4 ms·

> Are reasons for paying local rates can be found on [URL] Did you mean "our" or "their"? If you're a Gitlab employee, please explicitly state that when making

by clubm8 8y ago

> Are reasons for paying local rates can be found on [URL] Did you mean "our" or "their"? If you're a Gitlab employee, please explicitly state that when making comments about your company on HN. >Paying the same wage would lead to... A concentration of team members in low-wage regions, since it is a better deal for them, while we want a geographically diverse team. Weird, since it looks like you don't pay a ton in SF compared to market, and IIRC don't offer stock or large cash bonuses ala Mozilla. So if I had to pick between SF and say, Portland, I'd probably go with Portland since you don't seem to ramp up enough in SF. Basically, your salaries do the opposite of what they intend. I also took a look at the salary tool, and it seems to lack nuance compared to say, the GS payscale, which differs based on granular localities. I see many states with wildly varying costs of living that only have one "compensation factor" that would have multiple regions on the GS payscale. In fact, it looks like most of the points are pretty flaccid except for "If we start paying everyone the highest wage our compensation costs would increase greatly, we can hire fewer people, and we would get less results." "I don't want to pay a fair wage because I can get more people with less salary" isn't a super compelling argument for workers. Edit: added italics in quotes for readability and corrected a spelling error.

gpm 8y ago
> Did you mean "our" or "their"? He's the CEO.
- sytse 8y ago
  I meant our. I edited my post to update.
  - clubm8 8y ago
    > I meant our. I edited my post to update. Thanks, and sorry for being harsh in my original reply, I should have couched my language to be less accusatory.
sytse 8y ago
We do offer stock options. Do you mean this pay scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_service_pay_scale) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_s... ? It would be interesting to see if that would improve our date. I don’t think we have to go more granular than metro area, or did you mean something else?
- clubm8 8y ago
  That definitely changes the calculus :) As for payscale, I meant the locality pay tables: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2018/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... The federal government aims to have everyone at the same grade and step to make roughly the same (adjusted for cost of living). Sounds similar to your goal. To aid that they broke the USA into a group of metro areas. You could look at the locality tables, and if there's states that have multiple entries on the GS payscale, adjust accordingly in your algorithm. For example, Pennsylvania would have a low rate if you're in a small town like the capitol, a medium rate if you're in Pittsburgh (home to CMU) and a higher rate in the east near Philadelphia. Your model (IIRC) had one COL value for all of PA. Similarly, you could look to the US State Department's per diem table to find a list of international localities that should have their own calculation. Many organizations rely on it. When I traveled on business for a multinational, they used the State Department Per Diem rates to determine what is a reasonable amount of money per day to give: https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem_action.asp?MenuHide=1&CountryCode=0000 https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem_action.asp?MenuHid... While the per diem rate itself may or may not be useful, a list of cities that should have a unique value for COL is a useful piece of data in itself. To be honest, I'm surprised that nobody with input to the algorithm used either data source or a similar one - I don't know if say, Canada or the EU do their own calculations or leverage the US federal govt's. I know a few multinationals that use the federal guidelines for setting per diem costs rather than spend the effort calculating that in house. But the general idea - that a larger entity had to tackle this issue long ago and published their solution... I think it's a useful data source.
  - clubm8 8y ago

by clubm8 8y ago

gpm 8y ago

> Did you mean "our" or "their"? He's the CEO.

sytse 8y ago
I meant our. I edited my post to update.
- clubm8 8y ago
  > I meant our. I edited my post to update. Thanks, and sorry for being harsh in my original reply, I should have couched my language to be less accusatory.

sytse 8y ago

We do offer stock options. Do you mean this pay scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_service_pay_scale) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_s... ? It would be interesting to see if that would improve our date. I don’t think we have to go more granular than metro area, or did you mean something else?

clubm8 8y ago
That definitely changes the calculus :) As for payscale, I meant the locality pay tables: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2018/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... The federal government aims to have everyone at the same grade and step to make roughly the same (adjusted for cost of living). Sounds similar to your goal. To aid that they broke the USA into a group of metro areas. You could look at the locality tables, and if there's states that have multiple entries on the GS payscale, adjust accordingly in your algorithm. For example, Pennsylvania would have a low rate if you're in a small town like the capitol, a medium rate if you're in Pittsburgh (home to CMU) and a higher rate in the east near Philadelphia. Your model (IIRC) had one COL value for all of PA. Similarly, you could look to the US State Department's per diem table to find a list of international localities that should have their own calculation. Many organizations rely on it. When I traveled on business for a multinational, they used the State Department Per Diem rates to determine what is a reasonable amount of money per day to give: https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem_action.asp?MenuHide=1&CountryCode=0000 https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem_action.asp?MenuHid... While the per diem rate itself may or may not be useful, a list of cities that should have a unique value for COL is a useful piece of data in itself. To be honest, I'm surprised that nobody with input to the algorithm used either data source or a similar one - I don't know if say, Canada or the EU do their own calculations or leverage the US federal govt's. I know a few multinationals that use the federal guidelines for setting per diem costs rather than spend the effort calculating that in house. But the general idea - that a larger entity had to tackle this issue long ago and published their solution... I think it's a useful data source.
- clubm8 8y ago