4 ms·

Yes, and it should also be tied to their spouse's income, their sex, gender, age, and skin color, to keep things fair. Perhaps their sibling's/ancestor's income

Yes, and it should also be tied to their spouse's income, their sex, gender, age, and skin color, to keep things fair. Perhaps their sibling's/ancestor's income too. Make sure you account for all these factors to keep things equal. But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully communicate & do the work, regardless of their circumstances or physical attributes?

deleted 6y ago
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s1t5 6y ago
> determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company Nobody does this. It's not even possible apart from the most contrived cases. Salary is determined by a number of factors none of which have anything to do with the employee's worth to the company.
- kyriakos 6y ago
  I agree that it's not happening but this is how it should be happening.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    I believe that s1t5 is trying to say no one does it because it is very hard to do. Especially in a bigger company, where the work you do is tied to so many others' work in the company (sales, etc) - how do you expect them to figure out what the value of the work you did is, vs your teammates, let alone vs all the non-SW folks involved? Example: You could have done a great job, but someone further down the pipeline screwed things up and the product never got released, and your code is never reused. This is a case where your work produced no value to the company (through no fault of your own). Should you get paid $0?
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  > "none of which have anything to do with" This is hyperbole, right?
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    Not by much. Salary is mostly decided by supply and demand. These are tied to your worth to the company, but very loosely.
bboygravity 6y ago
> But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully communicate & do the work, regardless of their circumstances or physical attributes? Sounds good to me. I'd be a retired millionaire at age 30 something if any of the companies I've worked for (remotely or otherwise) followed that logic. Example: I found the correct root causes of failures in an aerospace product within months. The company's own R&D team had been trying different "fixes" that weren't fixes for at least 5 years. They had spent 1 million EUR in R&D material cost alone (not counting engineering time cost). They lost multiple clients to competitors (> 15 years contracts worth millions per client) due to the malfunctioning product. After I came through the problem was fixed, tested, confirmed to be fixed and implemented within months. And that's an example of one project of a few months for one of my clients. hmmm. Maybe I should start charging differently. :D
- bradstewart 6y ago
  > I'd be a retired millionaire at age 30 something How do you know what value the companies would assign to those factors?
  - elbear 6y ago
    "> 15 years contracts worth millions per client" would be a start.
  - bboygravity 6y ago
    They assign to those factors whatever you can convince them of as an employee/contractor during your interview :) In case you're fixing an existing problem, the cost of the problem is often roughly known (like in my example). Lost clients due to the specific bug, current clients threatening to leave, sunken/running R&D costs without a solution, missed sales/tenders where clients mentioned the bug as a reason, long term damage to the brand, etc. You might be able to roughly extrapolate that into the future. In case you're working on a new product or general improvement it can be impossible to measure how much your contribution was worth. Hence, employees/contractors are usually valued by the hour or by the amount of equity they own and not actually by their value to the company. In some industries it is possible to be valued exactly by the value you saved. A common example that comes to mind: a lawyer who does pro bono work. Another example in engineering: filing warranty claims for failing (very expensive) products. You could negotiate to get a percentage of every successful claim. I've heard of people making millions that way in aerospace. Apparently companies in aerospace for whatever reason often don't claim warranty when they're entitled too. Keep in mind that large companies in some industries really really don't care about a couple of deci-millions here and there because their turnover is in the billions and they have "better things to do" :D
happytoexplain 6y ago
Fully half of your post is a sarcastic rant. >why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody Because the same salary may be worth the same amount to the company paying it, but it is not worth the same amount to different people receiving it. Among two equally valuable people, one may accept and one may decline due to salary's differing value to them based on environmental factors. This is obvious to businesses, and is generally accounted for (fairly or unfairly).

deleted 6y ago

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s1t5 6y ago

> determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company Nobody does this. It's not even possible apart from the most contrived cases. Salary is determined by a number of factors none of which have anything to do with the employee's worth to the company.

kyriakos 6y ago
I agree that it's not happening but this is how it should be happening.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  I believe that s1t5 is trying to say no one does it because it is very hard to do. Especially in a bigger company, where the work you do is tied to so many others' work in the company (sales, etc) - how do you expect them to figure out what the value of the work you did is, vs your teammates, let alone vs all the non-SW folks involved? Example: You could have done a great job, but someone further down the pipeline screwed things up and the product never got released, and your code is never reused. This is a case where your work produced no value to the company (through no fault of your own). Should you get paid $0?
mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
> "none of which have anything to do with" This is hyperbole, right?
- BeetleB 6y ago
  Not by much. Salary is mostly decided by supply and demand. These are tied to your worth to the company, but very loosely.

bboygravity 6y ago

> But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully communicate & do the work, regardless of their circumstances or physical attributes? Sounds good to me. I'd be a retired millionaire at age 30 something if any of the companies I've worked for (remotely or otherwise) followed that logic. Example: I found the correct root causes of failures in an aerospace product within months. The company's own R&D team had been trying different "fixes" that weren't fixes for at least 5 years. They had spent 1 million EUR in R&D material cost alone (not counting engineering time cost). They lost multiple clients to competitors (> 15 years contracts worth millions per client) due to the malfunctioning product. After I came through the problem was fixed, tested, confirmed to be fixed and implemented within months. And that's an example of one project of a few months for one of my clients. hmmm. Maybe I should start charging differently. :D

bradstewart 6y ago
> I'd be a retired millionaire at age 30 something How do you know what value the companies would assign to those factors?
- elbear 6y ago
  "> 15 years contracts worth millions per client" would be a start.
- bboygravity 6y ago
  They assign to those factors whatever you can convince them of as an employee/contractor during your interview :) In case you're fixing an existing problem, the cost of the problem is often roughly known (like in my example). Lost clients due to the specific bug, current clients threatening to leave, sunken/running R&D costs without a solution, missed sales/tenders where clients mentioned the bug as a reason, long term damage to the brand, etc. You might be able to roughly extrapolate that into the future. In case you're working on a new product or general improvement it can be impossible to measure how much your contribution was worth. Hence, employees/contractors are usually valued by the hour or by the amount of equity they own and not actually by their value to the company. In some industries it is possible to be valued exactly by the value you saved. A common example that comes to mind: a lawyer who does pro bono work. Another example in engineering: filing warranty claims for failing (very expensive) products. You could negotiate to get a percentage of every successful claim. I've heard of people making millions that way in aerospace. Apparently companies in aerospace for whatever reason often don't claim warranty when they're entitled too. Keep in mind that large companies in some industries really really don't care about a couple of deci-millions here and there because their turnover is in the billions and they have "better things to do" :D

happytoexplain 6y ago

Fully half of your post is a sarcastic rant. >why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody Because the same salary may be worth the same amount to the company paying it, but it is not worth the same amount to different people receiving it. Among two equally valuable people, one may accept and one may decline due to salary's differing value to them based on environmental factors. This is obvious to businesses, and is generally accounted for (fairly or unfairly).