10 ms·

The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.

iso1631 5y ago
The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    Employers are still used to an employer's market, where they could string desperate applicants along, then hit them with, "This is the salary, take it or leave it." They're slow to adjust to today's job market.
  - corpdronejuly 5y ago
    Not when the objective is to increase the companies Visa quota not to find talent at market rate.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  I assume you're not in the USA? As a network architect, even non-coastal jobs are easily had for $120,000 and go up from there...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I don't think that's true at all. If it were so easy, why don't I have one? More people are paid below $110k than above (median).
    - pnutjam 5y ago
      How big an environment are we talking about? More then about 50 servers, you're underpaid if you aren't making 6 figures.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        I'm not a network administrator. I have training in that space. If it were really that easy to find a job paying that, then I would go do it.
        pnutjam 5y ago
        You should look around.
        giantg2 5y ago
        I have. Nothing has panned out. Very few things have even look good.
      - LordDragonfang 5y ago
        I don't think it's controversial to assume that most non-helpdesk IT staff are being underpaid for the value they bring to their companies.
    - wikibob 5y ago
      Levels.fyi Teamblind.com Leetcode.com study these 3 for 6 months and you will easily get over 200k.
      - giantg2 5y ago
- spurgu 5y ago
  Agreed. I'd be happy to see a range, any range, rather than vagueness.
dgellow 5y ago
My experience is that once you remove the "rockstar" from a team (and by this I mean that they leave) the other employees take over their tasks and responsibilities without issues, and everything works fine. Which makes me believe the rockstar effect is quite often just a myth.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I have similar experiences. Some people like to be in the forefront. Others, like me, fill in the gaps and don't care about being "seen". When I lead, it's because there's a need for my leadership. I don't micromanage. I do what is necessary for the team to perform. That's it. If someone else needs or wants to fill that leadership role, then I allow them to take the spotlight.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    yup, it's easy to "do it all yourself". The real rockstars are the ones who quietly mentor the other team members over and over again until they are up to speed on their own.
- SCNP 5y ago
  I've also noticed a tendency of "rockstar" types to entrench themselves. They'll bury some esoteric process/scripting/infrastructure or combination of the three somewhere knowing that it's a bit fragile but easy to fix. All so they can just say, "I fixed it" after the rest of the engineers have been trying to keep production running for 4 days.
jdright 5y ago
This is a bs argument. If there is actually a "rockstar" and a "meh", they should be at different levels with clear payscale.
- geodel 5y ago
  Rockstar/meh is perhaps rather untactful or even false way to describe situation. But level thing is not gonna solve the issue because company can't keep too much of difference in level if they both have same "X" years of experience. It will again lead to visible dissatisfaction or even lawsuits.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    That's BS. I can't sue my company because I'm a midlevel dev with 10 years experience and an MS, just because a coworker of mine who started at the same time is 3 levels above me in a manager role probably making 2x what I do. My dissatisfaction has nothing to do with that person's performance. In fact, I was glad they gave him a distinguished rating when we worked together - he deserved it. What I do have a problem with is that the department breaks enterprise policy by mandating a manager pick someone for a bad rating to balance out the high rating. They picked me. My dissatisfaction is solely with the broken policies and not with someone being justly rewarded.
  - ska 5y ago
    > can't keep too much of difference in level if they both have same "X" years of experience. This is not true in general.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  Why is it that you think that? For a small to mid sized company, developer roles of [Junior Dev, Dev, Senior Dev, Principal Dev, Architect] are not uncommon. In that scale, someone who "is an individual contributor, with the ability to mentor others" fits into "Senior Dev". It is entirely possible to be _amazing_ as an individual contributor... or be just barely able to fulfill the role. But moving up in the ladder isn't correct, since that indicates a change in roles. For large companies, that distinguish between "role" and "level", sure. But a LOT of companies aren't big enough to do that.
gassiss 5y ago
The actual reality is that your salary is not tied to your value, but to your negotiation skills (carried mostly by your leverage when you receive the offer)
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Yes, but your ability to negotiate is directly tied to your value to the company. You can't negotiate without any leverage.
  - gassiss 5y ago
    This is what most people get wrong in this field. The only relationship between cost of labor and value is the upper bound. Which means no for-profit company would hire someone for less value than what they expect to get in return for that person. But the actual cost of labor (your compensation) is dictated by market forces just like any other commodity. Why would anyone hire you at $100k/year if they have someone else, just as good as you, that they can hire at $50k/year? Your ability to negotiate is tied to your leverage, which more often than not is competing offers (including your current job). That has absolutely nothing to do with value, other than the upper bound I mentioned above.
giantg2 5y ago
"The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve." I agree. But that's not incompatible with transparent pay. If this other person is producing more value and getting paid more, great. But show me how that value is twice my own. Those measurements should be going on in performance reviews. Largely, nobody cares to do this in a just way. It's basically just opinions, which are easily biased.
- craigie 5y ago
  The way to do this fairly and transparently is piecemeal pay. Just like how instead of paying a factory worker £x per hour you can pay £y per widget. If superstar Bob ships 10x widgets he gets 10x pay and everyone will agree it is fair. Note CEO total compensation is usually £x per y% increase in share price or revenue. Salespeople get x% for each sale, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You could always make things easier with min wage regs etc by giving a low living base wage and then a generous bonus based on what you ship.
  - leetcrew 5y ago
    right but most people don't actually want this unless base pay already covers all their cash flow needs. quality of life is much better with a consistent $80k salary than making $100k on average but with huge variance.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    The performance measures for software dev are already extremely subjective. "Widgets" only work if they are the same. Each software functionally is vastly different in scope and complexity. The quality is very subjective too. Did they build it to be extensible/future-proof? Maybe that's good, or maybe that's a waste by your manager's opinion.
izacus 5y ago
And the reality is that wages don't follow the "rockstarability" of employees but whatever crap the employer could get away with at the time of hiring. Lying and misleading included in that.

