21 ms·

Salary Transparency

292 points by popcalc 4y ago

Mistletoe 4y ago
In my previous science career in academia someone would think you are insane and throw your resume in the trash if you kept working double digit days before quitting, being terminated, etc. Tech is weird.
- knaekhoved 4y ago
  Yeah honestly that seems like a pretty terrible sign. What happened there? From this person's website, as a recruiter I would get the impression that they are smart but probably volatile/unreliable/???
  - xena 4y ago
    For me, most of the time when I left a job at low day counts, the job was not as advertised and actively harming my mental health.
    - knaekhoved 4y ago
      I see. I can imagine that happening once or twice, but if it happens a lot, there are probably some behaviors you can change on your end to get a better idea of fit before jumping into the job. Either that, or the specificity of what you want would scare me as a potential employer. I wouldn't want to hire someone if there was an 80% chance they would decide the job was mentally unhealthy and leave within a few months.
      - xena 4y ago
        2016 was a year full of confounding factors. I've been idly considering removing everything from that year from my resume entirely.
        ATsch 4y ago
        I personally found that part very comforting. Very few people generally talk about getting fired or quitting early, which created this sort of impression to me that everyone just had a model career and never ran into any roadblocks and that I would be under pressure to do the same. Seeing that someone who is quite succesful and to me admirable got terminated multiple times was very reassuring there.
  - kevinmgranger 4y ago
    As much as I detest this mentality, it is indeed great at filtering out companies I'd never want to work at.
  - ATsch 4y ago
    I see the opposite: Someone who can be confident enough in their skills that they don't have to worry about finding another job if they are unhappy with the current one. Of course, many companies would prefer desperate employees who are afraid to hit the bricks instead. But is that really who you want to be working for, given a choice?
    - throwoutway 4y ago
      I see it as they’re great at interviewing but their personality is not compatible with the teams they are on, and when multiplied over a dozen role changes in less than a decade.. then I’m less inclined to believe it’s the “company that was the problem” and they should probably be more introspective
  - kodah 4y ago
    I haven't worked with Xe but I've been in a lot of overlapping communities. That might be the impression you have but it wasn't mine. There's a lot of legitimate things that can cause that in tech, with the paragraph that leads this page being one.
- rsyring 4y ago
  There are still people in tech who think this and would do the same. Maybe even a lot of them? But, the demand is so high compared to apply, it apparently hasn't kept the author from finding work.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  You discover a lot when entering the job. It might be more true in tech than other jobs; god can the shock be awful, even after hours and hours of interviewing and asking questions. Someone quitting within weeks usually has a discussion with HR the first few days and stay there only long enough to hire someone else. That's I think a sign that the person has decent communication and just wont let you down at a random time because they're too pissed to do their job anymore. In this specific case, looking at the short job spree and the much longer tenure coming afterwards, I would not see it as a "throw the resume in the trash" kind of issue. Perhaps just bad interviewing skill (couldn't properly judge the company) and bad luck.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    > You discover a lot when entering the job. It might be more true in tech than other jobs; god can the shock be awful, even after hours and hours of interviewing and asking questions. The worst job I ever had was to be an excel administrator. They had business critical spread sheets which only ran against certain version of excel and windows. A great way to learn the ins and outs of virtualization two years out of university. A sad day for humanity overall though. The job was sold as cloud native DevOps.
- urthor 4y ago
  This. I am all for salary data to defeat discrimination. What the OP is doing isn't salary data. It's a blog of their life story. And it reflects terribly on them. Do not do what OP has done. Submit your salary data to an anonymized public platform if needs be.
pcurve 4y ago
Very brave to list this. Does anyone you know it real life know about this ?
- xena 4y ago
  My coworkers know it exists. I've previously had it on a blogpost that I updated, but after I had a discussion with someone (I forget who, may have been in a group?) I just decided to make it a more prominent thing. This page has had absolutely no impact on my career.
