5 ms·

I remember GitLab. They interviewed myself and a bunch of my colleagues to test the salary waters here in the Bay Area and hired nobody because we were all "ove

I remember GitLab. They interviewed myself and a bunch of my colleagues to test the salary waters here in the Bay Area and hired nobody because we were all "overpriced", with several being underpaid for the area. If you want the talent you need, especially in the Bay Area, you have to pay more than what the average developer makes in Amsterdam. I want to like GitLab, but I just can't get that bad taste out of my mouth.

btmiller 11y ago
Interesting. Yours is not the first account of a poor interview process with GitLab that I've heard. Even out of Texas, had a few colleagues that were very qualified and came out of it with a poor experience, to the point of changing their mind about wanting to work at GitLab.
- sytse 11y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that, what was went wrong during our interview process?
sytse 11y ago
We never interview people to test the salary waters, we know interviewing is serious for you and it is serious to us too. We're very aware of the salaries in SF (writing this from SOMA). But since we're a remote first company we can hire for anywhere in the world and because we're open source we get a lot of great applicants. So the bar is high and for the Bay Area it is even higher. Feel free to email me at sytse at company domain if you want to discuss your application.
- lwhalen 11y ago
  So sorry I missed this thread when it was hot. If you know you're not going to pay SF (or even US) sized salaries, why waste everybody's time with multiple interviews then? State up front "We're only willing to pay $80k, even if you've got the history (previous salary, measured prior project impact, demonstrated skill in the areas we need, etc) to justify 2x or 3x that". You won't be able to pick your interviewees brains on possible solutions, but you also won't be wasting their (and your) time.
  - sytse 11y ago
    We don't want to waste anybody's time, actually efficiency is one of our values https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#values https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#values. We do pay SF and US salaries (see https://about.gitlab.com/team/ https://about.gitlab.com/team/ for an idea where our team is). But as said the higher the salary the higher the bar. We think there are exceptional people in the SF Bay area and we would like them to work for us. I tried to figure out a salary range for positions to prevent wasting everybody's time. But we still very frequently go higher or lower than I guessed based on the person's ability and their location (and cost of living). I would like to prevent disappointing people like bitshepherd and I'm open to suggestions.
    - lwhalen 11y ago
      My suggestion would be to be completely up front in what you're willing to pay, even going so far as to add it to the job description. If that means you have salary 'bands' dependent on what region of the US an applicant is from, put 'em up. Ninja-edit: also, if the money just isn't there, consider taking on someone on a part-time basis. $80k/yr is terrible FT wages for the senior-level folks you're looking for, but if you say "We'll pay you $80k, and you just clock in M-W 9-5 (or M-F 9-1, however the math makes sense for you to divvy up a 20-hour week)" I think you'll see an uptick in interested, qualified applicants. Yes, it's a compromise (just like asking a senior-level anything to show up for $80k) but at least you'll get the senior-level brainpower on the team and still be within your budget. Ninja-edit x2: Looking at the 'Team' page, I'm not getting a good sense of where your devops/engineering talent hails from. The folks who appear the most USian are the guy who lives 'on a farm', another who 'attends SFO Giants games', a third who 'enjoys the slopes in the Sierra Nevadas', etc. Everyone else's location is either unmentioned, or they seem to hail from Brazil, the UK, Greece, etc. The interactive map at the top seems to be mapping the accounts of suits and c-levels, but very few devops/engineers.
      - sytse 11y ago
        Thanks for looking into this and your suggestions. I think the salary bands per region is an interesting idea. If we would have these today we would put them up. In some functions (for example finance) we have part-time team members. But in a fast growing startup it makes sense to have many full-time people to reduce (communication) overhead. We are prepared to pay up where that is needed. We do allow flexible workdays for everyone. And based on ability and responsibility we also consider 4 day workweeks. The map at the top is something we invite all our team members to join. Currently we don't have any engineers living in SF/NYC. We do have other team members in sales, finance and marketing living in SF and NYC. I do expect us to higher one or two engineers in SF in the coming months.
suprnova32 11y ago
Well, Bay Area salaries have gotten way out of hand in the past few years, mostly due to the cost of living there, but that is besides the point. Since we are a remote company we have the luxury to be able to hire amazing engineers from all over the world. Paying 1 Dev salary in the Bay Area is almost the same as paying 2 salaries in Europe, or even 5 in Latin America. Talented people can be found everywhere, not just the bay area. And having a global workforce also allows us to have the best people with a vast variety of backgrounds, which also contributes to our culture.

