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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

about.gitlab.com

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#41

Post by jo-m »

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…

This is detailed in their handbook [1], [2]. TL; DR: For the EU countries it's mostly legal/tax reasons.

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/faq/#country-hiring-guidelines [2] https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/hiring-status/

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#42

Post by usrusr »

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…

Must be related to employee rights, either something highly specific that is a dealbreaker to them (what would Austria have that Germany has not?) or it's a growing list based on precedence, likely full of permanently encoded biases depending on whoever was the initial candidate.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#43

Post by aidos »

eloisant wrote: post #21
keiferski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incenti…

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

That’s not really true. There are companies with a few employees in expensive locations and many in low income regions. If you switched everyone to the same salary you’d bankrupt the company. I certain don’t assume to know what Gitlab’s financials look like.

What if a company is paying above market rates for all their employees in their chosen locations? As a thought experiment, assume each of those people was the most suitable employee in their field. You’d pay them what they wanted in order to make it work. What if one of those people had a special situation with say dependants? Would you pay them a little more to relive that so they could work for you effectively?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#44

Post by sleepychu »

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…

> Salaries are in large part determined by local factors

Salaries should be a function of value produced amortized across the convenience and reliability of a predictable salary for the employee. Where I am sitting has no bearing whatsoever on the value produced and it is the primary thing that prevents me from pursing a job at gitlab.

Also this argument ignores the side benefits having an enormous salary offers you. (e.g. X% into your pension is a bigger number)

> If anything, pushing for a worldwide universal salary would likely lower earnings of the top X%

Sounds fine to me.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#45

Post by tadzik_ »

dt3ft wrote: post #16
tadzik_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also works (and is similarly disgusting) in a single country where the salary discrepancy is large.

I live in Poland, where the gap between IT and non-IT is staggering. Teaching programming easily nets me 5 times as much money as a regular public school teacher would get. Same goes for regular development work: developer salaries here are 4-6x the average salary. Are we making that much of a bigger impact on society?

Any time I visit a hairdresser, a car mechanic or anyone from the services sector and I wonder why things are expensive, I compare their hourly rates to mine. The hairdresser may be getting something like 20% of the money I'd make in that time ­– and they have to support the salon for some of that as well (also, they're just someone else's employee, so they get maybe half of that in the end). No longer does it seem expensive at all, and it goes for any service I can imagine.

Make these people better compensated... and I'd no longer be rich. We'd all be pretty much the same. Perhaps that's where the fear you see in some other comments here stemming from – "but this will lower the salaries for the top X%!". Yes. We'd have to admit that we're not special in terms of our contribution to society – just lucky enough to be in a booming industry. Or perhaps a growing bubble.

And sure – my work has the potential to produce a lot of value. I recently wrote software that will (indirectly) enable a large warehouse operator to essentially fire their entire workforce and replace them with robots. Last I checked, the individuals currently in that workforce make something like $5 an hour, and the business owner is proud enough to put that on their job ads. When the automation machine is finished, these people will be unemployed. How will they be making their living? Nobody in the process cares. So how has my work improved the society? In the end I'll still be stuffing myself with delivery sushi and roaring a big car on the highway – thanks to the growing supply of more and more cheap labour.

I've now digressed very far from the original discussion. But being aware of this is an endless source of frustration for me, and every discussion about "what is fair compensation" awakens it :|

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#46

Post by Marqin »

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…

UAE has weird bans on many VOIP solutions, also VPNs are in a bit grey area - I guess that would make remote work too problematic with the tools they use internaly.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#47

Post by icebraining »

tobr wrote: post #11
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…

You don't have to "hope". You can just ask them to read and reply appropriately (even if it's just with an "ok" or equivalent). Initially you might have to prod them explicitly, but people adjust rapidly and start acknowledging on their own.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#48

Post by mihaaly »

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.

True.

But it is not that trivial.

Paying the same will be unfair to those living in an expensive location, finding the means of living while others retain more for the same amount of job.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#49

Post by tinco »

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.

So you're saying everyone at Gitlab should have their wages slashed? I wonder how good their company would run if they couldn't afford employees in all major tech hubs.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#50

Post by hrktb »

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.

What I found interesting is that Gitlab's ability to operate in your country is a often overlooked limiting factor, and the list can be surprising.

France for instance is not supported for full time employees, as far as I know.

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