- differentView 4y ago
  Most public employees' pay are public. https://www.federalpay.org/employees https://www.federalpay.org/employees https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/all/ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/all/
nullc 4y ago
Not to be too cynical but: California passes a new law that prohibits employers from seeking salary history information about an applicant "personally or through an agent." ... and now there is a high profile HN thread urging people to publish it on their own.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
> Archmage of Infrastructure I love it. Is that your actual title?
- xena 4y ago
  Every job title has imaginary meaning. I've always wanted the title "Archmage" anyways.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I think at smaller companies you can be anything you want. Having it on a business card makes it somehow more official though. Principal Engineer doesn’t sound nearly as fun as Supreme and Exalted Overlord.
  - nsxwolf 4y ago
    I don't like non-standard titles. Some of them are cute, but I don't put them on the resume. I will map them to something else. I once had a company hire me into a Senior Software Engineer role but they gave me the title "Software Specialist". I have no idea what that is. It sounds like I'm working behind a counter at an Egghead Software. I just used "Senior Software Engineer" on my resume for that role. I got nervous once when I got this total RotoRooter colonoscopy of a background check for an offer I accepted, but it didn't raise any flags.
    - xena 4y ago
      I also legally can't call myself an "engineer" where I live unless I get a degree that says I'm an engineer. My official title is something boring like "Software Designer". I don't like that title, it makes me sound less capable than I actually am. I originally came up with "Archmage of Infrastructure" with the idea to change it every time I was asked but it stuck.
      - insane_dreamer 4y ago
        Cool. Did the company you work for presently accept that title?
xena 4y ago
Author here, feel free to ask me things I guess. I never expected this page of all things to get on the front page of Hacker News.
- legitster 4y ago
  Did your coworkers ever see this page? Any responses to it?
- sosodev 4y ago
  Are you happy with the move to Canada despite the reduction in salary?
  - xena 4y ago
    Would you be happy to live with your husband/wife in another country if it meant a reduction in salary?
    - sosodev 4y ago
      I like to fantasize about moving to another country but many things hold us back. The big cut in current and future salary is definitely a part of it.
      - xena 4y ago
        I took the leap because it was easier than continuing to be in a long distance relationship. Everyone is different. It helped that I was trying to get away from my natal family anyways.
      - xupybd 4y ago
        Things can cost less in other countries. I get a small fraction of the average US developer but have a pretty good life and we're raising our children on a single income.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
knaekhoved 4y ago
I feel like a lot of the people who are into salary transparency stuff are not high earners. I would like to see some game-theoretic analysis of salary disclosure dynamics from someone who is on the right tail of the distribution; my suspicion is that salary disclosure is bad for the rightmost X% of the distribution, where X is somewhere in the 10-50 range, depending on things like: * What is the scope of the distribution? Industry, company, friend group? * What are the social dynamics of their company/industry like? * Is there a partitioning mechanism that reduces the stress of having a wide range of salaries for the same conceptual job type?
- sosodev 4y ago
  I wonder if you're right. What do you think the risks of disclosure are for those towards the right of the distribution?
  - knaekhoved 4y ago
    Things I worry about, as someone who's (I think) very/moderately/somewhat far to the right for my industry/sub-industry/company: * Coming across as bragging * Having people who earn less than me be jealous/envious/resentful * Making it harder for employers to justify my salary because people will be publicly envious about it and cause a stink. This could be anything from coworkers/candidates/random people saying "well why are you paying Knaek $X and not me?" (I have experienced people harassing my employers for lesser reasons) all the way to people seeing my industry as a political outlet for their envy * It's leaking strategically valuable information, probably more valuable than the info I would get in return (plus no solution to free rider problem) * It might help less aggressive people negotiate a larger slice of a finite salary budget, which has a negative impact on me And so on
    - firefoxkekw 4y ago
      I think is extremely shortsighted to openly show your salary, kinda like making a shopping list for criminals.