btmiller 11y ago

Interesting. Yours is not the first account of a poor interview process with GitLab that I've heard. Even out of Texas, had a few colleagues that were very qualified and came out of it with a poor experience, to the point of changing their mind about wanting to work at GitLab.

sytse 11y ago
I'm sorry to hear that, what was went wrong during our interview process?

sytse 11y ago

We never interview people to test the salary waters, we know interviewing is serious for you and it is serious to us too. We're very aware of the salaries in SF (writing this from SOMA). But since we're a remote first company we can hire for anywhere in the world and because we're open source we get a lot of great applicants. So the bar is high and for the Bay Area it is even higher. Feel free to email me at sytse at company domain if you want to discuss your application.

lwhalen 11y ago
So sorry I missed this thread when it was hot. If you know you're not going to pay SF (or even US) sized salaries, why waste everybody's time with multiple interviews then? State up front "We're only willing to pay $80k, even if you've got the history (previous salary, measured prior project impact, demonstrated skill in the areas we need, etc) to justify 2x or 3x that". You won't be able to pick your interviewees brains on possible solutions, but you also won't be wasting their (and your) time.
- sytse 11y ago
  We don't want to waste anybody's time, actually efficiency is one of our values https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#values https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#values. We do pay SF and US salaries (see https://about.gitlab.com/team/ https://about.gitlab.com/team/ for an idea where our team is). But as said the higher the salary the higher the bar. We think there are exceptional people in the SF Bay area and we would like them to work for us. I tried to figure out a salary range for positions to prevent wasting everybody's time. But we still very frequently go higher or lower than I guessed based on the person's ability and their location (and cost of living). I would like to prevent disappointing people like bitshepherd and I'm open to suggestions.
  - lwhalen 11y ago
    My suggestion would be to be completely up front in what you're willing to pay, even going so far as to add it to the job description. If that means you have salary 'bands' dependent on what region of the US an applicant is from, put 'em up. Ninja-edit: also, if the money just isn't there, consider taking on someone on a part-time basis. $80k/yr is terrible FT wages for the senior-level folks you're looking for, but if you say "We'll pay you $80k, and you just clock in M-W 9-5 (or M-F 9-1, however the math makes sense for you to divvy up a 20-hour week)" I think you'll see an uptick in interested, qualified applicants. Yes, it's a compromise (just like asking a senior-level anything to show up for $80k) but at least you'll get the senior-level brainpower on the team and still be within your budget. Ninja-edit x2: Looking at the 'Team' page, I'm not getting a good sense of where your devops/engineering talent hails from. The folks who appear the most USian are the guy who lives 'on a farm', another who 'attends SFO Giants games', a third who 'enjoys the slopes in the Sierra Nevadas', etc. Everyone else's location is either unmentioned, or they seem to hail from Brazil, the UK, Greece, etc. The interactive map at the top seems to be mapping the accounts of suits and c-levels, but very few devops/engineers.
    - sytse 11y ago
      Thanks for looking into this and your suggestions. I think the salary bands per region is an interesting idea. If we would have these today we would put them up. In some functions (for example finance) we have part-time team members. But in a fast growing startup it makes sense to have many full-time people to reduce (communication) overhead. We are prepared to pay up where that is needed. We do allow flexible workdays for everyone. And based on ability and responsibility we also consider 4 day workweeks. The map at the top is something we invite all our team members to join. Currently we don't have any engineers living in SF/NYC. We do have other team members in sales, finance and marketing living in SF and NYC. I do expect us to higher one or two engineers in SF in the coming months.

suprnova32 11y ago

Well, Bay Area salaries have gotten way out of hand in the past few years, mostly due to the cost of living there, but that is besides the point. Since we are a remote company we have the luxury to be able to hire amazing engineers from all over the world. Paying 1 Dev salary in the Bay Area is almost the same as paying 2 salaries in Europe, or even 5 in Latin America. Talented people can be found everywhere, not just the bay area. And having a global workforce also allows us to have the best people with a vast variety of backgrounds, which also contributes to our culture.