There are multiple issues with GitLab as a company. They pay their staff based on location and not the output of their work which is in direct contradiction of their values of "Results" and "Diversity, Inclusivity and Belonging".
And how the location factors are decided is not shared with the staff, just vague hand waving of industry averages. This again is again in contradiction with their "transparency" value.
I can point out a lot more things. They might be transparent, but are not above exploiting folks from weaker economies.
For electronics and vehicles you are free to google iphone and mercedes prices in India vs Us. Its especially higher if I want specific items to import like framework laptop, fairphone, tesla car
Private education can get very expensive very quickly too. Public schools are not even an option as they don't even have furniture sometimes.
You might say remaining costs are low, but they are low only if we use uncertified, unskilled, low quality services/labor. For even decent quality of work the prices will be in multiples.
About my comment about being payed half, the pay scales are visible to everyone in the company so I know that the least in the US also gets payed 2x of my location
I am the original poster from the post linked in this article.
I know these as a fact that a comparable property in my city would cost me much more than what you're paying. All the while I'm getting payed less than half of my colleagues living in your area.
And there are many other costs that are comparable eg. electronics, vehicles and education.
All this is to say that location based pay is not about cost of living, its about getting away with paying as little as possible.
Thanks for this, helps me that people understand me and I'm not being very unreasonable.
From what I've gotten from my discussions on my post is
1) I will start looking for contract work. Not going to be easy, but the best way forward.
2) Use some of the negotiation techniques mentioned like bringing up the fact I'm not competing locally, but internationally
3) Negotiate with my company and threaten to leave? Not fully sure of this. More alligend to leaving anyway as I find the excuses for location based pay pathetic. Will be leaving as soon as I can.
"Having a presence and hence a team in another location with a pyrodactyl-like employee doing pyrodactyl-like things. Probably quite a lot."
Though this is absolutely true for traditional companies, this company is actually a fully remote one so they don't have a presence as such? I would just be wfh but in a foreign country? I still don't see the point in my perticular case
Well the product this company makes is uniformly priced across all locations. So if i wanted to consume the product my company makes I would be paying the same price as US/UK.
Its not a crazy conspiracy, I know it's pretty clear why it's being done. And I know I can't do anything about it other than look for new opportunities.
But should location based pay be just accepted because that's the norm? There are variables that can't be used to do discriminate like age, gender, race, sexual orientation etc. We've accepted equal pay for equal work in these cases. Is it that far fetched that even location should be treated the same?
I see that my post might come off as complaining, but I asure you it's not the case. I do "hustle" as you call it, and that's why I wanted to know other opinions on this.
And I'm not coming at this from a class based marxist ideology. I'm asking for equal pay for equal work, which isn't a radical idea.
Also, though I do work in a software company, I am not a developer or deal with serious tech in anyway.