    - necovek 4y ago
sosodev 4y ago
This is very bold. I always post my salary anonymously but I'm afraid that acquaintances/coworkers will resent me if I do something like this.
- xena 4y ago
  This is not something that should be bold. This is something that everyone at every level should do unconditionally so that people can have fair discussions about pay.
  - draw_down 4y ago
    No, I think there are solid reasons for not doing so. And regardless of that it’s private info that people should always feel free to not share. “Unconditionally” in your post is a big problem.
    - tbrownaw 4y ago
      It sometimes comes up in these sorts of discussions that some places make people's tax returns "public" as in anyone can get them if they ask and have it made public that they asked. I don't know if I'd call that good or bad, but it's at least interesting.
      - draw_down 4y ago
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    That would require those discussions to also be equally frank about performance, which I could see being a bit of a stumbling block.
KindAndFriendly 4y ago
Out of curiosity: what was the reason for quitting your job at Pure Storage?
- xena 4y ago
  The company was a bad fit for me. I only really got that job so I could work with Foone. They said I would be doing product development but ended up maintaining Python 2 code. I left as soon as I could find an alternate employer. It being the year that the 45th president of the US was elected didn't help either. That whole year was a wash for me and I only list that stuff here because I use this data to help me write immigration forms.
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      This is a dressed up way of saying “buck up,” which is neither helpful nor polite. The GP is clearly intelligent; it’s safe to assume that they might have reasons other than mislaid priorities.
  - KindAndFriendly 4y ago
    Ok, thank you for the response. Have a nice day!
  - brezelgoring 4y ago
    >I only really got that job so I could work with Foone That's very honest of you. I know you didn't ask but taking a job just to work with a microcelebrity seems a bit short-sighted, was it worth it in the end? I wonder if learning from him/her was your plan, did you learn something?
    - xena 4y ago
      I did learn from them (Foone prefers they/them pronouns). I kinda miss the chaotic energy Foone brought to the equation. Standups were fun. But I did also learn that it's okay to throw in the towel early if things aren't working out. It was a better work environment for me than I had at the prior job, but the job just wasn't for me.
ghostoftiber 4y ago
https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ <- contributing your data would be appreciated.
voganmother42 4y ago
“Archmage of Infrastructure” - love it
cirrus3 4y ago
- danhorner 4y ago
  This observation seems unwarranted (and a little unkind). For a voluntary personal project - not to mention one that involves a bit of personal risk/discomfort - they can publish the data in whatever format they please and revise it at will.
  - cirrus3 4y ago
    Usefulness of the API aside, the tone of it is full of red flags. Combined with all the other red flags, I can't help but to read it like this: "You should be grateful I ever bothered to make an API, if it changes that is your problem. I can't bother to make this API stable or version it, this data is so valuable I assume you will make changes on your end if you hope to integrate with it."
    - mplewis 4y ago
      When did they say anything of the sort?
- xena 4y ago
  I only say that because I may change this schema in the future. If API stability is important to you then I can be persuaded to believe so if you pay me to maintain the stability. Not wanting to commit to a data model is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that I am not omniscient and can and will make mistakes. This data model isn't as critical to me as things like the schema for RSS/JSON feeds. Not everything needs to be maintained to mission critical standpoints. EDIT: I removed the verbiage about the API route.
rsavage 4y ago
What tech needs is transparent salaries from businesses. Buffer leads the way (https://buffer.com/salaries https://buffer.com/salaries) and at my startup we have transparent salaries too (https://www.runn.io/careers https://www.runn.io/careers) I wish more tech founders would do the right thing - rather than trying to hide reality will only ends up unfairly hurting under represented groups and those who aren’t strong negotiators.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Buffer might lead the way with respect to transparency but at first glance those salaries don’t look very competitive.
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    Salary transparency, like all levelling mechanisms, pushes salaries down. Your highest salaried team members are simply replaced by contractors as they realise that their remuneration is now tied to the impression it gives to their colleagues rather than the value of their own labor.
    - halper 4y ago
      We don't even need to speculate about it. In for example Sweden, everyone's tax return is public information. You just call the tax office and ask how much income someone declared last available year.
    - JohnCurran 4y ago
      It seems to me, in my uninformed layman opinion, that it would do the opposite. Maybe it would force the outliers down but perhaps bring the average up. These are two common scenarios I see: - Two employees at the same level on the same team. One is paid $X higher than the other. Employee one asks for raise based on the fact they do the same job as employee two - New hire is paid $X more than member of team who has been there receiving meager raises yearly. They can point to the new hire and request $Y more due to their experience That said, this is conjecture and not backed by anything. Are there published works on salary transparency = lower pay for employees?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
eightnoneone 4y ago
Rewrite your links without the word “here.” Hypertext does not require stage direction.
- xena 4y ago
  x
  - eightnoneone 4y ago
  - stopagephobia 4y ago
    Man stop trying to get other people to fix your blog. The whole world isn't your editor.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      He doesn’t have to respond to any requests to fix it either.
      - stopagephobia 4y ago
        Yeah ok, I wasn't complaining about that stuff. Literally he could have just ignored it or fixed it (the actions people normally take) and nobody would have cared either way.
        senorrib 4y ago
        Interesting that you do seem to care.
Ancalagon 4y ago
Slight nit, you spelled it 'payed' in the first paragraph and 'paid' in the second. The latter is correct.
- xena 4y ago
  Oops, I'll fix that later. EDIT: removed link to the source code with a suggestion to file a PR. I have apparently erred. EDIT 2: the fix is deployed.
  - x86a 4y ago
    dude, seriously?
  - chromeunagi 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - stopagephobia 4y ago
      I vouched for this comment because even though it's phrased kinda aggressively, it's also not wrong. Best case scenario it shows a profound lack of social awareness and competence in interpersonal dynamics. Probably something for him to work on.
  - stopagephobia 4y ago
    Seriously dude? Nobody's making a PR to fix your typo on your site. And not trying to get too personal but this may be hinting at why so many of your jobs are incredibly short tenure.
  - moosedev 4y ago
    > Oops, if you could make a quick PR to fix that it'd be great! You might get some seemingly strange or flippant reactions to this, and since you wrote it, I figured you might benefit from some insight into why some people might react negatively. GP pointed out a tiny bug in good faith. Your reply asking them to fix the bug they found in your code comes across (to me, I'm sure not everyone sees it this way!) as a little presumptuous or entitled, I think because there's no expectation in this context that GP was signing up to "do work" (check out the repo, make a change, submit a PR to you) for your project. A less... feather-ruffling response might have thanked GP for the bug report and maybe also mentioned the repo link in case GP or anyone would like to contribute, vs. straight-up asking GP to do the work. Maybe someone else can weigh in with more detail. Or disagree vehemently with the vibes I'm trying to illuminate :)
jefftk 4y ago
Please consider publishing your salary data like this as well. Strong agree! I do this too: https://jefftk.com/money https://jefftk.com/money
- xupybd 4y ago
  Whoa, those are some big numbers! Well done!
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Unfortunately the 2021 numbers were really juiced because of stock performance. It looks like OP took a different job, but if he didn't, he should expect his comp to drop to a measly 400k or so in 2022
    - jefftk 4y ago
      That's about right: three things would have combined to decrease my 2022 comp: * When I came back to Google my stock grant vested evenly over four years, creating a 'cliff' in year five. They don't do this anymore, I think because people tend to leave. * My 2021 comp included several past years of stock grants, and the company's stock had been growing much faster than the market. * The market overall is down since 2021. I think I would have made about $470k in 2022 if I'd stayed the whole year. 2023 would have been higher, because it would have been my first year getting the full L6 comp. (And I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I definitely wouldn't consider $400k "measly" -- even after donating 50% I had much more to live on than most Americans, let alone most people globally)
      - spacemadness 4y ago
        They’re absolutely being sarcastic.
