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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#91

Post by hocuspocus »

nadam wrote: post #79
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?

Even if you pull this off, you'd be in a situation where the company that hires you (outside the US they mostly use 3rd party employment providers) and/or you are committing tax fraud in a way or another.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#92

Post by jpincheira »

I think that what's key here, especially during the current crisis, is to support businesses as much as we can to switch to WFH in the best possible way, with a simple process, and by helping them to stay engaged, hopefully without the need to make them all jump into real-time video calls many times through the day and lose focus.

At our company [1], we've been receiving an incredible amount of inbound. People really need tools that don't get in the way —we're a video-first async comm platform— and I'm happy our team is being able to help these companies switching to WFH.

The team and I are happy to help anyone with setting a basic process of communication for companies moving to WFH during these weeks. Just write to me at jp@standups.io and we'll be happy to jump in a call and see how we can help.

[1] https://standups.io

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#93

Post by mcny »

est31 wrote: post #89
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 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. I've studied the system a while ago when considering to apply there and found some areas with comparatively low cost of living while having a large conversion factor. People only complain about conversion factors if they are low but there are also higher ones. If you are ready to move,…

> The Gitlab response to this system is that it allows them to employ more people.

Sytse is a good person but I'd never trust any company to hire more people than it absolutely must. I used to think no company will spend more in employee compensation than it must but i recently learned that board members get paid so together with runaway executive pay clearly I was wrong about that.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#94

Post by tiborsaas »

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…

We are addressing a global market too at TransferWise and London developer salaries are way different than Budapest salaries. We are also not a remote company... until next week :)

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#95

Post by DarthGhandi »

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 not take this argument further:

pay your local in-house employees based on what suburb they live in, workers who live in expensive areas should be paid more because it costs them more

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#96

Post by simias »

sturza wrote: post #4
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 we apply the same thinking to other industries, the prices of goods would skyrocket.

Because low-priced goods are propped up by underpaid workers in poor countries. It sure is convenient for us but I don't think it's very ethical.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#97

Post by afiori »

hawkice wrote: post #82
afiori wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, I strongly encourage all people who, when presented with the option of getting a very good deal on an expensive and valuable thing, to take it. In equilibrium, you'd expect someone's programming skillset not to massively drop in value because they moved slightly far away in essentially the same legal jurisdiction. Until we reach that equilibrium, there is money waiting to be collected by firms who hire Americ…

In my understanding when you move away from hot-spots like San Francisco it is not your skill that loses value, but you that lose power in asking for an higher salary.

Also it is not that devs in SF are especially good; I would guess that the distribution of skill is power law (specifically the number of devs in the global n-th percentile as a function of the total number of devs in the hiring pool) and it might be argued that the competitions is counterbalancing any positive effect of that.

In the end it is a position of which job market do you want to be in.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#98

Post by AmericanChopper »

sleepychu wrote: post #44
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…

> 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.…

> Salaries should be a function of value produced amortized across the convenience and reliability of a predictable salary for the employee

Salaries should be the equilibrium price where an employers willingness to offer a salary meets an employees willingness to accept one. The only surprising thing about their scale is that they’re willing to hire people in high cost-of-living locations at all.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#99

Post by philbarr »

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.

But they might sell it at different prices in different markets

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#100

Post by rdsubhas »

How do people whiteboard remotely?

This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting.

And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf.... Is there anything good that really solves this problem?

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