4 ms·

> For a counter example, I can point you to wallstreet or finance in Chicago, and show you 100s of people where people at the same level make as much as a 2x pa

> For a counter example, I can point you to wallstreet or finance in Chicago, and show you 100s of people where people at the same level make as much as a 2x pay difference. If you think people in finance don't know what their peers are getting paid you are fooling yourself. They are overall much more mature and transparent about pay than we are.

morgante 10y ago
I agree with the maturity part, but not the transparency part. If you told a trader their salary was going to be posted publicly, decided by the rest of the employees (including junior employees), and that they couldn't negotiate it then they'd laugh in your face. Giving up the ability to negotiate your salary is giving up your whole leverage. It's a ruse played by smart entrepreneurs to sucker engineers into taking lower salaries and feeling good about it.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Currently "salary negotiation skill" is one of the primary drivers of one's salary, whether or not negotiation is a necessary skill for the actual job. In other words, you end up rewarding people who are good negotiators, not necessarily people who are good at their job. Of course you may coincidentally reward people good at their jobs if they happen to also be good at negotiating. Give that up, and people who are good at their jobs but bad negotiators will tend to do better, and people who are not good at their jobs but good negotiators will tend to do worse. I'd be fine with that trade-off.
  - sheepmullet 10y ago
    In practice people who are good at negotiating will just negotiate a different title. It happens all the time in tech. Think of all the useless architects on much higher salaries. As an ex-manager if I wanted to hire a mid level dev who was too expensive I would just hire them as a senior dev. Edit: or even worse you lock people in based upon a rigid system like years of experience and end up like teaching where an amazing teacher who gets great results will get paid far less than a shitty teacher who has stopped trying simply because the shitty teacher has been around longer.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      Ideally, we could have a magical box that you could feed the sum of all of an employee's achievements and out would pop their objectively-determined market-competitive title and salary. Things like negotiation and seniority and popularity contests and office politics and whether your manager likes you would have nothing to do with it. I'll concede we don't have such a box, so companies have to make due with a combination of these other imperfect systems. I argue that "individual negotiation skill" is a pretty terrible choice among those systems--unless your job role actually involves negotiation.
      - sheepmullet 10y ago
        > unless your job role actually involves negotiation. Every job involves some level of negotiation. Even as a junior you have to negotiate with senior devs to give you time of day. Even as a junior you have to negotiate on features and estimates. As you move up the chain it becomes more and more important.
- sheepmullet 10y ago
  > but not the transparency part. I think most people in finance have a good idea of what their peers are being paid and a good idea of what they need to do if they want to earn more. People are paid fairly objectively and managers are upfront about what they value (at least within a firm). That doesn't mean employees know exact percentages or bonuses and it certainly doesn't mean they know total comp in $. When I moved into software development my first manager was shocked that I wanted to plan exactly how to get to the senior level, what I would need to demonstrate, and what kind of pay they offer at the next level up. He couldn't answer any of my questions and it was like I was the first person who had talked about concrete career goals with him.
  - morgante 10y ago
    I agree with your anecdotes, but I think it's not because tech is less transparent but because most developers have no mind for career or salary optimization and treat their jobs like games rather than business propositions.
    - sheepmullet 10y ago
      I totally agree. I think we are just using the term transparent differently. Telling people to go on a random walk for a few years and maybe they will move from mid to senior is the kind of transparency you get in tech. Real transparency would be: If you deliver project X and can demonstrate you got Joe and Raj up to speed on Y then we will promote you/increase your salary/give you a big bonus/put you on the project you really want etc.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        I agree with you too. I've never seen a job in tech where it was clear what it took to get to the next level (either salary-wise, responsibility-wise, move-into-management-wise, etc.). It's always hand-wavey "do better and who knows!" or "you'll be senior engineer after a few years!" type guidance. Sometimes I'm jealous of folks like salespeople who have clear metrics. Pull in $X in sales and your bonus is $Y. Bam! That would be awesome.

morgante 10y ago

I agree with the maturity part, but not the transparency part. If you told a trader their salary was going to be posted publicly, decided by the rest of the employees (including junior employees), and that they couldn't negotiate it then they'd laugh in your face. Giving up the ability to negotiate your salary is giving up your whole leverage. It's a ruse played by smart entrepreneurs to sucker engineers into taking lower salaries and feeling good about it.

ryandrake 10y ago
Currently "salary negotiation skill" is one of the primary drivers of one's salary, whether or not negotiation is a necessary skill for the actual job. In other words, you end up rewarding people who are good negotiators, not necessarily people who are good at their job. Of course you may coincidentally reward people good at their jobs if they happen to also be good at negotiating. Give that up, and people who are good at their jobs but bad negotiators will tend to do better, and people who are not good at their jobs but good negotiators will tend to do worse. I'd be fine with that trade-off.
- sheepmullet 10y ago
  In practice people who are good at negotiating will just negotiate a different title. It happens all the time in tech. Think of all the useless architects on much higher salaries. As an ex-manager if I wanted to hire a mid level dev who was too expensive I would just hire them as a senior dev. Edit: or even worse you lock people in based upon a rigid system like years of experience and end up like teaching where an amazing teacher who gets great results will get paid far less than a shitty teacher who has stopped trying simply because the shitty teacher has been around longer.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Ideally, we could have a magical box that you could feed the sum of all of an employee's achievements and out would pop their objectively-determined market-competitive title and salary. Things like negotiation and seniority and popularity contests and office politics and whether your manager likes you would have nothing to do with it. I'll concede we don't have such a box, so companies have to make due with a combination of these other imperfect systems. I argue that "individual negotiation skill" is a pretty terrible choice among those systems--unless your job role actually involves negotiation.
    - sheepmullet 10y ago
      > unless your job role actually involves negotiation. Every job involves some level of negotiation. Even as a junior you have to negotiate with senior devs to give you time of day. Even as a junior you have to negotiate on features and estimates. As you move up the chain it becomes more and more important.
sheepmullet 10y ago
> but not the transparency part. I think most people in finance have a good idea of what their peers are being paid and a good idea of what they need to do if they want to earn more. People are paid fairly objectively and managers are upfront about what they value (at least within a firm). That doesn't mean employees know exact percentages or bonuses and it certainly doesn't mean they know total comp in $. When I moved into software development my first manager was shocked that I wanted to plan exactly how to get to the senior level, what I would need to demonstrate, and what kind of pay they offer at the next level up. He couldn't answer any of my questions and it was like I was the first person who had talked about concrete career goals with him.
- morgante 10y ago
  I agree with your anecdotes, but I think it's not because tech is less transparent but because most developers have no mind for career or salary optimization and treat their jobs like games rather than business propositions.
  - sheepmullet 10y ago
    I totally agree. I think we are just using the term transparent differently. Telling people to go on a random walk for a few years and maybe they will move from mid to senior is the kind of transparency you get in tech. Real transparency would be: If you deliver project X and can demonstrate you got Joe and Raj up to speed on Y then we will promote you/increase your salary/give you a big bonus/put you on the project you really want etc.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      I agree with you too. I've never seen a job in tech where it was clear what it took to get to the next level (either salary-wise, responsibility-wise, move-into-management-wise, etc.). It's always hand-wavey "do better and who knows!" or "you'll be senior engineer after a few years!" type guidance. Sometimes I'm jealous of folks like salespeople who have clear metrics. Pull in $X in sales and your bonus is $Y. Bam! That would be awesome.