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Gitlab and remote work
- sithlord 4y agoThats certainly a self-proclaimed title.
- BlargMcLarg 4y agoAye. I like Gitlab for pushing remote work, but sure feels like trying to pivot into selling shovels by claiming to be 'experts' on a 'difficult topic'.
- dang 4y agoWe've tamped it down now. Corporate press releases generally not good for HN (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corporate%20press%20release%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...) but I guess there's more information here.
- danbmil99 4y agoThis seems pretty spammy for a top-10 slot on HN
- whateveracct 4y agohttps://about.gitlab.com/blog/2015/03/04/gitlab-is-part-of-the-y-combinator-family/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2015/03/04/gitlab-is-part-of-t...
- belter 4y agoStill paying according to location for the same work?
- rnk 4y agoI saw a list of companies that paid the same regardless of location. There were even a few bay area companies that didn't cut your pay when you moved away, I wish I had that handy.
- codegeek 4y agoCan you name a few who will pay a Senior Software Engineer the same salary in Bay Area vs say Bangalore, India ? I am curious.
- wwarek 4y agoJust a few months ago this[0] jobs platform for exactly that - remote, location-independent salary - was discussed on HN [1]. [0] https://remotewide.co/ https://remotewide.co/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31225138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31225138
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- codegeek 4y agoOk I will bite. I randomly checked one company called "MotorK" [0] and I found this line in the job description "Work remotely from any of the countries we operate in". So thats not work from anywhere in the world. I am sure devil is always in the details. I know this is 1 example but I doubt a company will hire from anywhere in the world and pay the same salaries to you. There always will be restrictions. Ok now I am more curious. I looked at another company "Expensify" [1]. They actually want you to ideally relocate to one of their office locations :). So again, not fully remote anywhere in the world. I think employers say it casually but in practice, it is extremely difficult. Why would I pay the same salary to a good developer in NYC vs India/Thailand. If that's the case, why would I hire from a totally different timezone and not to mention add legal, HR and compliance issues. [0] https://remotewide.co/listings/6IBsLC9CWYb4sO8h8xAT https://remotewide.co/listings/6IBsLC9CWYb4sO8h8xAT [1] https://remotewide.co/listings/ncCWVkYCZx0dhK0m5Z8v https://remotewide.co/listings/ncCWVkYCZx0dhK0m5Z8v
- throwmisinfo388 4y agoMaybe Fly? Not sure. https://fly.io/about https://fly.io/about
- emerongi 4y agoWhat's the problem with that? If Gitlab is not paying top of the market salaries, then they're just going to miss out on top talent, and clearly they're fine with it. It's a free market after all, you don't have to join Gitlab.
- chrisan 4y agoAbsolutely nothing is wrong with it. Just don't call yourself a world leader.
- lucideer 4y agoIf there's nothing wrong with it, why would it preclude one being a world leader. (not saying GL are, there could be other unrelated things precluding it)
- rschachte 4y agoBecause being a world leader in remote work would imply they don’t do that?
- wowokay 4y agoThat doesn’t make sense? Just like universal pay doesn’t make sense unless there is a universal cost to everything.
- rschachte 4y agoIt makes sense relative to actual world leaders in tech that do not adjust pay based on location.
- codegeek 4y agoWhy should the definition of "World Leader in Remote" be based on how they pay. Why can't it be based on the fact that they allow fully remote and pay reasonably well for your area. Who decides the definition ?
- mountainriver 4y agoLast I heard they were which makes them NOT a leader in remote work lol They underpay in general which is why their product is buggy
- tapanjk 4y ago> They underpay in general which is why their product is buggy I understand the sentiment but I am not convinced that underpay is the cause of buggyness. They compete with a behemoth and it is quite a feat to stay in the game in spite of having a fraction of resources at their disposal compared to thier completion.
- mountainriver 4y agoYeah fair it's somewhat cultural, in that they are trying to roll out an insane number of features to best Github, but aren't building them with high quality
- Tao3300 4y agoMy gut feeling is that "a higher salary will make me care more" is one of things that is such common sense that the silent majority doesn't even feel like it needs to be pointed out. I find it difficult to be convinced of the contrary every time someone thinks they have a survey that says otherwise.
- ROARosen 4y agoYou pay according to location for the same bottle of Coke? How is work pay different? Why shouldn't payment for work be tied to local price ranges and cost of living?
- BlargMcLarg 4y agoWell, it is great way to make talent in HoCL areas get priced out of the market, should the market reach a point where there's enough talent in LoCL willing to work for lower rates. Theoretically, anyway.
- vernon99 4y agoBecause physical goods are subject to differently priced logistics and local ingridients and remote work is not? Seriously, how can you even compare?
- sixo 4y agoin the tech job market generally, the value of the work to the company puts an upper bar on a salary, but competition with other employers for the same worker puts a lower bar on salary (obviously along with other factors like the company's reputation, mission, benefits). In practice all salaries are set by the latter rule, which means they depend on the job market, which varies by location. That salaries should not depend on location is a fantasy based on some weird idea of people getting "paid what they deserve"—a fallacious association between your salary and your worth as a person, which people would do well to get over.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> which means they depend on the job market, which varies by location Aren't you commenting on a post about remote work? Their job market is global (within limitations.)
