...and of course is living much more expensive in SV but I don't see why that should be "subsidized". No harm in people realizing that it's freaking crazy to pay that much rent.
That means I can get a $160k rise just by moving to SF! This seems super duper broken.
By correcting for rent, you give people that advantage for free. That's why it's unfair.
The calculation is really messed up, rent index should be a contributor not a multiplier.
That said I do think the factors used to calculate the salary can improve. In general, I love the idea of thinking of quality of life. Can a person in Sri Lanka enjoy a similar quality of life as a person in SF at least in terms of factors that can be controlled (a company can't control the quality of public transport or municipalities for example in a given location but can provide me the opportunity to purchase experiences or work around those matters).
And that matters because although rent in Sri Lanka is lower than Brisbane, buying groceries is actually more expensive. Buying electronics is certainly more expensive because of the enormous markups and taxes. Compared to a location in the US, I pay nearly triple the value of a given electronics item at times just for the cost of shipping it and then paying customs. Even travel becomes more expensive since I have much more lengthy Visa processes to go through. These numbers eventually add up and while I can save huge amounts of money by living frugally, if I wanted to live a good life supporting my wife and child, the number should be ideally 60k USD and above rather than 38k.
Should mention that Software engineers are considered to be some of the lowest level fodder in Sri Lanka and our good salaries can be something like 12-15k per year. Starting salaries would be something ridiculous like 3k USD per year (that was mine). But that's also why so many people are migrating to australia, US, and canada asap if they can.
I'm a remote worker too (and I'm very happy with the way my current employer handles it). As long as I'm available at the times and places my employer needs me to be, why should they have any say in where I live or how I spend my money? I want to be able to manage my quality of life myself, not have it decided for me by someone else!
But to be honest I feel bothered but about something completely different really. My worry is for the person in Brisbane. I worry that people like myself will be seen as advantageous to hire and if it comes down to a close hire decision between me and someone in Brisbane I wouldn't want to be chosen because I require a lower salary. Gitlab does do this. I don't fault them either for that though. At the end of the day you want to save money. It's a tough conversation really. Quality of life and spending power are real things and value can actually be seen as relative when you look at how much it takes to give people equal opportunities from location to location. But this opens room for abuse and exploitation. I think remote working salaries vs location will be discussed more and more over time because there is definitely many shades of grey towards the "right" path.
With rent as a multiplier, it's like they're suggesting 100% of your income goes to rent. It seems like a more reasonable way to take housing into account would be something like:
Salary = Base + Avg Rent
Using that formula, salary might be about $20k more for somebody in NYC than for somebody in Tucson. Using the actual calculator, it's $72k more ($117k vs $45k for senior level and average experience).
I live in Minneapolis and the rates offered are laughable, really. My last apartment was on the border of St Paul, if I had lived a block away your offer would have been about 10% less.
It seems to not take into account rent diversity within a city (and which level a skilled employee would pick given the opportunity).
GitLab has really gotten my interest over the past year with both trying it myself recently and seeing you interact with folks on HN. I'm currently searching for a new position but seeing the rates make applying a non-starter.
A quick google search will show you that people use 30% of their salary towards their rent: https://www.google.co.in/search?q=rent+as+percentage+of+sala... What does that tell you about computing salaries based off of rent?
You can see a lot of people discussing Gitlab's salary in a negative way on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gitlab%20salary&sort=byPopular... Most of them have fluff responses talking about being open and fair.
Regarding using the rent index; that was a data-driven decision as described on https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... but as I mentioned, it is a work-in-progress just like everything else at GitLab always is, and I'm open to alternatives / ideas.
Maintaining the idea of fairness is often important in the eyes of employees, but I wonder if it's actually a good idea in practice. Really, you want to hire the best people you can for the money that you've got. So with the system you have in place, if you have 2 equally skilled people, then there is a pretty big incentive to hire the cheaper one.
The end result is likely to be a bit of a skewed culture. Very skilled people are more rare than less skilled people. They are hard to hire, so you will tend to hire whoever you can find. Less skilled people are much easier to hire, so you will find them in almost any geographical location.
The end result will be a company where only the best people will be hired in the expensive region, while the inexpensive regions will have a mixed bag. Because very skilled people are rare, you will end up having inexpensive regions being overwhelmingly represented by lower skill levels (low skill -> easy to hire -> available in any geographic location -> cheaper geographic locations will be hired first)
This will create a power imbalance in the company because the highest density of high skilled workers will be geographically close and therefore in the same timezone. High skilled workers in lower paid regions may have a stigma attached to them because they come from a lower paid region -- and hence are associated with the higher occurrence of lower skilled workers. This may result in considerable friction over time.
I think you can mitigate this problem by creating a second tier pay system for your most skilled workers. This should be a harmonised pay scale and you should pay attention to trying to evenly distribute positions in this pay scale across geographic boundaries. To make it obvious which pay scale people are attached to, you can create new titles for the positions.
You will still have an "Us vs. Them" problem, but at least it will be people you have consciously decided that you want to promote in the company. It is explicitly not fair (in that not everybody is equal), but it makes a clear message of how you want the leadership to work.
It also makes salary negotiations a bit easier. Often people aspire to the highest level of compensation, even if their contributions do not warrant it. When people ask to be promoted to the special pay tier, it creates an opportunity for having a frank discussion about the person's performance. This can clear the air and set proper expectations -- or possibly indicate clearly to the employee that they aren't as valued as they wish to be. Even if someone leaves in this circumstance, it can often be to the benefit of all parties.
Hope you find this interesting/useful. It's always a tricky balancing act, so I wish you luck :-)
I think you make a great point. I do want to add some nuance:
1. We currently have great people all around the world. Many of them used to be in expensive locations but moved.
2. Because we're remote only the problem of concentration would be time zone only. But for practical purposes South America is a similar time zone as North America.
3. We have one career path (junior/intermediate/senior/staff/etc.) that is available to everyone based on performance.
Thanks for the comment, it is interesting and I'll share it with our Sr. Director of People Ops.