A few years ago I really wanted to join GitHub as a software engineer. I was living in San Francisco and visited their office for some events, and I thought it would be an awesome place to work. I tried reaching out to a few people who worked there, but I could never get my foot in the door. There were a lot of things I would have loved to build at GitHub, and they were all the same things that GitLab is doing now. I…
We do look at rent index as a factor within Compensation. It is not the only factor but it would be unfair not to take it into consideration. Afterall, there are not many locations in the world where $117,000 is considered low-income. (https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/06/26/hud-117000-low-...). I'm thrilled that we can provide team members with a meaningful career without forcing them to move to a high-cost area. I have often seen cases at other companies where we make a great offer to an out-of-area candidate. They think the compensation is amazing and jump on a plane to start their new job in the Silicon Valley only then realizing that they can't afford a home here and may need to get a roommate to pay the rent unless they live far enough away and endure a long commute. The big salary suddenly looks a lot smaller after seeing the cost of living.
However, it is not the only factor we look at and we are continuing to improve the model we have for compensation. We also set a minimum rent index so those very low cost areas are actually paid above market. We do this to ensure that the gaps are not too large. We also pay the market data for a region widely. If you're within a 90 min. commute of San Francisco, for example, you would still make the SF pay.
Where you see region broadly represented (like the example of "the rest of the UK), that is because the rent index across the region was less or equal to the minimum rent index set. When you see a location that you perceive to be a lower rent index, getting higher compensation, that could be because we also add a contractor factor in those locations where we are hiring as contractors, knowing that there are often additional expenses to cover as a contractor.
With that being said, we are constantly trying to get meaningful compensation data in various locations so we can rely more on the market data and less on the rent index. It is my intention that if we see that the market is changing with more remote companies, we will also adjust our benchmarks to be an accurate reflection of the market. I know that there will always be a company out there willing to pay more and that we will lose some talent because of that. I also know and have seen, that GitLab is able to attract and retain some of the best engineers I've seen (and I've seen some great engineers!) due to its product, culture, and all remote work life.