Using what information one can gather from their salary calculator [1, 2], the distinction seems to be mostly related to the staffer's location. Staff from US,

Using what information one can gather from their salary calculator [1, 2], the distinction seems to be mostly related to the staffer's location. Staff from US, UK, NL, IN, CN, BE are hired as employees (with a salary multiple ranging from 0.66 to 1.00) of Gitlab Inc., while staff from all other locations is hired as contractors of Gitlab B.V., using a multiple of 1.17 (probably to make up for the lack of employee benefits). I have no relation to Gitlab other than having had a look at some of their job postings, so please do take this information with a grain of salt. Happy to have someone more familiar with the details correct any mistakes. [1] visible on many job ads, like https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/security-specialist/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/security-specialist/ [2] salary data is at https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json