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I think one reason why this is difficult for companies that are hiring software engineers, is that they can hire at multiple levels of experience. They just nee

I think one reason why this is difficult for companies that are hiring software engineers, is that they can hire at multiple levels of experience. They just need good developers! A company that needs, say, a Golang developer, or Scala, or React, might be willing to hire a junior, mid-level or senior developer- they'll take whatever experience level they can get. Remember, saying that you don't want to hire someone too experienced is pushing the envelope on age discrimination laws.... So if they're willing to hire someone with 2-20 years of experience, the salary range may be so broad as to be meaningless. $80-180k doesn't really tell anyone anything, and I'd imagine regulators can't do much if that's what companies put down as their range. I find that a lot of people imagine an open job & job description to be Very Rigid Categories, whereas in practice companies hiring in high-demand fields have to be flexible to find people. From the employer's point of view, that's why we find demands for the salary range to be frustrating- lots of companies really don't have a specific range in mind! If you mandate that companies use a tight salary band, they'll simply say OK, our Software Developer 1 pays $70-90k, Software Developer 2 pays $90-11k, etc. However- we haven't decided which level of software developer we're going to hire you for. Tough for regulators to beat that approach too

tshaddox 5y ago
I find it very difficult to believe that an employer that would be happy to fill a certain position at $80k would also be willing to fill that same position at $180k.
- hash872 5y ago
  Did you happen to see the part where I explained that a company could hire someone at a relatively junior, mid-level or senior opening- in an extremely competitive market for software developers? Like, let's say you're X Startup, you desperately need a Golang developer, not having another good Golang developer on your team is costing you Y amounts of money per month, and you just can't find one in your preferred experience range. Do you A) do nothing and just continue to lose money each month for lack of a good developer, or B) hire someone who knows Golang, regardless of whether they're more junior or more senior than you were hoping? Does that kinda make sense?
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    I understand that some companies might want to do this, but it’s explicitly not giving clear salary ranges for certain positions. It’s basically saying “we will pay you whatever, based on what we determine you are worth,” which is precisely the status quo that transparent salary advocates want to change.
    - hash872 5y ago
      I know this is a bit of a loaded term, and I'm trying to use this in a non-political/nonpartisan context here- but isn't paying people based on rigid salary bands a bit, uh, Communistic? Like yes the company should pay you, an individual, based on what they're worth- if someone has 3 years of experience but they're better than someone with 10 years, shouldn't they be paid more? I thought tech culture was about individualism. You know who definitely has preset salary ranges for years of experience and isn't paying based on individual ability? The government & heavily unionized jobs. Seniority Trumps Everything there. I dunno, is that the world we want? I thought tech was philosophically opposed to that kind of mediocrity?
- ccmonnett 5y ago
  I am actively interviewing someone with 4 years and someone with 20 years of experience for the same role. Our needs are quite specific but it is not our first or last hire in that area; as long as someone can fill them we are willing to be flexible about to what extent this particular hire fills our overall need and will adjust accordingly down the line. Given the stage of my company, our hiring plan, and the fact we hire remote across the US, we absolutely could have a role with a salary range of $80k or more.
yarcob 5y ago
Here in Austria we have a similar law that requires disclosing minimum salary for a role. Companies usually just post multiple ads if they are hiring for junior or senior roles. I don't think a job posting for both junior and senior developers would be appealing to a senior developer. I think the market in Austria is different. If your job ad isn't compelling enough, you won't get any applications.
injb 5y ago
These might be good workarounds, but they all assume that employers have some incentive to look for a workaround. This may be true for highly paid roles that are hard to fill, but for more competitive roles, they'll just skip CO entirely and avoid any risk. SO it'll be lower paid workers that suffer as a result of this regulation, as usual.
ativzzz 5y ago
So why not just list the position for a software engineer, along with 3 different salary bands for 3 different experience levels? Or does that not comply with the law?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  They can. The companies not wanting to do it just don’t want to give more information to the sellers (labor), especially their current labor who might be being paid less while the buyer (employer) profits from the arbitrage.
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    I don't think it's that massive, especially because you should be figuring out a salary range within the first 1 or 2 conversations with the company regardless. For software engineers anyway, not sure about other less-hot markets.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, this law will disproportionately benefit sellers of labor with a worse supply/demand situation. Price transparency is always better for the party (buyer or seller) in the worse supply/demand situation.
      - ativzzz 5y ago
        So maybe it should be limited to certain industries, like low skilled laborers and not white collar office jobs
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Why? Prices are the signal to market participants for allocating resources. It is the whole basis of free markets and why they work. What would society gain by obfuscated pricing? Assuming the goal is to benefit all of society, and not certain individuals who happen to be able to take advantage of arbitrage scenarios.
dr_orpheus 5y ago
> ...our Software Developer 1 pays $70-90k, Software Developer 2 pays $90-11k, etc. However- we haven't decided which level of software developer we're going to hire you for. I have seen some companies do this in a sense. They will post their salary "grades" A1, A2, A3, B1, etc. But there isn't really any correlation to say a Software Developer 1 will be a grade A3 or B1 or whatever.
matwood 5y ago
> $80-180k doesn't really tell anyone anything Not meaningless at all. The company is at least saying they are willing to pay senior level salaries. I think the companies really pushing back are those who want 2-20 years experience with a range of $50-$80k. The other group of companies pushing back are those who let their current employees get too far out of the current range, and can only keep them happy through hoping they don't find out. Both are signs of companies I want to avoid.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  If I saw $80-180k on a job posting, I wouldn't think it was meaningless. I would think it means that they will pay $80k, maybe a bit more, but definitely nowhere near $180k.
  - matwood 5y ago
    Except now they have to actually give you some reason why it's not the top. Without the listing the common reason I would hear about my salary request was 'not budgeted'. Well if 180k is listed, not budgeted doesn't fly. They either need to explain why I didn't get the max in a way that makes sense, or I move on. Is it perfect for employees? No, but it's much better than no information. Also, keep in mind they will not just throw some crazy high number on their either because then they have to explain it to existing employees.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Do they actually have to explain this? Is this part of the Colorado law? I can’t find anything about that.
      - matwood 5y ago
        Of course they don't have to, but it opens the door to make it easier for existing employees and candidates to ask. So many people are uncomfortable talking about money, and companies push that it's taboo. This law does a tiny bit to push the information asymmetry back to the employee. EDIT I've always been a pretty aggressive (not in a bad way) negotiator. So for me, asking why not the max would be question one and probing the answer would be the next set of questions. Maybe this wasn't obvious to those less apt to negotiate?
emrah 5y ago
It's expected/appreciated that applicants should put in the effort to tailor their resumes and cover letters for each job posting they apply. So why are companies taking the lazy route? A single job posting shouldn't aim for all levels of devs. There should be separate postings for each level with specific requirements/expectations and a salary range to go with it. Bigger companies do/should know how many devs they need for each level. Smaller companies would benefit from being more organized too.
dragonsngoblins 5y ago
Couldn't they just advertise multiple positions with different ranges? I don't really see the issue with them having to do that if it is just a matter of tweaking how many years of experience they list as required on each one along with the salary band for that level of experience. I'd also be ok with a minimum rather than a band, which means that they wouldn't be scaring away a best of the best type candidate by setting the ceiling too low.