    - xupybd 4y ago
      > measly 400k Here in NZ $140,000NZD would be a good wage for a software developer. That is about $80,000USD. $400k US is about $700,600NZD. That is a massive amount of money for one years work. Edit: My sarcasm meter is broken. In reading other comments I seem to have missed the joke. Sorry.
cirrus3 4y ago
Salary data is the least interesting part of this... You have been fired 3 times, quit 4 times, demoted once, and twice had contract not renewed. At what point do you conclude that maybe your problem isn't "pay discrimination", but that you've personally had some negative impact in the outcome of your career salaries?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- thrown_22 4y ago
- archarios 4y ago
  Maybe trusting OP's lived experience is the best path here. This is the kind of thing that someone is only going to conclude for themselves. So I don't think you're doing anyone any favors by saying/asking something like this.
  - donatj 4y ago
    Never trust anyone's lived experience, ever. Everybody lies, especially to themselves. Everyone's opinion of their own life is a lie they tell themselves to sleep at night. No one is the bad guy of their own experience.
    - xena 4y ago
      If you can't trust lived experience, what can you trust?
aerovistae 4y ago
> The JSON format is not stable. Do not treat it as such. I reserve the right to change the formatting or semantics of the JSON format at any time without warning. I find this snippet mildly hilarious. As though it's a realistic risk that someone is going to be building an app or API dependent on this guy's blog post, and then might take legal action.
- xena 4y ago
  I'm just going to remove that bit. It's apparently causing more trouble than it's worth.
  - cirrus3 4y ago
    good call
  - LanternLight83 4y ago
    Aw, for what it's worth I (and I think GP) like it, but I'll take your word that trouble has occured~
kyleblarson 4y ago
Such frequent job changes on a resume will be a massive red flag to any hiring manager.
- lukas099 4y ago
  It doesn't seem to have caused them much trouble.
- callahad 4y ago
  Note that each row is not necessarily a new employer; raises, promotions, and contract-to-permanent conversions are also represented as new rows. From external appearances, I'm not too concerned about Xe. They'll be able to find an interesting role if Tailscale fails to pan out.
- notjulianjaynes 4y ago
  Why is this considered a red flag? Honest question. Ignoring exchange rates, this person is making about double the median income of Massachusetts, which already is one of the higher paying states. Is it really a red flag if someone is still going to pay you $150,000/year? I wonder what effect this would have if non-tech workers did the same. Going back to Massachusetts (guess where I live), a recent law prohibits employers from asking about your previous salary, presumably so they can't then low ball you based off that.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > Why is this considered a red flag? Hiring people takes a lot of work. You have to recruit and interview a large number of people, interview them until you've settled on the best candidate for the job, get them to accept an offer, and then send polite rejection letters to everyone else. If the candidate you hire then quits within a few months, you have to start the process all over again. Even worse, you've also lost several months of progress that you were hoping to make on this project with the new hire, as well as another month while you try to re-fill the position. On top of that, you already rejected your 2nd and 3rd choice candidates, who probably have taken other jobs already or are otherwise not interested. Beyond that, a pattern of short jobs with large gaps in between can be a warning sign of behavioral or personal issues that make the person difficult to work with. This shouldn't be assumed from a few short jobs on a resume, but if someone has 9 different back-to-back jobs of less than 12 months each, the interview process should do a very deep investigation into why those jobs didn't last very long so you can decide if your company will stand a better chance at retaining this employee than the last jobs.
Aeolun 4y ago
> Archmage of Infrastructure So, you work with Kubernetes?
