The Remote Manifesto • Hacker News Board

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#91

Post by jypepin » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

sytse wrote: post #88

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…

We want to hire the best candidate regardless of cost. We do optimize what potential candidates we approach. We focus more on diverse hires when reaching out ourselves. Diverse both as in geographically and underrepresented minorities. BTW Our blog post about our school of though https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/

Thanks for addressing the point!

Just to be clear, I'm not accusing Gitlab of doing this, just using Gitlab as an example of what could be happening! :)

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#92

Post by ngrilly » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #89

ngrilly wrote: post #13

The manifesto mentions: > Evolution of speech-to-text conversion software - more accurate and faster than typing Last time I tried I wasn't convinced. Anyone here is really using that to program, write emails or write Markdown?

I only use it for quick slack or instant messages with my team when I am otherwise occupied. Maybe I'll make a run at it later today when I have to do some documentation. My experience has been that they're not great and every sentence requires manual editing. Though, on Android, at least, it has improved noticeably over the last couple of updates.

This matches my own experience. Never thought of using speech-to-text for chat. Will try it :-)

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#93

Post by jypepin » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

ilikehurdles wrote: post #68

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…

My remote gig has several people who are pretty much digital nomads -- they move around often, travel even more often, and work from various states. We all get paid on the same scale (north-east coast based) so there's no issue; but, how would Gitlab handle this? Change their salary every time they log work from a new location? Even with that, it seems arbitrary and unbalanced. One person's cost of living paying for…

yes "nomad" vs "remote" (implying remote but based somewhere) is one of the argument for the other school: pay same rate because what if people are nomads.

Gitlab has a process for relocating, so it counter the following argument, but with that kind of location based salary that pushes people to try and game the system. Get hired while saying you live in an expensive area and finally move somewhere cheap.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#94

Post by jypepin » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

gshdg wrote: post #87

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…

Isn't that part of the point? Being remote allows Gitlab to hire the less expensive candidate, assuming equal suitability for the job. That's good for the company. If that's translating into other biases (race/gender/age/etc), then that's a bad thing, and perhaps someone could make a legal case against it. But it seems a little odd to complain that an employer is biased against you because of a choice you make to liv…

According to most employers I've talked to, cheaper salaries is usually not high on the reasons why remote. It's usually more access to more talents, etc.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#95

Post by shampto3 » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #80

While this is all about remote, and talks mostly about remote, I found the initial bullet list very interesting. In my opinion, only the very first bullet point (omitted here) is tied to remote working, and the rest are probably ideas you should take a good look at if you could stand to improve your own processes and workflow (whether or not you are or will become remote). > Flexible working hours over set working ho…

I agree that these bullet points are good ideas that can be implemented by any company that is striving to improve. I think the main reason why these fall under this "Remote Manifesto" is that they become necessary for productivity in a 100% remote organization, whereas a traditional company may not be as motivated to implement these standards.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#96

Post by bchurch » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

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…

Thanks for this feedback on the page, particularly the disadvantages section. I recently made iterations to the page with the goal of making it easier to digest -- it was made up of very long, redundant, numbered lists where people had contributed bits here and there over the years. I made sure not to remove any content from the page, but did combine and trim any content that was clearly repeated multiple times, which is why the disadvantages section is the length that it is. We also added new links like this one (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transition-remote-work-1-mont...) to try to give a more authentic look at what the first month in a remote role can be like — both positive and negative, and there are more on the resources page.

There was no intention of downplaying the disadvantages, but I’m glad to know that’s how it comes across so that we can make it better. To start, I submitted a MR to reformat that section to mirror the advantages section. There will be more to come, but I also want to call out that the page is editable and we want others to contribute to it and make improvements. It’s meant to be an ever-evolving resource. This thread will also be linked on the “Remote-work resources” page for full visibility.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#97

Post by bchurch » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

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.

Thanks for this feedback on the page, particularly the disadvantages section. I recently made iterations to the page with the goal of making it easier to digest -- it was made up of very long, redundant, numbered lists where people had contributed bits here and there over the years. I made sure not to remove any content from the page, but did combine and trim any content that was clearly repeated multiple times, which is why the disadvantages section is the length that it is. We also added new links like this one (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transition-remote-work-1-mont...) to try to give a more authentic look at what the first month in a remote role can be like — both positive and negative, and there are more on the resources page.

There was no intention of downplaying the disadvantages, but I’m glad to know that’s how it comes across so that we can make it better. To start, I submitted a MR to reformat that section to mirror the advantages section. There will be more to come, but I also want to call out that the page is editable and we want others to contribute to it and make improvements. It’s meant to be an ever-evolving resource. This thread will also be linked on the “Remote-work resources” page for full visibility.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#98

Post by sytse » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

bchurch wrote: post #96

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…

Thanks for this feedback on the page, particularly the disadvantages section. I recently made iterations to the page with the goal of making it easier to digest -- it was made up of very long, redundant, numbered lists where people had contributed bits here and there over the years. I made sure not to remove any content from the page, but did combine and trim any content that was clearly repeated multiple times, whic…

Link to the MR https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#99

Post by sytse » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #91

sytse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want to hire the best candidate regardless of cost. We do optimize what potential candidates we approach. We focus more on diverse hires when reaching out ourselves. Diverse both as in geographically and underrepresented minorities. BTW Our blog post about our school of though https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/

Thanks for addressing the point! Just to be clear, I'm not accusing Gitlab of doing this, just using Gitlab as an example of what could be happening! :)

You're welcome. And I didn't feel accused. In fact we might document this clearly in our handbook so people don't feel confused.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#100

Post by emilycook » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

pault wrote: post #65

mieseratte wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I just took a 20% pay-cut to go work somewhere I thought I might like. There is more to a position than the compensation package.

Sure, in those rare cases where you can find a company that really does interesting work (this is doubly difficult if you are limited to companies that allow remote work). For boring company A vs boring company B you are going to follow the money, I think (unless you actually work for The Boring Company).

Disclaimer, I am a GitLab employee. But IMO this isn't really comparing apples-to-apples, since we're specifically talking about remote companies. Sure, someone may have 2 job offers from 2 different remote companies, in which case the company offering SF rates has the advantage. But I'd argue that would be a fairly rare case overall given how globally competitive remote work is.

What's probably more likely is that someone is comparing Local Company A vs Remote Company B (this was my case), with the compensation rates being fairly equal. Then, the decision is "am I willing to be paid less than a coworker in SF for the opportunity to work remotely?" I was fine with that trade-off personally, and I'm sure a lot of people who are attracted to remote work would be as well.