Apparently, stupendously, yes (based on what apparent employees in this thread are saying)
>Do you trust them to tell you they've moved house even though they're going to lose tens of thousands a year in income?
It's in the contract. I would absolutely lie to them, I would 1:1 fiscally motivated to do so.
I dunno. I'm sure it works if you just take jobs without caring what you get paid.
Maybe that describes most of GitLab's staff. It's a cool product, so it wouldn't surprise me.
The mental overhead of maintaining a London postcode just for the sake of it I think would have me looking elsewhere (and I live in London and have no intention of leaving). I'd be wondering about where they draw the line, and whether if I move two stations out they'd try and dock my pay or whatever.
Also nearly entirely defeats the purpose of remote work. I'm into it cause it'd be dank to pull a San Francisco salary while chilling in Vietnam and paying 200$/mo for rent.
The arbiter of the unfairness is the company policy. That's who we blame, not the employee who happens to benefit. They are no more to blame than the person who doesn't benefit. The causal relationship simply doesn't exist. I'm actually curious about the reasoning you applied to somehow pin the duty of responsibility to the employee that benefits?
The application process for GitLab, for me, seems to be:
1) figure out the highest paying area I have access to (visa or whatever)
2a) actually move there if I have to or it happens to be where I am, or 2b) get a postbox or rent a studio apartment pointlessly
3) actually apply for the job and potentially get it
4) if at any point I want to move, figure out how to do it without anyone finding out because otherwise I effectively lose my job (the UK salaries outside of London are comedic)
(as an aside I'm not convinced this "your rate will be reduced" stuff is even legal, I imagine it'd be considered constructive dismissal)
Contrast that with an on-premises job (you can move, the commute length is your own problem) or a real remote job (completely unrestricted).
Again, it seems to be working for them, but it looks really odd from my perspective.
The salary for a "Senior Expert" developer in "Everywhere else in UK" is 60K GBP.
You would make more money overall by renting a 1 bedroom flat in London, leaving it completely empty and telling GitLab you live there.
Yes, even accounting for tax.
You could just get a postcode. Ask a friend to take mail for you. Get a flat share and use it as a pied-a-terre. And so on and so forth.
Who knows. They can play the code golf, not me.
(I love GitLab. Their hiring is just odd.).
I mean you can extend that to it being unfair to be paid less because you didn't get competing offers; they have nothing at all to do with how good of an engineer you are or how productive you will be.
Sadly supply and demand are what drive prices and I guess in this case incomes.