7 ms·

They also openly pay well below market rate, so they should expect to get what they pay for.

bogomipz 10y ago
Can you elaborate on that? For instance I just looked at their jobs listings and they advertise a range for annual compensation, the high end of that range looks about right for the locations I checked SF, and London in the UK for PE positions. https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/production-engineer/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/production-engineer/
- p4lindromica 10y ago
  Compensation is more than just salary
  - lojack 10y ago
    Read through their benefits, they are competitive, but nowhere near enough to make up for the difference in salary.
- elliotec 10y ago
  Using that same job calculator that you used (for the developer position) near the bottom of this page: https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/, the rates are way way off from my area. They are out of their minds if they think the top rate for a Senior engineer in Salt Lake City with above average experience is $78k. Most other areas also seem pretty low from what I've looked into but I suppose a few areas could be outliers in their calculator. Their docs on the calculator are here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation-calculator/#compensation-calculator https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... It's a bit strange that they cut or raise your pay by that calculator when you move cities.
  - Aeolun 10y ago
    It's a bit odd that living in Tokyo you get 90k. While living in SF you get 220k. I'm fairly certain the rent difference isn't 10k per month.
    - bbcbasic 10y ago
      Supply and demand
      - was_boring 10y ago
        Of what? A developer in that location? What is that benefit? Having worked on both coasts, I can say that the quality is the same. Culture and quantity appears to be the biggest difference.
        bbcbasic 10y ago
        Yep a developer in that location. The market puts a high price on that. Regardless of same quality people being cheaper elsewhere. If you think the market is wrong then go try to arbitrage it. Maybe you can...
  - epmatsw 10y ago
    Wow, their offers for a junior dev in Madison is like a third of Epic's starting salary. That's brutal...
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    >It's a bit strange that they cut or raise your pay by that calculator when you move cities." That is odd. Usually if you make more based on your previous location a company won't actually claw anything back you just will likely not be getting any raises.
- lojack 10y ago
  Maxed out everything in my city (Cleveland) before I was able to reach a salary I'd consider, and I'm hardly a Senior engineer. I wouldn't call their salary range a spit in the face, but its probably around $20k below market rates where I live. Benefits are competitive in my opinion.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Massive thread on this yesterday (with multiple appearances from GitLab staffers) at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608463 . The tl;dr is that they start out with a kind of OK but not very interesting rate for New York City. Then they punish residents of other cities based on how much cheaper the rent in their city is than the rent in NYC. For example, if the cost of rent in your city is 35% the cost of rent in NYC (as determined by the third-party rent index they reference), your salary multiplier will be 0.35, meaning GitLab will offer someone in NYC 130k for that job, but they'll only offer you 45.5k. The experience modifiers range from -20% to +20% so they're not going to help much. As NYC is literally one of the top five most expensive real estate markets on the planet, most non-NYC cities get totally pummeled by GitLab's salary calculator, and the result is what we see here: an enterprise with $30M in funding that can't figure out how to make backups.
- user5994461 10y ago
  Well, it's hard to judge the algorithm. Some numbers are decent, if you are given "lead with lots of experience". 1) It's hard to tell how they assign rank. If they accept any programmer that shows up, the rates are fine. If they have Google level interviews to filter for only Google level candidates, who will join at "junior" level, it's terrible. 2) The numbers are in dollars, thus they are utterly meaningless. It's not a job, it's gambling with the exchange rate and the exchange fees.

Can you elaborate on that? For instance I just looked at their jobs listings and they advertise a range for annual compensation, the high end of that range looks about right for the locations I checked SF, and London in the UK for PE positions. https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/production-engineer/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/production-engineer/

p4lindromica 10y ago
Compensation is more than just salary
- lojack 10y ago
  Read through their benefits, they are competitive, but nowhere near enough to make up for the difference in salary.
elliotec 10y ago
Using that same job calculator that you used (for the developer position) near the bottom of this page: https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/, the rates are way way off from my area. They are out of their minds if they think the top rate for a Senior engineer in Salt Lake City with above average experience is $78k. Most other areas also seem pretty low from what I've looked into but I suppose a few areas could be outliers in their calculator. Their docs on the calculator are here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation-calculator/#compensation-calculator https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... It's a bit strange that they cut or raise your pay by that calculator when you move cities.
- Aeolun 10y ago
  It's a bit odd that living in Tokyo you get 90k. While living in SF you get 220k. I'm fairly certain the rent difference isn't 10k per month.
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    Supply and demand
    - was_boring 10y ago
      Of what? A developer in that location? What is that benefit? Having worked on both coasts, I can say that the quality is the same. Culture and quantity appears to be the biggest difference.
      - bbcbasic 10y ago
        Yep a developer in that location. The market puts a high price on that. Regardless of same quality people being cheaper elsewhere. If you think the market is wrong then go try to arbitrage it. Maybe you can...
- epmatsw 10y ago
  Wow, their offers for a junior dev in Madison is like a third of Epic's starting salary. That's brutal...
- bogomipz 10y ago
  >It's a bit strange that they cut or raise your pay by that calculator when you move cities." That is odd. Usually if you make more based on your previous location a company won't actually claw anything back you just will likely not be getting any raises.
lojack 10y ago
Maxed out everything in my city (Cleveland) before I was able to reach a salary I'd consider, and I'm hardly a Senior engineer. I wouldn't call their salary range a spit in the face, but its probably around $20k below market rates where I live. Benefits are competitive in my opinion.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Massive thread on this yesterday (with multiple appearances from GitLab staffers) at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608463 . The tl;dr is that they start out with a kind of OK but not very interesting rate for New York City. Then they punish residents of other cities based on how much cheaper the rent in their city is than the rent in NYC. For example, if the cost of rent in your city is 35% the cost of rent in NYC (as determined by the third-party rent index they reference), your salary multiplier will be 0.35, meaning GitLab will offer someone in NYC 130k for that job, but they'll only offer you 45.5k. The experience modifiers range from -20% to +20% so they're not going to help much. As NYC is literally one of the top five most expensive real estate markets on the planet, most non-NYC cities get totally pummeled by GitLab's salary calculator, and the result is what we see here: an enterprise with $30M in funding that can't figure out how to make backups.
user5994461 10y ago
Well, it's hard to judge the algorithm. Some numbers are decent, if you are given "lead with lots of experience". 1) It's hard to tell how they assign rank. If they accept any programmer that shows up, the rates are fine. If they have Google level interviews to filter for only Google level candidates, who will join at "junior" level, it's terrible. 2) The numbers are in dollars, thus they are utterly meaningless. It's not a job, it's gambling with the exchange rate and the exchange fees.