Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

about.gitlab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 254 posts

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#81

Post by dkersten »

aaomidi wrote: post #9
hackerbabz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is an amazing response. It's not true for every industry (e.g. Games), but definitely true for most. In Gitlab's case it's 100% true.

Games aren’t sold for the same price regardless of where they were produced? Sure they do. They sell for different prices in different places they’re sold, but where they were produced has little impact on the price in each location.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#82

Post by hawkice »

afiori wrote: post #77
hawkice wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 American engineers to work remotely.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#83

Post by dkersten »

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…

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

Why not? Why can’t each country decide for themselves how much tax they want people and corporations within their jurisdiction to pay? Shouldn’t be legal in what jurisdiction? Why should any other country get any say with how a different country conducts its taxes?

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#84

Post by rossmohax »

beyondcompute wrote: post #58

Don’t forget firing some people based on their nationality. Gitlab’s good at that!

Not only that. Director of compliance resigns because she needs to explain why she advices to walk off from non compliant contracts. Yeah, and in the spirit of true openness her coment about that is deleted.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#85

Post by dempedempe »

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

Vancouver, BC - 60 Seattle, WA - 90

Vancouver is more expensive than Seattle...

And Cuba is 41.1, while Mexico is 35??

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#86

Post by nadam »

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…

>Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country

Absolutely. I am living in an Eastern European country, and yes, the local market would absolutely need people with western income: all the restaurants, local services, and the local economy would benefit from this. With practices like Gitlab, our local market would be locked into this shitty state it is in right now. Basically they lock us into not being able to export our only product for a good price: we export our 'knowledge' for cheap.

But I think if all-remote will be a thing, this will be unsustainable. People will fight these immoral practices with 'cheating': what stops me pretending to be living in a western country (even renting a cheap flat there), but staying most of the year in my country? Will they examine my nationality or citizienship? Pretty scary stuff, but I might apply for a western-country citizienship then. If they fuck with us, we will fight.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#87

Post by thiago_fm »

soren_dahl wrote: post #10
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.

The regional coefficients they use to set salary are a real turn off. https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json

It's completely broken. Living in Sao Paulo is the most expensive thing in Latin America. Even in Berlin the rent is about the same.

But yet, even Uruguai has a bigger coefficient. :-)

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#89

Post by est31 »

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, you can still make lots of money (the priority for this part of my career).

With Gitlab I could stay inside europe with the european healthcare system while not worrying about US visas, working remotely and asynchronously (an improved version of just "remotely"). That puts Gitlab well above other companies in my home country of Germany.

The Gitlab response to this system is that it allows them to employ more people. If the system allows me to be employed, I'm very happy for it, even if I make less than my colleauges in SF.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#90

Post by akiselev »

pkolaczk wrote: post #12
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…

Why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford less food, less healthcare, less living space and fewer gadgets for themselves just because they have a bigger family and more kids to support? ;) Generally what you do with your money should not be a business of your employer. > Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equali…

Why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford [less food, less healthcare, less living space and fewer gadgets] for themselves just because they have a [smaller family and fewer kids to support]?

Generally what [your employer does] with [your employer's] money should not be [your] business.

This seems irreconcilable.

Post reply on HN