- nemetroid 4y agoIt’s only a global market if there’s a meaningful number of employers treating it as one. From what I’ve seen, and what the comments on this post have been able to show, such employers seem few and far between.
- deltree7 4y agoIncredibly naive to assume that in the knowledge industry, you can compare two people's work. How do you measure this?
- codegeek 4y agoIsn't that Capitalism 101 ? If employees are happy, company is happy, why does it matter ? Why should a company worry about pleasing everyone who is not necessarily part of them. If someone likes what Gitlab does, applies there and gets the salary they want, what's the issue ? If they don't like Gitlab's offer because someone else in a HCOL area may get more, you are essentially comparing with someone else. Not a good idea.
- joshmanders 4y agoIt's because talking about your salary is so widely taboo that you may think your rate of $40k salary is good because it's comfortable in your area, but most chances are you don't realize that your co-worker who has the same skill level and workload is getting paid $80k and that's a good way to piss off your employees. Pay for skills not for cost of living. You hire someone for what they can bring to the table not how much you can profit off them.
- jrochkind1 4y agoI have no opinion to express on adjusting pay for area of residence, but note that Gitlab's salaries appear to be unusually exceptionally transparent, so your story of taboos about discussing salary and secrecy of colleague's salaries probably does not apply to them. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
- codegeek 4y ago"You hire someone for what they can bring to the table not how much you can profit off them." Not sure if I agree with this naive view. Yes, you hire people and give them what they want in exchange for work but at the end of the day, I am absolutely trying to save money as a company and increase profits as long as I am doing it reasonably.
- webdood90 4y agofascinating how people come to the defense of corporations like this. why? do you feel that someday you'll be in their shoes and have the power to dictate salaries? you are likely a worker like everyone else here. demand better.
- Vinnl 4y agoWhat I don't get is: why would they pay more for someone from San Francisco? I'd expect the incentive to be to indeed pay the same for the same work, but that pay would be the lowest they can get away with. (i.e. I wouldn't expect that to lead to Silicon Valley salaries all over the world.) Unless it's not actually the same work, and location affects work. It does at least affect gross pay in any case, I suppose.
- rr888 4y ago> why would they pay more for someone from San Francisco? Because they probably want someone from the area working in the company. If they pay a flat rate globally, they only have to pay average or lower and get great people in LCOL areas. But then you have a company with no people in CA or NY, which means you dont have contact with local trends or contacts in the big tech companies.
- Vinnl 4y agoRight, so then location does affect the quality of the work provided. Although it then still is weird to base differentiated pay on cost of living / local market rates; surely those don't all correlate with the quality of the work delivered? If you can get an engineer with the same skills from Spain for less money than you'd pay for the equivalent in Germany, why would you hire the latter?
- kodah 4y ago> why would they pay more for someone from San Francisco? I can't answer for GitLab, but widely, people often believe that San Francisco has an "exceptional" talent pool and that companies pay a premium for that because of competition.
- Vinnl 4y agoBut in that case, it's not the same work, no? You can simply pay more for exceptional talent regardless of location, just as how org (theoretically, at least) already differentiate pay based on skill level within the same location.
- dellIsBetter 4y agoThe comparation is great: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/all-remote-vs-hybrid-remote-comparison/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/all-remo...
- neogodless 4y agoTo elaborate, the above is a table highlighting all the benefits of Full Remote over Hybrid Remote.
- detaro 4y agoAlthough it is comparing with a thing they basically say "we define it as not having these benefits". I know companies I would define as "hybrid" were not all those negatives apply.
- znpy 4y agoI think it would be nice to, and probably time for, gitlab to get its playbook finalised and in printed form, with an isbn and everything.
- cglan 4y agoTheir pay was abysmally low last time I applied. The company seems cool but the salaries as a senior were honestly kind of silly in this market.
- postalrat 4y agoThen you missed the biggest advantage of remote only: they can hire from any market.
- bottled_poe 4y agoIt’s kinda funny everyone here arguing they should be paid the same regardless of location - but then complaining when the reality of that wish is not what they’d imagined.
- webdood90 4y agoyes, very silly that people desire equally well paid jobs regardless of location. how very silly of them.
- bottled_poe 4y agoIt just doesn’t match the reality of market forces and it’s obvious.
- Vinnl 4y agoBut if you're from the US, remote could mean you're competing with prospective employees from all over the world, who will often be cheaper. So equal pay would be getting lowballed even more, I'd think?
- hitekker 4y agoAgreed. Underpaying engineers is not funny. Perhaps desirable for a cookie-cutter, third-tier, sweatshop that runs on labor as dumb as their management. But not desirable for profitable firms that require real talent. As a a manager who's hired remote engineers across 3 countries, Gitlab's salaries are laughably low.
- ddmichael 4y agoLooking for a free ad, Gitlab?
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoGitlab's company handbook is absolutely amazing if you haven't read it: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ Every company should be handbook-driven.
