[chrisseaton]

They can set their salaries however they want I guess - none of my business. And it must work for them if they're hiring the people they want.

But I looked at GitLab's compensation recently when I was switching job, and even when I maxed every thing out (not saying I'm that good) the pay for the UK was terrible - completely unworkable for a professional software engineer on the global market. I think they had the UK as having lower cost of living than places like the Czech Republic. I know for a fact that cost of living in the UK is not lower than in the Czech Republic. But worse than that they had these little islands of reported higher cost of living. Individual cities like Bristol. I suspect someone influential lived there and wanted to be paid more and they managed to get a special case.

I think I earned more as an intern while a university student with another company, than GitLab's top-tier engineer salary.