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"The market is dictating the rate" is pretty tautological. The interesting questions are whether the market is rational, whether this is what we as society want
by geofft 7y ago
"The market is dictating the rate" is pretty tautological. The interesting questions are whether the market is rational, whether this is what we as society want the market doing (which is not to imply regulation, just that we could collectively decide to prioritize other things), whether existing regulation is influencing the market in some way, etc.
It is a little confusing to me that tech salaries are broadly consistent between various forms of tech - e.g., without negotiation or stating an expectation, I got offers within $10K of each other from a tech-heavy hedge fund and a tech-heavy advertising giant. It isn't obvious to me that these two companies have approximately the same hiring budget, or if one has a higher budget than the other than giving market offers to start negotiation instead of above-market is a winning strategy.
- iudqnolq 7y ago> It is a little confusing to me that tech salaries are broadly consistent between various forms of tech - e.g., without negotiation or stating an expectation, I got offers within $10K of each other from a tech-heavy hedge fund and a tech-heavy advertising giant. From your first paragraph I get the feeling you might be familiar with this, but for others the term this is alluding to is called elasticity. Essentially a little change in supply and a little change in demand aren't always worth the same. What you experience (and what others have measured) suggests the demand for competent software developers (the company side) is relatively inelastic compared to the supply of competent software developers (the employee side). Put another way, if they tried to pay you less the number of applicants they got would go down quite fast. Put even simpler, the market for software developers is a seller's market.