- wyclif 4y agoHandbook-driven is a lot better than location-based pay. So at least they've got one solid thing going for them.
- leeoniya 4y ago"They're the writers of their own press releases, Morty."
- alexfromapex 4y agoMy favorite part of their story is how they changed the interview process to not be terrible and built a dashboard to quantify it: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/19/the-trouble-with-technical-interviews/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/19/the-trouble-with-te...
- VoidWhisperer 4y agoUnfortunately the dashboard seems to be very broken now :(
- inyorgroove 4y agoI've interviewed with them twice (2016 & 2022), didn't receive any feed back other than a generic decline e-mail. And this was despite promises to the contrary from recruiters, I was ghosted when I asked for it too. I even recall teaching the interviewer some javascript quirk during a coding challenge the first time and solved whatever silly brain teaser question that was asked, with test cases too! Yet zero feedback as to why I was not going to move past that first technical challenge. Disappointing really. EDIT: More on topic, I did really enjoy the MR based technical interview way more than the common coding challenge.
- tristor 4y agoI appreciate a lot of what Gitlab has done, but as someone who has been permanently remote for nearly a decade, I don't really consider them to be a leader in remote work. One of my biggest issues with Gitlab is that they pay based on locality, many other fully remote companies pay below Bay Area salaries, but they pay flat globally, meaning you can be location-independent without a pay-cut and it helps to bring in high quality talent from across the world. Gitlab instead seems to be focused on maximizing revenue per headcount rather than actually allowing their employees to enjoy the benefits of remote work. I spent many years working at companies where I was underpaid relative to peers who went to the office, but I got paid the same whether I was currently residing in Prague, Santiago, or Kansas City, and that was a much fairer trade-off than getting pay-cut if you relocate to a lower cost of living area, and I have no doubt that the reverse is not true (they don't increase pay because you move to a HCOL).
- tomnipotent 4y agoLocally-adjusted pay is a fluke if revenues are not locally constrained (like a coffee shop). It's just another way employers try and nickle and dime workers, and it's sad that a large class of workers have been brainwashed to support it because somehow they're more upset at the other workers making more, than the company trying to pull a fast on on them. "But you would make so much more than your neighbors!". Fuck off with that noise. I don't care what my neighbors make, I care what the company is earning from my labor and getting my fair share. I have no problem extorting more from a company that has no problem extorting more from me. You also won't see this for senior management. As a VP/C-level, I've never had a potential employer put pressure on salary during a negotiation because of my location (though it's always been domestic). It's never even come up besides relocation discussions.
- tristor 4y ago> You also won't see this for senior management. As a VP/C-level, I've never had a potential employer put pressure on salary during a negotiation because of my location (though it's always been domestic). It's never even come up besides relocation discussions. This is absolutely true and it's because executives usually have spent at least some amount of time doing "sales" type roles where they learn what value selling is. I always do value selling during my salary negotiations, and I too pretty much concern myself only with how much I bring to the table and what a fair cut of that for myself is. My location has absolutely nothing to do with that, and I've delivered a ton of value in my career from far more remote locations than most remote workers find themselves in.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoLol, absolutely not. Top remote talent would never put up with their location-based pay bullshit.
- gorgoiler 4y agoGitlab is a big name with a big headcount and a big… I don’t want to sound rude here, but a big ego, too. What does my org use it for? A git repository to which we can push and pull, CI, and code review. I constantly feel like I’m missing a party of awesome features and stuff and I feel that way because what Gitlab does for me compared with the perception it projects into the world seem different by several orders of magnitude. What are all these amazing features they are building, which require such a huge team, that I’m missing? I don’t want ACLs. I don’t need per project visibility. We already have task tracking and a wiki. Will Gitlab offer to run my payroll, when I already have software to do that? Is there a calendar app and have they built their own date selector widgets? Those are shark jumping moments for any project so I hope it’s not that bad. Gitlab feels a bit like a microwave oven that has a popcorn mode, alarm clock, and built in calculator when all I want is X hundred watts for Y seconds. Ps: poking around their sales site, Gitlab is going after Jira, I guess. Oof.
- blep_ 4y agoA lot of companies feel that way, tbh. Capitalism encourages growth. It's considered weird to just stop building things when you've built everything you initially wanted to.
- rleigh 4y agoIt's understandable, but at the same time it also feels like they are pushing away the very people who should be their core customer base. My paid subscription ends later this month and it isn't being renewed; I'm reverting to the "free" subscription. I'm prefer not to. I would like to pay them for the service they are providing, but like many SaaS companies they have created a pricing structure that does not have anything in between "free" and "very expensive". GitLab might be value for money if you use every bell and whistle in the tier you pay for, but if you don't the value proposition does not seem to be there. I understand that I'm likely not one of the corporate "whales" they are after, but I would like to think that there would have been a solid, if less profitable, business in providing services to the smaller outfits as well. They have lost me as a customer, and not because I want to be cheap, but because I can't justify the value of their updated pricing model. I would even pay for some of the open source projects I host there because I don't like to be a freeloader, but again the gap between "free" and the first paid tier is simply too great.
- jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago