3 ms·

Coinbase has a single salary per band. The only discretionary pay is performance based but everything has the same base salary and equity. I love this model.

karaterobot 5y ago
I feel like this gets tried in various ways at different companies. One of the antipatterns it tends toward is that people try to get moved away from teams that don't directly increase KPIs. Things like writing documentation, doing customer support, building internal tools, and other unsexy features get left behind. Meanwhile, all the most ambitious people move toward features that get people to buy things, click on things, focus attention on things, get angry at things, or be stuck on the platform.
mulmen 5y ago
This sounds about as appealing as unlimited vacation. Which is to say, not. I don’t want my immediate manager to have direct control over my pay or my vacation.
high_derivative 5y ago
I don't understand how this is different in any way from bands which employees are placed in based on performance? Im not trying to be combative, I genuinely do not see how this would realize any different outcomes. It just seems to shift definitions around. If employees A and B both are in the same band, both do not get promoted in a year, but have different performance ratings, I assume they will end up with different 'performance based pay' raises. Where is the difference to moving them to a different place in the band?
- peytoncasper 5y ago
  Largely because performance based pay does not have a fixed upside. Contrast this with a salary band which does have a fixed maximum.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    Both of these can be false (or mostly false). For example at most big firms, performance based comp has a known upside. Something like your bonus is x% of your salary multiplied by some performance indicator based on your eval, and the max is like 2x or something. Similarly, salary bands can have soft caps, where growth becomes harder as you're further from the minimum, but never becomes impossible. Neither approach is necessary better, but all are used in different places.

karaterobot 5y ago

I feel like this gets tried in various ways at different companies. One of the antipatterns it tends toward is that people try to get moved away from teams that don't directly increase KPIs. Things like writing documentation, doing customer support, building internal tools, and other unsexy features get left behind. Meanwhile, all the most ambitious people move toward features that get people to buy things, click on things, focus attention on things, get angry at things, or be stuck on the platform.

mulmen 5y ago

This sounds about as appealing as unlimited vacation. Which is to say, not. I don’t want my immediate manager to have direct control over my pay or my vacation.

high_derivative 5y ago

I don't understand how this is different in any way from bands which employees are placed in based on performance? Im not trying to be combative, I genuinely do not see how this would realize any different outcomes. It just seems to shift definitions around. If employees A and B both are in the same band, both do not get promoted in a year, but have different performance ratings, I assume they will end up with different 'performance based pay' raises. Where is the difference to moving them to a different place in the band?

peytoncasper 5y ago
Largely because performance based pay does not have a fixed upside. Contrast this with a salary band which does have a fixed maximum.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  Both of these can be false (or mostly false). For example at most big firms, performance based comp has a known upside. Something like your bonus is x% of your salary multiplied by some performance indicator based on your eval, and the max is like 2x or something. Similarly, salary bands can have soft caps, where growth becomes harder as you're further from the minimum, but never becomes impossible. Neither approach is necessary better, but all are used in different places.