- xena 4y ago
  Not anymore.
kodah 4y ago
Like with all things I'd keep the numbers you see from others in context. A lot of companies do a thing I like to call "geopay". In its most cynical view, it subsidizes home prices in a given area, which adds to the employees net worth more than someone from an area where cost of living is low if both own homes. In its most optimistic view, it allows for income equalization in the short-term. Most companies these days do less "geopay" and more "how much are my direct competitors for talent paying", which is even worse. That said, I don't use these numbers to job hop. Instead, I use them to remind my employer that geopay isn't ethical even if they refuse to listen.
zuhayeer 4y ago
This is great! A huge reason why we built Levels.fyi was because of how much this information is kept in the dark. We’re on a mission to bring these hidden pockets of data out into commons for everyone to benefit. For those of you who want to help, but don’t necessarily want to publish under your full identity for whatever reason, you can pseudonymously share your compensation here: https://levels.fyi/salaries/add https://levels.fyi/salaries/add We recently released the anonymization toggle and it allows for your entry to automatically hide details such as the company, level, or exact years of experience until we have enough data points to make it safe to show. Disclosure: I’m one of the founders of Levels.fyi
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  First off, I love levels, have contributed my salary to it, and thank you for building such a useful site. With that said, I'm very hesitant to share my compensation or financial information personally. Like many in technology I'm very well compensated but perhaps unlike many I grew up poor and many if not most of my social acquaintances have far less money, then I do. It's not that my friends and family probably don't know this intellectually, like I'm sure if you asked them, they'd probably tell you that was the case, but I'd imagine if you quizzed them on how much I make per year they'd guess $90k, maybe $100k. I worry that tying my actual compensation to my name publicly would lead to all sorts of awkward at best and relationship ending at worst interactions. I've always felt fairly compensated for my work and I can't say I really have a desire to know what my peers make. Isn't there a quote about jealousy being the thief of joy? With that said, I do think there's tremendous value in aggregated anonymous salary data like Levels provides. I think that it helps identify systemic biases and as a hiring manager frankly helps me calibrate to how the market overall is valuing talent. So again, thank you so much for the tool. I like it a lot better than the way OP shared their information.
donatj 4y ago
What I'm getting from this is that I should get fired a couple times to earn more.
hayst4ck 4y ago
Salary can already be transparent to employers because equifax may sell your salary history. That may offer direct salary information which allows asymmetric salary negotiations. I've read, but can't cite, that many companies contract with consultants, where they share salary bands and get other companies salary bands in return which likely offers a form of soft collusion. We've also seen companies like apple and google cartel-ize the labor market. Equifax selling your data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here you can see the salary portion of compensation for H1B workers: https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/ The less salary information we have, the more our ignorance can be abused.
- englebert 4y ago
  Yet another surprisingly fantastic reason to hate Equifax: - no security - no competition - no privacy - no recourse - unsubscribable spam - terrible phone processes force having an online account… which has no security And the other credit bureaus are just as bad (┛ಠ_ಠ)┛彡┻━┻
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
- ugh123 4y ago
  My current company touts (internally at least) that they use "market data" to determine how competitive we are with salaries. We're near the top so everyone thinks its "justified" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - ignoramous 4y ago
    It shouldn't come as a surprise that "market data" for companies playing different hiring games is, well, different: https://archive.is/v5P8n https://archive.is/v5P8n (https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
gkroogkelemgk 4y ago
I’m also based in Canada and my base salary at the last place I worked (medium-sized kinda-well-known cloud company) was 185k. I haven’t been in the industry nearly as long as you - I suggest you ask for a raise!
causi 4y ago
Frankly I'd vote to make the tax records of every single person public domain information. Would do a hell of a lot to combat fraud and discrimination.
- differentView 4y ago
  How would that fight discrimination anymore than making salaries public?
