I was wondering that too (since the calculator seems to think everything in Germany outside a few large metros is supposed to cost the same, which is ... unrealistic) and found https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...

> GitLabbers may select any metro area within one hour and forty-five minutes of their residence when determining their geographical area

Ah that’s interesting, certainly assuages some of my concerns with this approach, and would obviously allow almost all Bay Area employees to claim the SF salary range.

Arguably the calculator should be configured to just select the maximum permissible salary range inside the permitted radius based on a home zip code, given that presumably everyone who accepts a job offer at gitlab will do this manually anyway. You’d be foolish not to.

It’s still troubling how ‘wrong’ the numbers look for various regions I’m familiar with though.

I can't find their calculator currently, but last time I looked they treated all of Japan as Tokyo. It's kind of funny because although one could quibble about the salary range they give for Tokyo, if I compare it to the salary that someone would make in rural Japan (where I live), it's at least twice as much.

They've got their formula and I think it's probably fair to say that they aren't paying at the top end of the range in expensive markets. Also by scaling on cost of living, they are getting mismatches with the local market -- both up and down. But it's a formula that's intended to be transparent. As much as they say publicly that they want to be competitive in every market, the reality is that a formula will never be able to achieve that.

I quite like their system. As a developer, I can look at what they are offering and decide before I apply if they are going to be in the ballpark I'm looking at. Not everybody has to work at Gitlab. Gitlab also doesn't have to hire all the best developers in every market -- their strategy is to hire around the world. SV is the most expensive market in the world -- in many cases by 1-2 binary orders of magnitude. Remote only companies don't have to pay those prices and I don't see why they should. That Gitlab even tries to hire in expensive markets is interesting to me. I'm not really sure what value they are getting from it.

I know in the US (and especially SV) there is a feeling that expensive markets attract the best talent. In my experience this isn't really true. In my experience expensive markets attract more people, but the range of ability and experience is about the same. So you may have more great developers in absolute numbers, but your chance of hiring them (especially if you are on a budget) is not any higher at all (and in many cases quite a bit lower).

I should note, in closing, that I may be strange: I don't care at all what anyone else makes in the company. I only care if people pay me what I want to be paid. If someone else makes more, then good for them. If they make less, then that's too bad. But I don't personally care either way.

> If I live in commute range of the same location, why pay me 35 grand less?

If you are doing location-based pay at all, you can't really apply his rule because very large areas are connected by within-commute-distance links such that if you never distinguished places within commute distance by pay you'd essentially eliminate location-based-pay other than across high-friction borders or places that are (either in fact or at least for transit purposes) isolated islands.

A fair counterpoint, but if the methodology creates results that do not reflect market reality, it’s arguably not fit for purpose. I do think that much of that can be mitigated with more sensible “region” factors, but that would greatly increase the complexity of the process. Setting remuneration fairly is a hard problem, but this is arguably not a great solution either.