I agree that more and more companies will start hiring remotely and the market will get more competitive. As I said in the blog post: "I hope the distance between those stances becomes smaller as more companies offer remote work opportunities."
I understand the reason and how it is a necessary evil. But it's still an evil. Simply put, it is discrimination.
Paying the poor less and the wealthy more.
It makes no sense that two employees with the same workload and same credentials would get a different pay based on their primary address' geolocation.
Just off the top of my head :
- Employee resides at their rich parent's home and get a higher pay vs. employee move near their mother's elderly care center in a ghetto and dock their pay.
- Employee lives alone with no dependents in a high pay area vs. employee being a single-parent in a low pay area.
- Employee lives on a native reservation and get less pay.
- Employee lives in a co-location in a high pay area vs. employee lives alone in a low pay area.
- Employee has impressive credentials in a low pay area vs. employee with no credential living in a high pay area.
- etc.
This is nothing more than a loophole that allows you to give a bonus to employees living in high pay areas while keeping a clear conscience.
If anything, kudos for being open about the whole situation.
In other words: "we pay less because we feel that's what we can get away with. if we face more competition in the future, we might have to pay more, but right now we don't see that competition".
Interesting, but admittedly honest perspective from a CEO.
It is competitive, but you don't see that competition because you flat-out tell people you won't pay them competitively. I would never consider Gitlab for that reason, it just doesn't make financial sense.
Money isn't everything, I've certainly taken a significant paycut to take a job I wanted and believed in. But I'd have to take a 50% paycut to work at Gitlab, so... no thanks. And worse yet, you'd openly pay a city dweller on my team twice as much to do the same work.
They most likely pay competitive rates if you ask for them. They can't really lose anything by having a document with compensation rules for the gullible folk that fall for the "rules apply to everyone" spiel.