iso1631 5y ago

The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.

ethbr0 5y ago
I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  Employers are still used to an employer's market, where they could string desperate applicants along, then hit them with, "This is the salary, take it or leave it." They're slow to adjust to today's job market.
- corpdronejuly 5y ago
  Not when the objective is to increase the companies Visa quota not to find talent at market rate.
mrkstu 5y ago
I assume you're not in the USA? As a network architect, even non-coastal jobs are easily had for $120,000 and go up from there...
- giantg2 5y ago
  I don't think that's true at all. If it were so easy, why don't I have one? More people are paid below $110k than above (median).
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    How big an environment are we talking about? More then about 50 servers, you're underpaid if you aren't making 6 figures.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I'm not a network administrator. I have training in that space. If it were really that easy to find a job paying that, then I would go do it.
      - pnutjam 5y ago
        You should look around.
        giantg2 5y ago
        I have. Nothing has panned out. Very few things have even look good.
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      I don't think it's controversial to assume that most non-helpdesk IT staff are being underpaid for the value they bring to their companies.
  - wikibob 5y ago
    Levels.fyi Teamblind.com Leetcode.com study these 3 for 6 months and you will easily get over 200k.
    - giantg2 5y ago
spurgu 5y ago
Agreed. I'd be happy to see a range, any range, rather than vagueness.

dgellow 5y ago

My experience is that once you remove the "rockstar" from a team (and by this I mean that they leave) the other employees take over their tasks and responsibilities without issues, and everything works fine. Which makes me believe the rockstar effect is quite often just a myth.

giantg2 5y ago
I have similar experiences. Some people like to be in the forefront. Others, like me, fill in the gaps and don't care about being "seen". When I lead, it's because there's a need for my leadership. I don't micromanage. I do what is necessary for the team to perform. That's it. If someone else needs or wants to fill that leadership role, then I allow them to take the spotlight.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  yup, it's easy to "do it all yourself". The real rockstars are the ones who quietly mentor the other team members over and over again until they are up to speed on their own.
SCNP 5y ago
I've also noticed a tendency of "rockstar" types to entrench themselves. They'll bury some esoteric process/scripting/infrastructure or combination of the three somewhere knowing that it's a bit fragile but easy to fix. All so they can just say, "I fixed it" after the rest of the engineers have been trying to keep production running for 4 days.

