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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

about.gitlab.com

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#71

Post by vaylian »

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. That can be fine for some things. But there's all sorts of work where I really value live discussion.

But even when you work in the same building you still have to find a time slot that fits for a meeting. Of course, you can also drop by the other's office and hope to find them ready for a chat, but there's no guarantee.

And for remote companies I imagine that people actually have more time slots open for (video)chats, because people don't have to allocate extra time to travel between meeting rooms.

Of course, the dynamics of a live discussion are somewhat different from a digital discussion. But I think the availability/latency issue is a misconception.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#72

Post by DrScientist »

keiferski wrote: post #35
eloisant wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am making a more fundamental point, which is that the current developer salaries (in general, worldwide) would not be as high if the cost of living were not high in the specific places where software companies congregate. These high salaries would otherwise not exist, because they are not based on an objective skills or supply-based metric. It is not as if SF developers are 3x more skilled than Des Moines ones. Cle…

> because they are not based on an objective skills or supply-based metric

Then you have to ask why do these clusters exist - with high skills, high salaries and high costs?

In my view, that's because there is value created by proximity.

It is more productive to have people co-located in the same office.

Also if you live in a major university town, or high tech area then that accelerates the exchange of ideas, particularly outside peoples direct areas of interest. This makes for better networked, more creative employees.

Co-location of companies also increases the chances of collaborations and deals.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#73

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

tadzik_ wrote: post #45
dt3ft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 socie…

There's no fair. There's supply, demand and people trying to make their ends meet in between. You are just the same hired worker as everyone else, and if your bosses found a way to get your work for less money, they would gladly do it - it's just they can't. People with other professions are not paid less because of you, they are paid less because of capitalists, who get much more money than you and maintain this system. It's capitalists who should feel sorry for these people, not you.

Do you really feel "rich" as a hired employee? Eating sushi and owning a car is "rich" for you?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#74

Post by oakesm9 »

tasuki wrote: post #59
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

Apart from being a turn-off, the location factors are also off: Poland - 33.3 Czech Republic - 37 Belarus - 41 Moldova - 41

Same thing for People from Leed, UK having a higher factor than Brighton, UK. Brighton has the highest living costs in the UK outside of London.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#75

Post by alkonaut »

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.

It's a market, and if I'm sitting in india working for an SF company, then the SF company needs to compete for my skills mostly with other companies in india, because local employment is still the norm.

Once remote employment is so widespread that an SF company hiring someone in india actually competes for their competence with every company in the world - then that will change.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#76

Post by alkonaut »

hackerbabz wrote: post #7
rizz0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Because when I work I produce a product for my employer. My employer sells that product at the same price regardless of where it was produced.

They buy your skill at the market rate, and sell the product at the market rate in a different market.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#77

Post by afiori »

hawkice wrote: post #69
aidos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. There's a slight of hand going on here, where you at first assume all employees are fungible, to mention it's not possible for some firms to pay all employees…

But that is the reason why San Francisco has higher pays, there is a huge competition between employers. In practice what you propose is not to hire in expensive places.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#78

Post by cpursley »

pingyong wrote: post #70
rizz0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule? Yes, actually. Well, tax havens shouldn't be legal in the first place, but getting people with good salaries into poorer countries is good, because they pay taxes there. Of course, the vast majority of people would actually not go to poor countries, they would simply leave cities. Which i…

> tax havens shouldn't be legal in the first place

What's your reasoning here? Compared to many jurisdictions, the US is a tax haven.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#79

Post by nadam »

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.

As an Eastern Europian such practices really sadden me. Cannot this be hacked though? Could I somehow apply from a rich country and then spend 360 of 365 days in a year in a poor country?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#80

Post by tadzik_ »

AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #73
tadzik_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 socie…

There's no fair. There's supply, demand and people trying to make their ends meet in between. You are just the same hired worker as everyone else, and if your bosses found a way to get your work for less money, they would gladly do it - it's just they can't. People with other professions are not paid less because of you, they are paid less because of capitalists, who get much more money than you and maintain this sys…

> Do you really feel "rich" as a hired employee?

Relatively rich, yes. I don't think any other kind of rich exists – there's always a bigger fish :) Were we on a different website with a different audience we may be having this conversation about private jets – or a dinner at a restaurant. Perhaps "rich" was the poor choice of the word (no pun intended), but I think the meaning is preserved.

And yes, you're right: it's not because of me, I'm just a bigger cog in the same machine, and similarly exploited, just for a bigger share. It is because of the capitalists – but I believe that's what the discussion is about here. Gitlab deciding that it's not worth it to them to pay everyone equally (or according to their value) because it's “not worth it” for them – they won't be able to keep as much to themselves. Their arguments for it[1] are as weak as it gets: they literally say that they don't want to pay people better because they'd rather acquire more companies – that surely makes the underpaid employees feel better.

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/compensa...

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