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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#21

Post by eloisant »

keiferski wrote: post #14
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 an…

Software companies like Gitlab don't address a local market. They target a global market, which is the same no matter where you're based and no matter where your employees live.

If you can afford to pay San Francisco developers a given salary, you can afford to pay Des Moines employees as much.

Let the employees benefit from their cheaper location rather than taking that away from them. Otherwise where is the incentive to declutter cities?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#22

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

keiferski wrote: post #14
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 an…

Wouldn't that be a good thing though? Isn't that an important part of Capitalism? Competition?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#23

Post by patrec »

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.

They pay people less not because of "relative purchasing power" or because they want them to have the "same relative quality of life" or some such sentimental nonsense but because they can get away with it.

The cost of life is totally irrelevant, the alternative options someone has in he market-place based on their location are. Did you look at those numbers at all?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#24

Post by skissane »

luch wrote: post #17
soren_dahl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"],

I totally understand why a company won't hire from Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Crimea – exposure to US sanctions threatens to cause severe negative repercussions.

But, why single out France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Sweden and Austria out of EU member states? What problems do they have which other EU member states lack?

Similarly, if Argentina and Brazil are a problem, what about Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, etc?

Likewise, why would UAE be a problem, but not Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, etc?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#25

Post by jbay808 »

keiferski wrote: post #14
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 an…

I keep hearing this explanation. If it were true shouldn't it correspond to an additive bonus, rather than a multiplicative scaling factor?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#26

Post by pkolaczk »

keiferski wrote: post #14
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 an…

It's reversed. Living in SF is more expensive _because_ the salaries are higher but space is scarce. Salaries are higher because of concentration of high-tech companies which make a lot of money and are not neccessarily pressed to hire cheap. If they were, they'd move these jobs to India anyways.

People come attracted by good jobs, but it turns out it is hard to find a place to live with a good commute. The demand drives prices high.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#27

Post by circlingthesun »

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.

As someone who lives in South Africa, it's quite frustrating to travel when you realise your money isn't worth shit in most developed countries. It financially restricts where you can go for how long and how often. Many imported things, like cars or computers, are actually more expensive here than in the States. Food, housing and other costs of living might be cheaper. It makes somewhere like Cape Town a great place for people with first world savings/income to holiday/retire. In a global economy someone earning local rates don't have the same kind of options.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#28

Post by minipci1321 »

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.…

> To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when compared with in-person collaboration.

This is not an implication by all means.

Low-skilled not very well incentivized junior team (let's call it so in absence of better terms) needs more/most "in-person collaboration". Team of experts to whom the goals and the overall vision have been conveyed, who knows how to put it to practice, will give the shortest latency in async flows.

Don't take it as a personal attack, but people valuing high live discussions, are frequently those on the receiving end of it.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#29

Post by superpermutat0r »

skissane wrote: post #24
luch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"],

I totally understand why a company won't hire from Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Crimea – exposure to US sanctions threatens to cause severe negative repercussions. But, why single out France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Sweden and Austria out of EU member states? What problems do they have which other EU member states lack? Similarly, if Argentina and Brazil are a problem, what about Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ve…

Maybe they are too expensive. Austria has huge taxes for self-employed workers, especially if they are payed like engineers.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#30

Post by ram_rar »

I always used to hated remote work. Nothing like in person, face to face conversations to get things done. Due to coronovirus, for the past few days have been working remotely. Its surprising that things are going smoothly. I feel, its mostly due to that fact that everyones remote right now. But I'm guessing, there has to be an inflection point in the team, where this is achievable. Not sure, what it is though.
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