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The Remote Manifesto

about.gitlab.com

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Re: The Remote Manifesto

#31

Post by jsty »

vbsteven wrote: post #22

I wonder how some of the all remote companies handle the legal side of things when it comes to paying salaries and contracts. I've been working as a (partly remote depending on customer) freelancer/contractor for 5 years with my own legal entity setup in Europe to do invoicing and handle my finances. I'm not willing to give that up yet but the thought of working for an all remote company for a longer period than the…

Depending on which country you and your employing entity are in, this could end up netting you all of the disadvantages of self-employment with none of the benefits.

E.g. in the UK, HMRC will determine your tax status based on, amongst other things, how much control your 'not employer' has over the work you do. So if GitLab were to treat you as just another member of the team, you'd run a big risk of ending up treated as an employee for tax purposes, but without any of the rights accorded to employees.

TLDR - talk to a tax professional who understands the regulations in both your and your "not employer's" jurisdictions.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#32

Post by [deleted] »

codegeek wrote: post #4

I feel like that whole Remote issue has become too binary. Either people advocate for complete remote option OR employers mostly don't provide any flexibility when it comes to work location or schedules. I personally believe that human interaction is a key to our well being since humans are not designed to stay in a remote room/office somewhere by themselves. I am not quite on the 100% remote thing to be honest and o…

[deleted]

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#33

Post by atemerev »

hnarn wrote: post #2

> For example, onboarding can be more difficult when you're remote, because it involves more self-learning and you're not physically with your new coworkers and fellow new hires. This can cause the first month in a remote role to feel lonely, especially if you're transitioning from a traditional office setting. As someone whose primary experience from going between jobs in IT is that almost the singularly most import…

I prefer to build my social life around the people I choose, not the people I am stuck with.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#35

Post by jypepin »

baroffoos wrote: post #10
jypepin wrote: post #6

My observation is that there are 2 schools of thought about remote salaries. One side will pay SF-based competitive salaries no matter where you are, are the other side will have a "cost of living" adjusted salary. Gitlab is in the latter group. I recently thought about it, and was wondering if this could create some bias / unfair preferential treatment when interviewing and competing with other candidates. If candid…

That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good strategy. I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the lo…

But usually salary negotiations happen once an offer is given, so candidate has already been picked. The company really need to explicitly act in bad faith to be choosing the cheaper candidate. Here I'm probably more mentioning a bias more than bad faith (although bad faith could also happen).

I get the point of Gitlab about having zombie employees, but at the same time other remote companies offer SF-based salary. So _as a remote worker_ you could decide to get a SF-based salary instead of locally adjusted one.

I get both sides of the argument and really don't know if a side is more right.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#36

Post by jl-gitlab »

tnolet wrote: post #7

However much I like Gitlab, the “disadvantages” section is a joke. Working alone with only video, chat and email is a huge fundamental change in how work is done and I’m pretty sure we as a society don’t really know yet what impact it has on social development, interpersonal skills, empathy, sympathy etc. they should at least acknowledge that.

I'm a GitLab employee, and before working here always struggled with remote work. There's a tipping point, though, at an all remote company where when everyone is remote, the communication structures of the company adapt to having clear communication through video, chat, and email. We do a lot of video chat here. It's hard to describe what it's like, but it certainly doesn't feel like we're all locked away in little boxes with only awkward or indirect ways to interact with each other.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#37

Post by jypepin »

lukaszkups wrote: post #14
jypepin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main issue is that if the company is not 100% committed to remote work, the extra effort it takes to have everything documented and written will probably not happen, and the remote part will not be successful. So it seems like it's just easier to make remote successful if everyone is remote. Kind of like quitting smoking cold turkey vs saying "I'll start by smoking less". I've been remote on a non-remote…

+1 to this. I've been working as a remote contractor while whole team was on site (to make things more difficult, on different continent and different timezone - Europe vs US). I think I'll never do it again (working remotely while the rest of the team is onsite). Now I work with a fully remote team, and it's great ;)

Glad to hear this! I've been in the same boat and will never again join a local team as a remote member. I love to work from home and be alone, but that was too much, really.

Now, I do really like remote work because of the freedom it offers and always thought if I ever get another job, it should be remote. Glad to hear you say that fully remote works well while you had the same troubles as me on a non-fully remote team!

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#38

Post by jypepin »

onion2k wrote: post #23
baroffoos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good strategy. I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the lo…

Why pay more for the same skill? Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain of recruiting someone else.

or low moral because people feel like they have been screwed or it's unfair that some coworkers are paid more.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#39

Post by scarecrowbob »

jsty wrote: post #31
vbsteven wrote: post #22

I wonder how some of the all remote companies handle the legal side of things when it comes to paying salaries and contracts. I've been working as a (partly remote depending on customer) freelancer/contractor for 5 years with my own legal entity setup in Europe to do invoicing and handle my finances. I'm not willing to give that up yet but the thought of working for an all remote company for a longer period than the…

Depending on which country you and your employing entity are in, this could end up netting you all of the disadvantages of self-employment with none of the benefits. E.g. in the UK, HMRC will determine your tax status based on, amongst other things, how much control your 'not employer' has over the work you do. So if GitLab were to treat you as just another member of the team, you'd run a big risk of ending up treate…

I agree with this comment.

I'm wholly in the US, so maybe my experience is unique to me. Bit I was freelancing for quite a while and then one of my clients ended up buying all my time.

IMO, there weren't any benefits from remaining a contractor once I was working full time. We ended up cutting my pay a bit to account for a shift in taxes and that worked out better for both me and my employer.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#40

Post by a_imho »

jypepin wrote: post #6

My observation is that there are 2 schools of thought about remote salaries. One side will pay SF-based competitive salaries no matter where you are, are the other side will have a "cost of living" adjusted salary. Gitlab is in the latter group. I recently thought about it, and was wondering if this could create some bias / unfair preferential treatment when interviewing and competing with other candidates. If candid…

Could you please list some of the type I companies? I'm at the other end of things and find they are non existent, but maybe I'm searching in the wrong places.

Remote is not a protected group [0].

[0] https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/what-does-a-w...

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