tshaddox 5y ago

I find it very difficult to believe that an employer that would be happy to fill a certain position at $80k would also be willing to fill that same position at $180k.

hash872 5y ago
Did you happen to see the part where I explained that a company could hire someone at a relatively junior, mid-level or senior opening- in an extremely competitive market for software developers? Like, let's say you're X Startup, you desperately need a Golang developer, not having another good Golang developer on your team is costing you Y amounts of money per month, and you just can't find one in your preferred experience range. Do you A) do nothing and just continue to lose money each month for lack of a good developer, or B) hire someone who knows Golang, regardless of whether they're more junior or more senior than you were hoping? Does that kinda make sense?
- tshaddox 5y ago
  I understand that some companies might want to do this, but it’s explicitly not giving clear salary ranges for certain positions. It’s basically saying “we will pay you whatever, based on what we determine you are worth,” which is precisely the status quo that transparent salary advocates want to change.
  - hash872 5y ago
    I know this is a bit of a loaded term, and I'm trying to use this in a non-political/nonpartisan context here- but isn't paying people based on rigid salary bands a bit, uh, Communistic? Like yes the company should pay you, an individual, based on what they're worth- if someone has 3 years of experience but they're better than someone with 10 years, shouldn't they be paid more? I thought tech culture was about individualism. You know who definitely has preset salary ranges for years of experience and isn't paying based on individual ability? The government & heavily unionized jobs. Seniority Trumps Everything there. I dunno, is that the world we want? I thought tech was philosophically opposed to that kind of mediocrity?
ccmonnett 5y ago
I am actively interviewing someone with 4 years and someone with 20 years of experience for the same role. Our needs are quite specific but it is not our first or last hire in that area; as long as someone can fill them we are willing to be flexible about to what extent this particular hire fills our overall need and will adjust accordingly down the line. Given the stage of my company, our hiring plan, and the fact we hire remote across the US, we absolutely could have a role with a salary range of $80k or more.

