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What does this comment even mean? If their employees do not like the compensation package they should negotiate better or leave. Have you worked there? Do you k

What does this comment even mean? If their employees do not like the compensation package they should negotiate better or leave. Have you worked there? Do you know what the total compensation package is or are you just knowledgeable about base salary? Negotiate if you want better comp. Nobody in this industry is a McDonald's/Walmart wage slave. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to work for GitLab.

chrissnell 9y ago
GitLab has an exclusively remote workforce that is globally distributed. They put their compensation guidelines up on their wiki for the world to see and readily acknowledge that they adjust salaries for cost-of-living. It’s not a huge problem for them, I suppose, because they are willing to hire workers in lower-cost areas where tech jobs at well-known companies are relatively scarce. Personally, this goes against my hiring philosophy and as a remote manager at another company, I insist on remote salaries for my team that match Bay Area salaries. I make up the difference by getting pick-of-the-litter hires that I wouldn’t have a chance of getting if I was going up against the Facebook/Google/Netflixes for a local SFBA hire. I don’t know if GitLab employees have much recourse individually or collectively. It will probably take a market change to get them to adjust. I have no beef with them and would have considered them more seriously during my last move—such a rad product!—-but their comp is close to $100K less than what I can get working remote for many other SFBA startups.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  That's a good thing though, paying with regards to market rate - it's what SF has to do, given how cost of living there is exorbitant and even with the high wages there unaffordable.
geofft 9y ago
> Have you worked there? Do you know what the total compensation package is or are you just knowledgeable about base salary? This is pretty rude given that you're the one who's not knowledgeable here. GitLab is extremely public about salary - if you go any job application page they'll tell you what the pay bands are. There is very limited room for negotiation, on purpose. I agree that nobody is forced to work for GitLab. I completely skipped them over in my last job hunt because their pay bands were much lower than anything else I could find, even though I would have enjoyed the job. I have a friend who did the same. I think that's unfortunate for GitLab / the world and wish they would raise their pay so they can attract candidates who are getting higher offers elsewhere, so they can build a better service. This is a very different sort of complaint from wage slavery, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.
skinnymuch 9y ago
> Have you worked there? Do you know what the total compensation package is or are you just knowledgeable about base salary? There have been multiple threads about this. Some being hundreds of comments related to Gitlab's salaries, which they and some people who work there are pretty public about. I could try to find the threads on HN, but they shouldn't be too hard to find yourself.
itake 9y ago
I (American) interviewed a Gitlab while earning "SF money" from Argentina. During the phone screen, they told me if I chose to live in SF, they would pay me $121k, but if I wanted to continue to live in Argentina, I would take a massive pay cut $70k. Not to mention, ARG is have massive currency inflation, so each month I would work there, my pay would drop 1-2%. For remote workers, the job market is actually pretty small. Many of the "remote only" companies (Buffer, Gitlab, RainforestQA, etc) pay based on how expensive of a lifestyle the employee chooses to have. One remote company I interviewed at mentioned how one of their SF employees moved in with their parents and how they talked about cutting his salary significantly because of his cheaper lifestyle.
- dominotw 9y ago
  how do they verify where you actually live? do you have to provide them proof of residence everytime you move?
  - itake 9y ago
    I would not feel right lying to them about my location. I currently changed countries every 1-2 months so maybe I could of worked something out for them to pay me in USD, but they also said they wanted to pay me in local currency.
    - GFischer 9y ago
      Ok, getting paid in local currency sucks. I work for an U.S. company from Uruguay and I get paid in USD.
- GFischer 9y ago
  I live in Uruguay and I don't earn "SF money", a 70k paycheck would be huge here (and in Argentina as well). And to avoid the currency inflation you should of course choose to earn in U.S. dollars, or negotiate to be tied to the regular - currently bi-annual in Uruguay - pay increases in countries with inflation (which usually lag inflation and are a bad deal, but offer some buffer to it).

chrissnell 9y ago

GitLab has an exclusively remote workforce that is globally distributed. They put their compensation guidelines up on their wiki for the world to see and readily acknowledge that they adjust salaries for cost-of-living. It’s not a huge problem for them, I suppose, because they are willing to hire workers in lower-cost areas where tech jobs at well-known companies are relatively scarce. Personally, this goes against my hiring philosophy and as a remote manager at another company, I insist on remote salaries for my team that match Bay Area salaries. I make up the difference by getting pick-of-the-litter hires that I wouldn’t have a chance of getting if I was going up against the Facebook/Google/Netflixes for a local SFBA hire. I don’t know if GitLab employees have much recourse individually or collectively. It will probably take a market change to get them to adjust. I have no beef with them and would have considered them more seriously during my last move—such a rad product!—-but their comp is close to $100K less than what I can get working remote for many other SFBA startups.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
That's a good thing though, paying with regards to market rate - it's what SF has to do, given how cost of living there is exorbitant and even with the high wages there unaffordable.

geofft 9y ago

> Have you worked there? Do you know what the total compensation package is or are you just knowledgeable about base salary? This is pretty rude given that you're the one who's not knowledgeable here. GitLab is extremely public about salary - if you go any job application page they'll tell you what the pay bands are. There is very limited room for negotiation, on purpose. I agree that nobody is forced to work for GitLab. I completely skipped them over in my last job hunt because their pay bands were much lower than anything else I could find, even though I would have enjoyed the job. I have a friend who did the same. I think that's unfortunate for GitLab / the world and wish they would raise their pay so they can attract candidates who are getting higher offers elsewhere, so they can build a better service. This is a very different sort of complaint from wage slavery, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.

skinnymuch 9y ago

> Have you worked there? Do you know what the total compensation package is or are you just knowledgeable about base salary? There have been multiple threads about this. Some being hundreds of comments related to Gitlab's salaries, which they and some people who work there are pretty public about. I could try to find the threads on HN, but they shouldn't be too hard to find yourself.

itake 9y ago

I (American) interviewed a Gitlab while earning "SF money" from Argentina. During the phone screen, they told me if I chose to live in SF, they would pay me $121k, but if I wanted to continue to live in Argentina, I would take a massive pay cut $70k. Not to mention, ARG is have massive currency inflation, so each month I would work there, my pay would drop 1-2%. For remote workers, the job market is actually pretty small. Many of the "remote only" companies (Buffer, Gitlab, RainforestQA, etc) pay based on how expensive of a lifestyle the employee chooses to have. One remote company I interviewed at mentioned how one of their SF employees moved in with their parents and how they talked about cutting his salary significantly because of his cheaper lifestyle.

dominotw 9y ago
how do they verify where you actually live? do you have to provide them proof of residence everytime you move?
- itake 9y ago
  I would not feel right lying to them about my location. I currently changed countries every 1-2 months so maybe I could of worked something out for them to pay me in USD, but they also said they wanted to pay me in local currency.
  - GFischer 9y ago
    Ok, getting paid in local currency sucks. I work for an U.S. company from Uruguay and I get paid in USD.
GFischer 9y ago
I live in Uruguay and I don't earn "SF money", a 70k paycheck would be huge here (and in Argentina as well). And to avoid the currency inflation you should of course choose to earn in U.S. dollars, or negotiate to be tied to the regular - currently bi-annual in Uruguay - pay increases in countries with inflation (which usually lag inflation and are a bad deal, but offer some buffer to it).