I think the problem has more to do with their recruiting. To be a successful distributed company, you need a disciplined and highly experienced workforce (note that this does not mean a highly
educated workforce, which may actually be a contraindication).
GitLab offers a middling base salary for a role and applies modifiers for experience and city-based cost-of-living (both of which may modify the base downward; my CoL adjustment is -40%, and I live in the United States!). They explicitly state on their hiring page that they prefer people from cheaper areas. [0] [1]
On top of that, just from their headcount, it sounds like they have way too many people. 160 for a technical company like this is hard to manage when the employees are local; it's even harder to manage when employees are remote. Again, for remote work, you need mature, highly-skilled staff with a strong history of successful self-direction. You're not going to get that when you're chopping their salaries in half based on their location. Bad local wages is a major reason to work remotely in the first place.
[0] https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/ ; use the calculator at the bottom of the page
[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... ; gems include "you are required to notify us when you move and we may adjust your compensation up or down" and "[a]ll things being equal we will hire people in lower cost markets vs. higher cost markets."
GitLab offers a middling base salary for a role and applies modifiers for experience and city-based cost-of-living (both of which may modify the base downward; my CoL adjustment is -40%, and I live in the United States!). They explicitly state on their hiring page that they prefer people from cheaper areas. [0] [1]
On top of that, just from their headcount, it sounds like they have way too many people. 160 for a technical company like this is hard to manage when the employees are local; it's even harder to manage when employees are remote. Again, for remote work, you need mature, highly-skilled staff with a strong history of successful self-direction. You're not going to get that when you're chopping their salaries in half based on their location. Bad local wages is a major reason to work remotely in the first place.
[0] https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/ ; use the calculator at the bottom of the page
[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... ; gems include "you are required to notify us when you move and we may adjust your compensation up or down" and "[a]ll things being equal we will hire people in lower cost markets vs. higher cost markets."