yarcob 5y ago

Here in Austria we have a similar law that requires disclosing minimum salary for a role. Companies usually just post multiple ads if they are hiring for junior or senior roles. I don't think a job posting for both junior and senior developers would be appealing to a senior developer. I think the market in Austria is different. If your job ad isn't compelling enough, you won't get any applications.

injb 5y ago

These might be good workarounds, but they all assume that employers have some incentive to look for a workaround. This may be true for highly paid roles that are hard to fill, but for more competitive roles, they'll just skip CO entirely and avoid any risk. SO it'll be lower paid workers that suffer as a result of this regulation, as usual.

ativzzz 5y ago

So why not just list the position for a software engineer, along with 3 different salary bands for 3 different experience levels? Or does that not comply with the law?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
They can. The companies not wanting to do it just don’t want to give more information to the sellers (labor), especially their current labor who might be being paid less while the buyer (employer) profits from the arbitrage.
- ativzzz 5y ago
  I don't think it's that massive, especially because you should be figuring out a salary range within the first 1 or 2 conversations with the company regardless. For software engineers anyway, not sure about other less-hot markets.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, this law will disproportionately benefit sellers of labor with a worse supply/demand situation. Price transparency is always better for the party (buyer or seller) in the worse supply/demand situation.
    - ativzzz 5y ago
      So maybe it should be limited to certain industries, like low skilled laborers and not white collar office jobs
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Why? Prices are the signal to market participants for allocating resources. It is the whole basis of free markets and why they work. What would society gain by obfuscated pricing? Assuming the goal is to benefit all of society, and not certain individuals who happen to be able to take advantage of arbitrage scenarios.

dr_orpheus 5y ago

> ...our Software Developer 1 pays $70-90k, Software Developer 2 pays $90-11k, etc. However- we haven't decided which level of software developer we're going to hire you for. I have seen some companies do this in a sense. They will post their salary "grades" A1, A2, A3, B1, etc. But there isn't really any correlation to say a Software Developer 1 will be a grade A3 or B1 or whatever.

matwood 5y ago

> $80-180k doesn't really tell anyone anything Not meaningless at all. The company is at least saying they are willing to pay senior level salaries. I think the companies really pushing back are those who want 2-20 years experience with a range of $50-$80k. The other group of companies pushing back are those who let their current employees get too far out of the current range, and can only keep them happy through hoping they don't find out. Both are signs of companies I want to avoid.

tshaddox 5y ago
If I saw $80-180k on a job posting, I wouldn't think it was meaningless. I would think it means that they will pay $80k, maybe a bit more, but definitely nowhere near $180k.
- matwood 5y ago
  Except now they have to actually give you some reason why it's not the top. Without the listing the common reason I would hear about my salary request was 'not budgeted'. Well if 180k is listed, not budgeted doesn't fly. They either need to explain why I didn't get the max in a way that makes sense, or I move on. Is it perfect for employees? No, but it's much better than no information. Also, keep in mind they will not just throw some crazy high number on their either because then they have to explain it to existing employees.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Do they actually have to explain this? Is this part of the Colorado law? I can’t find anything about that.
    - matwood 5y ago
      Of course they don't have to, but it opens the door to make it easier for existing employees and candidates to ask. So many people are uncomfortable talking about money, and companies push that it's taboo. This law does a tiny bit to push the information asymmetry back to the employee. EDIT I've always been a pretty aggressive (not in a bad way) negotiator. So for me, asking why not the max would be question one and probing the answer would be the next set of questions. Maybe this wasn't obvious to those less apt to negotiate?

emrah 5y ago

It's expected/appreciated that applicants should put in the effort to tailor their resumes and cover letters for each job posting they apply. So why are companies taking the lazy route? A single job posting shouldn't aim for all levels of devs. There should be separate postings for each level with specific requirements/expectations and a salary range to go with it. Bigger companies do/should know how many devs they need for each level. Smaller companies would benefit from being more organized too.

dragonsngoblins 5y ago

Couldn't they just advertise multiple positions with different ranges? I don't really see the issue with them having to do that if it is just a matter of tweaking how many years of experience they list as required on each one along with the salary band for that level of experience. I'd also be ok with a minimum rather than a band, which means that they wouldn't be scaring away a best of the best type candidate by setting the ceiling too low.