What'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.
* "This person does the exact same work, obviously they need to be paid 30% more than you because they could afford to move close to an expensive city before applying" doesn't sound exactly fair
* "We'll value your work less financially if you move somewhere cheaper (not the other way around though)" isn't particularly great
* The message(s) of "You can work from everywhere, people can move back to rural places and reverse demographic drain from there, you can be close to nature, ..." seem a bit hollow when paired with "oh, and if you actually do any of those great things we'll cut your salary"
* At least when it was public, their salary calculator had some hilarious blind spots (one would hope they have a better process when it actually comes down to it)
For the other perspective, they've written about why they do it: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation..., https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-ra...
Imagine spending so much time and effort to justify paying your employees less. It makes financial sense for a public company with no soul, but I feel bad for gitlab employees.
but with a rental-price index for local-ish area instead of trying to capture that in their regions? or total flat?!
Thank you, I was thinking I imagined that that existed.
Backpedaling on transparency is the antithesis of leadership.
Is there a word for that? Sabotage? Maybe too dramatic, but if we're going to toss around terms like "world leader" maybe it's not.
The problem is that when I saw their compensation tables for Mexico, their offer was going to cut my salary by about 30% of what I was actually earning (I think it was about $70k USD annual at most, I cannot find the calculator now), in another US company with an office in my hometown. Instead, I went to another US company which is also remote, and got a pay bump to $140,000 USD, working from my country.
I am not asking to get paid in FAANG Valley salaries ($400k+) but even paying me 50%-60% of what they pay to someoneone in the US makes a win-win situation IMHO.
Although I recent interviewed for a place (the whole gambit) and their offer didn't even match my salary, let alone total comp. And I was very clear. They blamed their "salary bands."
Just don't call yourself a world leader.
Gitlab might not be a world leader in salaries, but they might very well be a world leader in providing the best remote work environment to their employees.
Either you don't adjust the pay when they move because you are already paying everyone an equal salary. Or you adjust it and pay everyone a local salary.
Gitlab does the latter.
I totally agree. But kirbypineapple's point was about someone's salary not being cut when they move. That's much less interesting than someone in Thailand getting the Bay Area salary when they're hired.
If Kraken pays the same salary for a role regardless of location when they're hiring then that's awesome. I would find that incredibly surprising though, if only because advertising a role on 50* the typical local salary would make hiring really hard because you'd be swamped with low quality applications.
That's as flimsy a strawman as you could find.
(not saying GL are, there could be other unrelated things precluding it)
I worked at a small company that paid me a lot, gave me free stuff, perks etc. It doesn’t mean they’re a world leader in remote work. It just means they offer those things.
The point is — they are not a world leader in remote work. They are a tech company with perks and this is good marketing for them to convince people like you otherwise.
Not sure how I reply to the comment below by lucideer, I guess HN has a limit on children?
Anywho, this is for him, not you :)
Isn't the burden of proof on the one making the claim?
I have yet to see a reasonable case for why they should be called a global leader when they treat their workers differently for the same output.
Inequality is never going to be associated with a leader in my mind. Maybe from a c-level suit perspective they seem like leaders because they are getting away with making more money at the expense of the people building the product.
Yes. It is.
> I have yet to see a reasonable case for why they should be called a global leader when they treat their workers differently for the same output.
My point was no-one has made that claim (nor any similar positive claim - your rephrasing uses weasel words* to bias the interpretation)
The claim being made is as follows: "paying workers geo-adjusted wages precludes a company from being a global leader in remote work".
Noone has claimed that geo-adjusted wages do make them a leader, nor that GL even is a leader. Only one commenter has made a claim: that is that geo-adjusted wages preclude leadership.
* Aside to explain my comment on weasel words: paying the same wage could be as easily interpreted "treating workers differently" given spending power is actually a product of wage / cost-of-living ratio; the value of money is geographically variable
That's just a counter-claim; a denial of the original claim, which was Gitlab's "We are a global leader".
With quite a lot of people saying"No, your behaviour is by definition not that of a leader", I'd say the burden of proof still lies squarely on Gitlab's shoulders: They made a rather bold claim, they get to show that it isn't BS.
Nobody here is "convinced by their marketing" or has even mentioned they believe GLs claim. They're only asking for an explanation of your metric: that location based pay grades preclude leadership in remote working. I have yet to see any reasonable case for why this should be?