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Evil GitLab is unwilling to pay people what they're actually worth. Poor GitLab employees worldwide cannot resist from being taken advantage of and have to work

Evil GitLab is unwilling to pay people what they're actually worth. Poor GitLab employees worldwide cannot resist from being taken advantage of and have to work for unworthy amounts... Every time GitLab comes up someone will bring this topic up. San Francisco salaries are not a worldwide benchmark of people's worth. There are valid reasons why GitLab doesn't pay engineers in Kenya $200k. Should I also swing your logic the other way? If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say you're being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth? If people don't understand why companies pays local labour market rates, either look at GitLab's income statement and multiply 2000 employees by your definition of "worth" or start your own business and show how everyone in the world can pay 8 billion people the same salaries. Good luck. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/#paying-local-rates https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation... https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-ra...

leereeves 4y ago
> If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say you're being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth? No. If GitLab thought the work was only worth $50k, they wouldn't pay anyone anywhere $200k for the job. If they do pay $200k for the job anywhere, they must expect to receive more than $200k in return, and pocket the difference.
- ojosilva 4y ago
  It doesn't work like that. It's more like: there's a 250k budget. We got an ex-googler-ex-meta-kid for 200k, so that leaves us 50k for a... Kenya engineer. Then, once both are on-boarded, gee, the Kenya engineer is twice as productive as the googler kid. Jackpot!
  - M95D 4y ago
    Why do they need an ex-googler-ex-meta-kid then? Why not 5 Kenya engineers?
    - ojosilva 4y ago
      Because the "HR-system" has a high-salary bonus payoff in many cases (think of headhunters who get paid as % of the hire's pay). HR people also work on a "prize" mindset, the word "headhunter" says it all. Getting someone out of a FAANG into your team is highly valued, independently of early performance indicators. The whole IT team thing also has a social-status and peer-pressure game on, so the next hire may ask "who will I'll be working with?". Finally, hiring is imperfect, it's human nature almost all the way and it suffers from a lot of guesswork, due to lack of hard data on the candidate, scarcity and critical time pressure on the process. So hiring managers are biased and tend to project an image of who they are hiring based on prejudices and a rigid mindset. It needs to be pointed out that, although an ex-googler may not be as productive as our imaginary highly productive Kenyan engineer, they could bring valuable experience with things such latest/secretive tech, hot contacts in the business with the resulting network effects, great communication skills and novel and healthy work habits and team culture.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    Exactly, jackpot! Because the Kenyan engineer is getting paid a lot less than he's worth.

leereeves 4y ago

> If an engineer in Kenya for $50k does the same work and output as you, a $200k engineer in SF, can we now say you're being overpaid 4x what you're actually worth? No. If GitLab thought the work was only worth $50k, they wouldn't pay anyone anywhere $200k for the job. If they do pay $200k for the job anywhere, they must expect to receive more than $200k in return, and pocket the difference.

ojosilva 4y ago
It doesn't work like that. It's more like: there's a 250k budget. We got an ex-googler-ex-meta-kid for 200k, so that leaves us 50k for a... Kenya engineer. Then, once both are on-boarded, gee, the Kenya engineer is twice as productive as the googler kid. Jackpot!
- M95D 4y ago
  Why do they need an ex-googler-ex-meta-kid then? Why not 5 Kenya engineers?
  - ojosilva 4y ago
    Because the "HR-system" has a high-salary bonus payoff in many cases (think of headhunters who get paid as % of the hire's pay). HR people also work on a "prize" mindset, the word "headhunter" says it all. Getting someone out of a FAANG into your team is highly valued, independently of early performance indicators. The whole IT team thing also has a social-status and peer-pressure game on, so the next hire may ask "who will I'll be working with?". Finally, hiring is imperfect, it's human nature almost all the way and it suffers from a lot of guesswork, due to lack of hard data on the candidate, scarcity and critical time pressure on the process. So hiring managers are biased and tend to project an image of who they are hiring based on prejudices and a rigid mindset. It needs to be pointed out that, although an ex-googler may not be as productive as our imaginary highly productive Kenyan engineer, they could bring valuable experience with things such latest/secretive tech, hot contacts in the business with the resulting network effects, great communication skills and novel and healthy work habits and team culture.
- leereeves 4y ago
  Exactly, jackpot! Because the Kenyan engineer is getting paid a lot less than he's worth.