had the guts to ask for much more, even though he was working less than me,” says Icart. “But the reality is, lots of people aren’t comfortable asking for more, even though they’re equally capable of commanding that kind of salary.” Indeed, there are discrepancies in how women and men negotiate, with women fearing it will hinder, rather than help, their careers. They do so when given the chance, while men tend to negotiate even when the rules of wage determination are ambiguous.
Without having to agonise over whether they’re being paid fairly, and how to get there, employees have more headspace to do their actual jobs. “In traditional companies, you need this elaborate plan for negotiating a raise, and sometimes you spend more time making that than actually doing the work,” says Icart. Instead, employees focus on reviewing and adjusting personal and company goals regularly. When SafetyWing hits a pre-agreed revenue milestone, all employees see the same pay increase hit their bank account.
