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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

about.gitlab.com

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#11

Post by tobr »

wpietri wrote: post #2

I appreciate they have a whole section on disadvantages, but this stands out to me: "All-remote companies should consider meetings as a last resort, instead relying on asynchronous collaboration tools[...]" To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when compared with in-person collaboration. That can be fine for some things. But there's all sorts of work where I really value live discussion.…

With async communication it’s hard to know if everyone got it. If you’re in some kind of synchronous meeting, everyone knows what everyone knows, and it’s usually more clear if people are confused or come from very different POVs, or don’t have the time, attention or other resources they need to get things done. Async communication often feels like shouting into a void, hoping that the right people saw it in time and prioritized it appropriately.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#12

Post by pkolaczk »

rizz0 wrote: post #5
sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

> If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same? Why is that? I don’t necessarily disagree with your statement. But why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford less food and healthcare just because they live in a place with higher prices and higher taxes? Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule…

Why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford less food, less healthcare, less living space and fewer gadgets for themselves just because they have a bigger family and more kids to support? ;)

Generally what you do with your money should not be a business of your employer.

> Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule?

You're silently assuming the quality of life in developing countries is the same as in other countries and the only thing they differ with is the level of prices or taxes. This is generally not true.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#13

Post by bboozzoo »

wpietri wrote: post #2

I appreciate they have a whole section on disadvantages, but this stands out to me: "All-remote companies should consider meetings as a last resort, instead relying on asynchronous collaboration tools[...]" To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when compared with in-person collaboration. That can be fine for some things. But there's all sorts of work where I really value live discussion.…

> I know that some remote-first companies tend to group related work by timezone, so that teams can be both distributed and low latency. I take it Gitlab isn't one of those?

Probably depends on the team, individuals being able to self-organize and their experience. While some companies may see timezone distributed teams as disadvantage, I believe it is an opportunity to have a continuity of work and getting things done faster than if you had a single 6-8h time slot.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#14

Post by keiferski »

sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

Salaries are in large part determined by local factors: cost of rent, food, gas/public transport, tax rates, etc. There is no "universal" salary for a particular position. Developers in San Francisco are not paid 3x of those in Des Moines because their skills are 3x better. Their salaries are higher because living in SF is more expensive. If the cost of living in SF were lower, the salaries would be lower, too.

If anything, pushing for a worldwide universal salary would likely lower earnings of the top X%, simply because most of the world isn't as expensive as SF/NYC/London.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#15

Post by dzikimarian »

sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

Would it even made a sense to hire you then? When local employee costs the same? One of reasons to hire remotely is to optimize cost of conducting business. Without it a lot of these positions wouldn't exist in the first place.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#16

Post by dt3ft »

tadzik_ wrote: post #6
sturza wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if we apply the same thinking to other industries, the prices of goods would skyrocket.

Perhaps they should. Our current economy of cheap, disposable goods is only possible because of the (relative) exploitation of the poor.

True. I experienced both ends of the scale, having lived in a very poor country and currently in a very rich country.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#17

Post by luch »

soren_dahl wrote: post #10
sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

The regional coefficients they use to set salary are a real turn off. https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json

This is really interesting data !

I for once would like to know why they refuse to hire contractors from Western Europe (is it a legal thing ?) :

  {"country":"*","contractor_factor":1.17,"entity":"GitLab BV"}],
    "countryNoHire": ["Iran","North Korea","Crimea","Syria","Sudan","Cuba","France","Italy","Brazil","Spain","Romania","United Arab Emirates","Sweden","Argentina","Philippines","Austria"],

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#18

Post by pkolaczk »

cnorthwood wrote: post #8
sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

That assumes that all money is of equal value. Which on one level it is, but on another level, the relative purchasing power in different geographic areas is a real thing. Normalising based on that means that in effect you're paying people for the same relative quality of life, rather than same absolute value, which can be very different relatively.

The average global relative purchasing power is already reflected in the currency exchange rates.

But generally there is no such thing as a "single" purchasing power. Some local goods may be cheaper in developing countries, but some others can be more expensive. If you don't know exactly what an employee is spending their money on, you can't really tell the purchasing power of their money. A big family with more kids may spend more money on local goods, transportation and housing, but a single person may want to just save-up 80% of their salary for a new Tesla, which costs just the same everywhere. Therefore adjusting the payouts to the local prices level will always be unfair to someone.

If one could get a Tesla at a 70% discount just because they live in a developing country, then the story would be different. But they can't.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#19

Post by pkolaczk »

dzikimarian wrote: post #15
sschueller wrote: post #3

I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company. What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

Would it even made a sense to hire you then? When local employee costs the same? One of reasons to hire remotely is to optimize cost of conducting business. Without it a lot of these positions wouldn't exist in the first place.

One of the reasons to hire remotely is access to a bigger talent pool. You can also save up big on not running offices in all major cities.
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