Team, Co-founders & Legal

How do I hire and manage across Indian cities so it does not become second-class remote?

A starting point

Talent in Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, and Coimbatore is real and cheaper to retain, so hiring beyond metros is an edge, not a compromise. The trap is a two-tier culture where the metro office decides everything and remote folks find out later. Fix it by defaulting to written decisions, recording key meetings, and making sure at least one founder is genuinely remote-first in habits. Pay to a transparent location-aware band, not a random discount, and fly everyone together a few times a year.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

3 resources 3 link-checked

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it GitLab runs 2,000+ people across 60+ countries with zero headquarters, so their handbook is the closest thing to a field manual for exactly your problem: how do you stop the office from quietly becoming the center. It is concrete on the habits that actually fix two-tier culture, defaulting to written decisions, making meetings optional with a shared agenda so nobody 'finds out later', and designing for async instead of replicating an in-room experience. Read the 'what not to do' and meeting sections first, then copy the handbook-first pattern for a team split across Indore, Kochi, and a metro.

GitLab's Guide to All-Remote

From The GitLab Handbook by GitLab 45 min read

  • Public-by-default written decisions are the single lever that keeps a remote colleague equal to someone in the room
  • Meetings are optional and default to a shared doc, so the decision lives in text and nobody is 'told later'
  • Do not replicate the office remotely; design the process for distributed work from the start or the metro office wins by default
Open handbook.gitlab.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it This is a real, published pay formula, not opinion: Salary = (SF 50th-percentile benchmark x cost-of-living multiplier x role multiplier) x experience factor, with the location adjustment set to three clean bands (100 / 85 / 75 percent) instead of a made-up discount. That is exactly the transparent location-aware band your answer argues for, and Buffer even ships a public calculator and open salary sheet so anyone can see how their number is built. Steal the structure and swap SF for a Bengaluru benchmark to price talent in Jaipur or Coimbatore defensibly rather than by gut.

The Next Evolution of Transparent Salaries: Our Remote-First Formula and Salary Calculator

From Buffer by Buffer 15 min read

  • A defensible location adjustment is a small set of published bands (100/85/75), not a per-person haggle or a random discount
  • Anchor to one benchmark market, then apply role and experience multipliers so two people at the same level land in the same place
  • Publishing the formula (and a calculator) is what turns 'you earn less because of where you live' from resentment into a rule everyone can see
Open buffer.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Before you lock in location-based bands, read the honest case against them: this lays out where cost-of-living pay breeds resentment, why cost-of-living data is squishier than it looks, and why 'same work, less money' quietly reads as unfair to the person outside the metro. It contrasts the GitLab/Airbnb location model against location-agnostic single-band pay so you choose deliberately instead of defaulting. For an India team where the metro-vs-elsewhere gap is real, this is the reality check that keeps your band from becoming the two-tier culture you were trying to avoid.

Should you earn less because you live somewhere cheaper?

From Sifted by Sifted 10 min read

  • Location-based pay is commercially rational but can feel like your quality of life is decided by your employer
  • Cost-of-living indices are subjective and drift, so a location band needs review, not set-and-forget
  • The alternative is a single global band for equal role and level; pick one on purpose and be able to defend it
Open sifted.eu →

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