Gitlab and remote work • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#191

Post by blep_ » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #138

Gitlab is a big name with a big headcount and a big… I don’t want to sound rude here, but a big ego, too. What does my org use it for? A git repository to which we can push and pull, CI, and code review. I constantly feel like I’m missing a party of awesome features and stuff and I feel that way because what Gitlab does for me compared with the perception it projects into the world seem different by several orders of…

A lot of companies feel that way, tbh.

Capitalism encourages growth. It's considered weird to just stop building things when you've built everything you initially wanted to.

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#192

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

alexfromapex wrote: post #69

My favorite part of their story is how they changed the interview process to not be terrible and built a dashboard to quantify it: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/19/the-trouble-with-te...

Interviewed with them once, it was a while back, more than 2 year, but it was the worst interview I can remember.

They asked me to clone a rather large repo as part of the interview, I cloned it but it was slow, the dude just blamed it all on my internet and my geographic location. Like kept going on about it through the awkward slow clone. I think I wrapped it up early.

I ws cloning other repos of similar size and much faster speeds that day.

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#193

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

ROARosen wrote: post #21

belter wrote: post #2

Still paying according to location for the same work?

You pay according to location for the same bottle of Coke? How is work pay different? Why shouldn't payment for work be tied to local price ranges and cost of living?

If I work for a US based company, my wages should go up relative to the higher USD.

It's cheaper for them to hire people while things around foreign works are going up in price. The pay should be adjusted accordingly.

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#194

Post by lucideer » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

chrisan wrote: post #183

rschachte wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that would be fine and all but there are a zillion tech companies that allow remote work that pay reasonably well. It doesn’t mean they’re a world leader in remote work. I worked at a small company that paid me a lot, gave me free stuff, perks etc. It doesn’t mean they’re a world leader in remote work. It just means they offer those things. The point is — they are not a world leader in remote work. They are a te…

> They're only asking for an explanation of your metric: that location based pay grades preclude leadership in remote working. I have yet to see any reasonable case for why this should be? Not sure how I reply to the comment below by lucideer, I guess HN has a limit on children? Anywho, this is for him, not you :) Isn't the burden of proof on the one making the claim? I have yet to see a reasonable case for why they…

> Isn't the burden of proof on the one making the claim?

Yes. It is.

> I have yet to see a reasonable case for why they should be called a global leader when they treat their workers differently for the same output.

My point was no-one has made that claim (nor any similar positive claim - your rephrasing uses weasel words* to bias the interpretation)

The claim being made is as follows: "paying workers geo-adjusted wages precludes a company from being a global leader in remote work".

Noone has claimed that geo-adjusted wages do make them a leader, nor that GL even is a leader. Only one commenter has made a claim: that is that geo-adjusted wages preclude leadership.

* Aside to explain my comment on weasel words: paying the same wage could be as easily interpreted "treating workers differently" given spending power is actually a product of wage / cost-of-living ratio; the value of money is geographically variable

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#195

Post by randomopining » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #138

Gitlab is a big name with a big headcount and a big… I don’t want to sound rude here, but a big ego, too. What does my org use it for? A git repository to which we can push and pull, CI, and code review. I constantly feel like I’m missing a party of awesome features and stuff and I feel that way because what Gitlab does for me compared with the perception it projects into the world seem different by several orders of…

Imagine trying to rebuild Jira. Essentially making a super complicated crud app lol

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#196

Post by whateveracct » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #92

emerongi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with that? If Gitlab is not paying top of the market salaries, then they're just going to miss out on top talent, and clearly they're fine with it. It's a free market after all, you don't have to join Gitlab.

Yup, that was my same thought. I live in a "cheaper market" location (Mexico) and at some point looked about working in Gitlab as a Tech Lead / Sr. Dev or something similar, because I liked their service. The problem is that when I saw their compensation tables for Mexico, their offer was going to cut my salary by about 30% of what I was actually earning (I think it was about $70k USD annual at most, I cannot find th…

I wonder if Gitlab takes current salary into account? Or is the location-based pay scale the only thing they use? It would seem silly - incompetent even - to not even offer someone's current salary just because of their little calculator.

Although I recent interviewed for a place (the whole gambit) and their offer didn't even match my salary, let alone total comp. And I was very clear. They blamed their "salary bands."

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#197

Post by strokirk » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

rschachte wrote: post #141

codegeek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the definition of "World Leader in Remote" be based on how they pay. Why can't it be based on the fact that they allow fully remote and pay reasonably well for your area. Who decides the definition ?

Well that would be fine and all but there are a zillion tech companies that allow remote work that pay reasonably well. It doesn’t mean they’re a world leader in remote work. I worked at a small company that paid me a lot, gave me free stuff, perks etc. It doesn’t mean they’re a world leader in remote work. It just means they offer those things. The point is — they are not a world leader in remote work. They are a te…

Can you name a couple?

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#198

Post by silisili » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

leaflets2 wrote: post #175

silisili wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also only works if people stay put. I made less than my CA counterparts for nearly a decade, constantly reminding me just how expensive CA was. Fast forward 10 years, a quarter of them sold their house and basically retired in my area. Yay.

How did this affect their salaries? (If at all)

This has been rather recent - the ones that stayed with the company did not get adjusted down. As you may imagine, it's caused a ton of turmoil. Which then led to 'stop sharing your salary' type suggestions, of course.

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#199

Post by codegeek » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

JulesRosser wrote: post #187

nonameiguess wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how many developers do you actually hire out of Thailand? The prime minister of Thailand earns 3804 USD per year. If you seriously hire them at $380k, that's 100 times what the leader of their country earns. The US equivalent would be $40 million a year. Seemingly, every even remotely qualified person in the country would be rushing to apply. No need to immigrate and go through the Visa process? Earn enough money…

I only see one recent applicant from Thailand, but we welcome applications regardless of where they live (with a few obvious exceptions). I don’t want to dox any colleagues by listing individual countries as we’re a relatively small company, but we have hired from 6/7 continents in the last 12 months (all except Antarctica). Also happy to answer any other questions you have. And again, if anyone reading this is inter…

What percentage of your employees are Asian who work from Asia and what are their average salaries ?

Re: Gitlab and remote work

#200

Post by kirbypineapple » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #49

kirbypineapple wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For engineering/product etc. that's the case. Doesn't matter if you move from San Francisco to Thailand or some other low cost of living area, your pay remains the same.

Not cutting someone's pay when they move is very different to hiring someone in Thailand on a Bay Area salary.

Kraken's offers are not affected by geography in any way. The are engineering salary bands are completely agnostic of region.