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GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

forbes.com

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Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#91

Post by SilasX »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #53
nakodari wrote: post #5

The first half of the article doesn't even name the business. The name of the business, GitLab, is hidden in the second half of the article. This is an example of a publication optimizing blindly for Google Search Optimization where they want to improve "Time on site" and other data by keeping the readers on the page as long as possible. It's frustrating. Google's algorithm needs to be updated to make it smarter othe…

Forbes is a trash publication, living on its historical reputation to vomit SEO spam all over the internet. A good recent example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/business/media/jeffrey-ep... “The article on the Forbes website was attributed to Drew Hendricks, a contributing writer. As The Times revealed in an article last week, he was not the author of the piece. Instead, it was delivered to him by a public relat…

Jeez! I never knew submarining had gotten that bad! I always assumed it was “PR firm gives you a bunch of quotes and research, possibly a narrative, and you write it from there.” I never thought it was as transparent as “here’s some money to say you wrote it”.

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#92

Post by ebg13 »

nakodari wrote: post #5

The first half of the article doesn't even name the business. The name of the business, GitLab, is hidden in the second half of the article. This is an example of a publication optimizing blindly for Google Search Optimization where they want to improve "Time on site" and other data by keeping the readers on the page as long as possible. It's frustrating. Google's algorithm needs to be updated to make it smarter othe…

The title of the article is "He Built...". The article is about Sijbrandij, not about GitLab.

The HN title has editorialized away from the main subject of the article, which it isn't supposed to do. You landed on the article with a false expectation set up by the HN submitter. Forbes isn't responsible for that.

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#93

Post by caymanjim »

trilila wrote: post #19

Would be interesting to know if they discriminate pay, according to where the person works from. Edit: Further down the page I saw: "Why they pay based on where team members live". That's petty.

This has always bothered me about GitLab and has prevented me from applying for a job there. I want to work remotely so I can move around a lot, both for long-term travel and to check out different places to live. I don't have a home. If I'm hired from NYC and then I move to rural Montana, that's none of their business. So long as I have reliable Internet wherever I am, and can work the hours I need (I'm happy to adjust my work schedule to Eastern Time from anywhere in the world, for example), then I should be paid based on my work. Is GitLab going to pay for my rental homes and airfare as I wander around the world? Are they going to adjust my pay every time I move? Are they going to pay me more because I spend a year in an RV and fuel is expensive? Are they going to adjust my pay for rent in the Cayman Islands even though food and electricity are the primary expenses there, rather than rent?

The whole thing smacks of socialism as well, and reminds me of the line from some Ayn Rand novel (not endorsing her): "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Do they also plan to pay their employees based on their medical expenses and how many kids they have?

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#94

Post by stubish »

davnicwil wrote: post #45
dx034 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, a lot of remote companies pay differently based on location. I'm also not quite sure why the choice of location should be factored in but family planning not. Paying the same, regardless of location, would maybe motivate some people to move away from crowded areas, one of the big chances remote work offers.

I think the standard argument is not that they're paying according to need, they're paying according to market norms. Thing is, in high cost of living areas the living cost is extremely pegged to job opportunities, it's almost tautological. Where there are more job opportunities, you have to pay people more to stop them working for competitors. A confounding factor is a hypothesised (not sure if backed by data) trend…

What is never factored in is the feeling of resentment people get for doing the same or better work for less pay. While companies can rationalize these pay scales and maybe even require them to be sustainable, loyalty and engagement suffers noticeably.

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#95

Post by sytse »

IloveHN84 wrote: post #80
sytse wrote: post #68

GitLab the company exists because of HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278 Ask me anything.

Do you plan to switch from Ruby to some more performant language (e.g. C++17 onwards, Rust or Go)?

We tend to remake performance sensitive parts in Go.

GitLab consists of more than 30 services in multiple programming languages https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/architecture.html#com...

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#96

Post by Nerevarine76 »

lordfoom wrote: post #84
Nerevarine76 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it not be? It's a mutual transaction. If an developer in kansas is willing to accept less than the bay area worker, whose living expenses are twice as much, who is anyone to say that's not allowed? If you forced them to be paid the same then one of them will not be working for you even if they want to; either because you can't afford to hire them both or the bay area engineer can't live on the salary.

>Why would it not be? Because they did the same work? >who is anyone to say that's not allowed? I didn't say it's not allowed. I think it's poor business practice, and poor for society, incentivizing devs to stay in expensive areas instead of moving out to cheaper remote areas. >If you forced them to be paid the same then one of them will not be working for you even if they want to; either because you can't afford to…

It's not speculation, it's economics. If you have to pay a higher wage the number of available jobs decrease. It's supply and demand. There's not an infinite amount of money in a company's budget.

It's also not a company's job to incentivize where it's employees live.

I understand where you're coming from but there's nothing inherently wrong with paying different wages for the same work if it's a consensual agreement. If one worker is satisfied with his salary, and is being paid well for his area, the only reason to complain about a worker in a costlier area being paid more is envy/jealousy.

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#97

Post by sytse »

AmitJS wrote: post #76
sytse wrote: post #68

GitLab the company exists because of HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278 Ask me anything.

How can I be qualified to get a role as Frontend/React dev at GitLab ?

Please see https://about.gitlab.com/job-families/engineering/frontend-e...

We're hiring for role and many others https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/apply/

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#98

Post by imsofuture »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #64
imsofuture wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab's idea of market norms is "market where you live + us, literally the only company that hires remote in the world". Spoiler: that only works hiring those who are ignorant of the remote employment market.

Assuming I'm currently ignorant of the remote employment market, where would I go to find data or job listings that would give me a sense of what competitive rates are for remote engineers?

I'm not sure there's a great canonical and generalized source of this information.

Anecdotally, 7 years ago, remote, at a bootstrapped 15 person company, I made ~10% more than the absolute max Gitlab would pay me right now. The difference is wildly worse now.

Re: GitLab – A $1B business where all employees work remotely

#100

Post by caymanjim »

austhrow743 wrote: post #52
systemtest wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is similar to paying an employee more because they have children and need it more.

Not unless there's an incredibly strong link between having children and having strong alternative employment prospects. Which I don't have data on but doubt, and if I had to take a guess would assume actually works the other way. That the childless have more options.

There is an incredibly strong link between having children and alternative employment prospects. People with kids in school have complicated scheduling needs and can't easily relocate, unless they homeschool all their kids.
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