jdright 5y ago

This is a bs argument. If there is actually a "rockstar" and a "meh", they should be at different levels with clear payscale.

geodel 5y ago
Rockstar/meh is perhaps rather untactful or even false way to describe situation. But level thing is not gonna solve the issue because company can't keep too much of difference in level if they both have same "X" years of experience. It will again lead to visible dissatisfaction or even lawsuits.
- giantg2 5y ago
  That's BS. I can't sue my company because I'm a midlevel dev with 10 years experience and an MS, just because a coworker of mine who started at the same time is 3 levels above me in a manager role probably making 2x what I do. My dissatisfaction has nothing to do with that person's performance. In fact, I was glad they gave him a distinguished rating when we worked together - he deserved it. What I do have a problem with is that the department breaks enterprise policy by mandating a manager pick someone for a bad rating to balance out the high rating. They picked me. My dissatisfaction is solely with the broken policies and not with someone being justly rewarded.
- ska 5y ago
  > can't keep too much of difference in level if they both have same "X" years of experience. This is not true in general.
RHSeeger 5y ago
Why is it that you think that? For a small to mid sized company, developer roles of [Junior Dev, Dev, Senior Dev, Principal Dev, Architect] are not uncommon. In that scale, someone who "is an individual contributor, with the ability to mentor others" fits into "Senior Dev". It is entirely possible to be _amazing_ as an individual contributor... or be just barely able to fulfill the role. But moving up in the ladder isn't correct, since that indicates a change in roles. For large companies, that distinguish between "role" and "level", sure. But a LOT of companies aren't big enough to do that.

gassiss 5y ago

The actual reality is that your salary is not tied to your value, but to your negotiation skills (carried mostly by your leverage when you receive the offer)

dahfizz 5y ago
Yes, but your ability to negotiate is directly tied to your value to the company. You can't negotiate without any leverage.
- gassiss 5y ago
  This is what most people get wrong in this field. The only relationship between cost of labor and value is the upper bound. Which means no for-profit company would hire someone for less value than what they expect to get in return for that person. But the actual cost of labor (your compensation) is dictated by market forces just like any other commodity. Why would anyone hire you at $100k/year if they have someone else, just as good as you, that they can hire at $50k/year? Your ability to negotiate is tied to your leverage, which more often than not is competing offers (including your current job). That has absolutely nothing to do with value, other than the upper bound I mentioned above.

giantg2 5y ago

"The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve." I agree. But that's not incompatible with transparent pay. If this other person is producing more value and getting paid more, great. But show me how that value is twice my own. Those measurements should be going on in performance reviews. Largely, nobody cares to do this in a just way. It's basically just opinions, which are easily biased.

craigie 5y ago
The way to do this fairly and transparently is piecemeal pay. Just like how instead of paying a factory worker £x per hour you can pay £y per widget. If superstar Bob ships 10x widgets he gets 10x pay and everyone will agree it is fair. Note CEO total compensation is usually £x per y% increase in share price or revenue. Salespeople get x% for each sale, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You could always make things easier with min wage regs etc by giving a low living base wage and then a generous bonus based on what you ship.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  right but most people don't actually want this unless base pay already covers all their cash flow needs. quality of life is much better with a consistent $80k salary than making $100k on average but with huge variance.
- giantg2 5y ago
  The performance measures for software dev are already extremely subjective. "Widgets" only work if they are the same. Each software functionally is vastly different in scope and complexity. The quality is very subjective too. Did they build it to be extensible/future-proof? Maybe that's good, or maybe that's a waste by your manager's opinion.

izacus 5y ago

And the reality is that wages don't follow the "rockstarability" of employees but whatever crap the employer could get away with at the time of hiring. Lying and misleading included in that.