> "It seems odd that we proclaim that we will accept any customer not prohibited by law (b5a35716) but we are implementing controls that impact employees based on a perceived political climate. This is contradictory."
Second this
Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
71–80 of 584 posts
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#72Personally for me, coming into a company that was so transparent was very difficult at first, especially as an attorney. However, over time I realized how much I developed and grew from it. I became much more open and accepting of criticism and feedback. Instead of becoming defensive, I listened to it and learned from it. I also welcomed all of the extra eyes on my work, it helped me create much better work product, just as the open source community does with open source code. When you are transparent, people know what you are doing and that you are genuinely putting the efforts in to do your best. You never know what is going on with others behind closed doors.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised we (Australia) aren't already on more of these lists. After having this discussion with my manager and colleagues (the conversation with my manager was in my interview process where I bluntly stated if I was asked to comply with anything from this law, I'd immediately resign, my manager also agreed). Everyone I've spoken to agreed we'd immediately resign since it was the only potential option to protect…
Since National Security Letters exist, blocking all employees from the US would also be logical. Same for running anything on third-party hardware. There needs to be a more effective response than Hari Kiri.
NSLs apply to companies, not employees. The NSL would have to go to your companies legal office.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! We try to be transparent by default and even when it is difficult. I think the OP is a good example of something that is hard to be transparent about because the decision isn't obvious and it takes discussion to come to the best conclusion.
Congratulations on taking a step in the right direction, even if it is a very small step. Nobody else seems to take the threat seriously, somewhat excepting defense contractors of course. I can understand being reluctant to deal with the full extent of the problem. Somebody from China, with a family in China and subject to Chinese law, does not cease to be a security threat by moving to the USA and getting a green ca…
In china, not from China. The former is easy to justify, and would affect even Americans of non Chinese descent. The latter would be incredibly difficult to justify, and could easily be seen as unwarranted discrimination.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it one sided. They are actively providing info on a third party website. Others can weigh in if they choose. That's up to them Although they will probably choose to hack them instead
I meant from the US perspective, Gitlab seems to have a few remote workers that aren't Americans, but still...
Well actually we have over 1000 team members (all are remote) and only half are in the US. The other half are in 63 other countries. If you want to see where we all work from you can check out our team https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/.
The reason this is viewed from a US legal perspective is because we are a US company so we are governed by US laws.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! We try to be transparent by default and even when it is difficult. I think the OP is a good example of something that is hard to be transparent about because the decision isn't obvious and it takes discussion to come to the best conclusion.
I just read your CEO page section about flaws and how to engage you about your flaws. On the topic of transparency, I'm curious if this has been working. Do people feel comfortable bringing them up? Is it helping you improve? I'm eager to find ways to be a more transparent person at work. I want to eliminate "politics" and "games" where possible and for work to be Wysiwyg.
You mentioned https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/#flaws
I hoped that people would use the sentences I proposed on that page but that never happened.
What is helpful is that when people raise a concern I can recognize it more quickly and show them it is clearly my flaw. This doesn’t happen often but it happened last week.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#77Ok, that discussion made it clearer for me, and I am kind of behind @cciresi at that point: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5555#not... They have a customer that required the personal data they'll give to Gitlab not be handled by people living in Russia and China. Could be a group doing humanitarian or journalistic work. That's actually an interesting conundrum: you want to hire a company, need to…
Honestly I don't understand @cciresi's position. As far as a I know anti-boycott regulations have primarily (only?) been used to prevent US companies from not doing business with Isreal. China & Russia are geopolitical rivals to the US and I don't see any sort of risk of anti-boycott regulations being applied in restricting business with residents of those countries. I guess you could say there is a risk that could change, but that seems hypothetical to the extreme and realistically irrelevant to worry about from a risk perspective.
And this isn't discriminating on nationality or national origin, it is on the nation you currently live in. Employers decide not to hire employees living in other countries all the time, it's the most prevalent choice (i.e. US companies only hiring employees living in the US). I don't see why doing this because a customer you've considered critical has asked for it is any more legally risky that having done it for other reasons, assuming we discount the anti-boycott argument.
This is all with the huge caveat of I'm not a lawyer, just giving my perspective based on how I've seen these laws/regulations applied in the past.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised we (Australia) aren't already on more of these lists. After having this discussion with my manager and colleagues (the conversation with my manager was in my interview process where I bluntly stated if I was asked to comply with anything from this law, I'd immediately resign, my manager also agreed). Everyone I've spoken to agreed we'd immediately resign since it was the only potential option to protect…
Since National Security Letters exist, blocking all employees from the US would also be logical. Same for running anything on third-party hardware. There needs to be a more effective response than Hari Kiri.
That's Hara kiri. If you're going to appropriate an antiquated foreign word out of context I wish you'd at least spell it properly.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#79> "It seems odd that we proclaim that we will accept any customer not prohibited by law (b5a35716) but we are implementing controls that impact employees based on a perceived political climate. This is contradictory." Second this
Accepting any customer serves the customers interest.
According to customer requests that their sensitive information not be placed in a situation where it could be relatively easily accessed by state actors ... serves the customers interest.
That’s not contradictory, except in the most superficial sense of “but we have open arms for everyone”.
Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider this scenario: Loyal and long time high performing Gitlab employee Bob, is happily married to Su, who originally hails from China. They live and work in the US. All good. Until Su's ageing parents back home succumb to ill health and she decides that the family need to move back to China to care for them for maybe one or two years - perhaps longer. Bob then has to make the choice between (a) resigning his job…
Consider the exact same scenario at any non-remote company. If Bob wants to move to China, where the company doesn't have an office, he's going to have to resign or take a leave of absence. This decision on Gitlab's part would be moving their incredibly generous "you can work from anywhere you want except places where we legally can't let you like Crimea and Iran" to a nearly as generous "you can work from anywhere y…
there aren't that many countries. turning the black-list into a white-list is not hard, so it really wouldn't make any practical difference.