Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
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Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#2See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/... for more discussions. Here's one from sytses (CEO/co-founder)
> @cciresi this is a request from a customer considering using GitLab.com. @mmcb has more context on the why. We should probably add that to the MR.
Probably the US government or something like that?
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#3The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia.
> As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#4The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees
The block is on current non-residents of China or Russia from moving to those countries. Not on any present residents of those countries from having further access.
See self-reply below, not the case.
Though that is alluded to as a possibility, with complications.
________________________________
Update: My first read was incorrect.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#5The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees
The block is on current non-residents of China or Russia from moving to those countries. Not on any present residents of those countries from having further access. See self-reply below, not the case. Though that is alluded to as a possibility, with complications. ________________________________ Update: My first read was incorrect.
Hm, upon a re-read I think you are right. Thanks for clarifying.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#6The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees
It does block them from moving to that country. So if a current employee was planning to move to either country soon they'd be prevented from doing that.
I've danced this dance at a previous company when we had an employee working from a country of interest for an extended period of time. They were air-gapped from our systems and it worked because they submitted everything by pull requests (the original way, sending git patches by email). They didn't have access to our CRM or any customer systems because several of our contracts - not just with governments but also major multinationals - prevented employees in certain countries from having access.
Even when I traveled to the same country I used a burner laptop that was decommissioned when I returned. When we EOL'd laptops in the office they'd go in the burner pile to have one last holiday abroad before they were wiped again and sent to a local charity.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#7The title seems misleading, the article specifically states this does not effect any current employees, presumably as they have none in China and Russia. > As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees
Correct, this block would be for two functions (Site Reliability Engineer and Support) and we currently have no people in that role in China and Russia.
Please note that we're still discussing this change. We work out in the open so you can see us working on it. I hope that people appreciate the difference between that and what you would see in a non-transparent company (probably nothing, they would just not open up a vacancy in the offices in that country).
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#8The title here really should say "considers" - the discussion seems to be ongoing - and it looks like legal is advising strongly against it.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#9@edjdev wrote
There is an unacceptably high risk that these nations may apply pressure to individuals living within their borders with sensitive data access (based their role at GitLab).
Given the current australian law changes, the rampant israelian IT spy sector and despotic Belarus position on human rights, it's surprising that they only mention China and Russia. This whole debacle doesn't look good and makes one to loose all faith in Gitlab.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The block is on current non-residents of China or Russia from moving to those countries. Not on any present residents of those countries from having further access. See self-reply below, not the case. Though that is alluded to as a possibility, with complications. ________________________________ Update: My first read was incorrect.
Hm, upon a re-read I think you are right. Thanks for clarifying.
And on my own re-read: "Current team members are prevented from moving to these countries and remaining in a role that prohibits it."
That would seem to apply to current employees in Russia / China who are in roles covered by the block.
Which is kind of A Big Deal.