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I've also felt that Glassdoor, across the board, very much underestimates real salaries, and this further supports that. Anyone can think of a reason why this h

I've also felt that Glassdoor, across the board, very much underestimates real salaries, and this further supports that. Anyone can think of a reason why this happens? One would be that they have old, historial salaries in their averages.

segmondy 8y ago
Isn't Glassdoor across all of US whereas this is probably mostly SV based companies?
- celim307 8y ago
  You can filter down by city. I do agree even then it's underestimating but if I can be arrogant for a moment, I believe people who read HN are accustomed to slightly higher compensation than the average
  - closeparen 8y ago
    The median salary for software developers nationally is $103k per BLS. According to Glassdoor it is $104k in SF. Do you really think ordinary developers in the Bay Area are getting paid national median salaries to live in an exceptionally high cost of living area? I think even the least among us are smarter than that.
dasil003 8y ago
My guess would be that the best paid employees have the least time and interest to participate in Glassdoor. Especially as you progress in your career, stack ranking against generic SE levels becomes less relevant. For instance I wouldn't write off a company just because their reported "senior software engineer" average salary was below my requirements, because I know there are many reasons they could be willing to pay more.
jiveturkey 8y ago
glassdoor is packed with fake reviews. why wouldn’t it also be packed with fake salaries?
uiri 8y ago
If you put in, say, $0 for your stock compensation, even though you receive stock compensation, it will average it in with equal weight as entries which included actual values for their stock compensation. The same applies to cash bonuses. That plus, as you mentioned, including old, historical data with equal weighting to newer data will drag down the averages for both salary and total compensation.

segmondy 8y ago

Isn't Glassdoor across all of US whereas this is probably mostly SV based companies?

celim307 8y ago
You can filter down by city. I do agree even then it's underestimating but if I can be arrogant for a moment, I believe people who read HN are accustomed to slightly higher compensation than the average
- closeparen 8y ago
  The median salary for software developers nationally is $103k per BLS. According to Glassdoor it is $104k in SF. Do you really think ordinary developers in the Bay Area are getting paid national median salaries to live in an exceptionally high cost of living area? I think even the least among us are smarter than that.

dasil003 8y ago

My guess would be that the best paid employees have the least time and interest to participate in Glassdoor. Especially as you progress in your career, stack ranking against generic SE levels becomes less relevant. For instance I wouldn't write off a company just because their reported "senior software engineer" average salary was below my requirements, because I know there are many reasons they could be willing to pay more.

jiveturkey 8y ago

glassdoor is packed with fake reviews. why wouldn’t it also be packed with fake salaries?

uiri 8y ago

If you put in, say, $0 for your stock compensation, even though you receive stock compensation, it will average it in with equal weight as entries which included actual values for their stock compensation. The same applies to cash bonuses. That plus, as you mentioned, including old, historical data with equal weighting to newer data will drag down the averages for both salary and total compensation.