- westernpopular 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/1bO8zEaSuWg https://youtu.be/1bO8zEaSuWg
deltasevennine 4y ago
This data is widely available on blind. Widely. Here's the thing though. On blind average salaries are like 300k+.
cyneox 4y ago
Nice and thanks for sharing! I recently listened to the "SE Radio Podcast - Episode 531" where you talked about tailscale. I've subscribed to your blog and now I see you again on HN :D
novolunt 4y ago
[dead]
kleiba 4y ago
For someone like me who has spent his entire professional life in academia, these numbers bring tears to my eyes. And not of joy.
langsoul-com 4y ago
This is the dumbest idea ever. Putting it anonymous like glass door makes sense, everyone benefits knowing compensation levels for job levels. But for personal? "Never talk about how much money you make, you either make more or less than them. Either way it makes for a very awkward conversation". Look at what happens to lottery winners, the ones who go public.
- Hoasi 4y ago
  > This is the dumbest idea ever. Opening that conversation is laudable. > But for personal? "Never talk about how much money you make, you either make more or less than them. Either way it makes for a very awkward conversation". It's true, but also in large part cultural. Culture changes, though. We should discuss transparency's merits. What are the potential downsides versus benefits of having a more open salary approach? I found that for freelancing, having an open-price policy is beneficial. For example, it filters out low-paying clients. And by providing this information to your competition, you also level up the entire field. Competition works better with a certain level of solidarity and fairness within a given field.
- adaml_623 4y ago
  You haven't made a strong argument here. Lottery experiences aren't relevant. Awkward conversations can be useful. Also in this case there's a web page so what is the topic of conversation?
rpigab 4y ago
Pros: - Can help negociate salary as a candidate - Shows which companies really treat their employees well - Might reduce discrimination (but only in salaries) - You can brag about it Cons: - Salary is one of the only measurable element about a job, so you could be able to easily compare salaries, but not compare ethics, how relevant the job is to you, if the company is committed to protecting the environment, etc., so it might pile up on the unhealthy pursuit of more money that's already terrible for the environment and many other things - Salaries depend on many things, skill is very hard to measure, so YMMV - Salaries depend on company budget, not only on candidate skills - Beyond a certain point, chasing even more money often indirectly leads to depression, and unethical company practices - People online are extremely judgemental, if you have a high salary, they will bombard you with questions about your lifestyle and if you donate to charity. Even if you do, they'll continue because your choice of charities is not the same as them. Because you made a little commitment to be transparent, you'll feel that you have to answer because not doing so would not be transparent, and eventually they'll delve into personal stuff that's really unconfortable, and your lack of answer will tell them what they wished to know, and that you might have wanted them not to know There may be all kinds of biases, but in my experience, when salary transparency is available, it's always in tech, and always top 10/20% salaries. The missing data points will paint unrealistic expectations for tech roles, and reinforce imposter syndrome, IMHO. So it's fine if you do it, but I won't do the same, and I hope nobody pressures me to do it (peer pressure could happen if a significant portion of people did it).
q-base 4y ago
I can see why salary transparency might help even out the differences for employees of the same type. But I can also see potential downsides for permanent vs. contractors for instance. As a freelancer I might gain something by knowing the going rate of others with the same experience. But I am not sure that me publishing my hourly rate would benefit my relationship with the permanent employees of the place I am working.
SNosTrAnDbLe 4y ago
This is also dangerous. It makes the publisher an easy target for cyber criminals.
fancyfredbot 4y ago
Is it normal in tech to have so many terminations on your CV? It seems a lot to me

292 points by popcalc 4y ago

In my previous science career in academia someone would think you are insane and throw your resume in the trash if you kept working double digit days before quitting, being terminated, etc. Tech is weird.

knaekhoved 4y ago
Yeah honestly that seems like a pretty terrible sign. What happened there? From this person's website, as a recruiter I would get the impression that they are smart but probably volatile/unreliable/???
- xena 4y ago
  For me, most of the time when I left a job at low day counts, the job was not as advertised and actively harming my mental health.
  - knaekhoved 4y ago
    I see. I can imagine that happening once or twice, but if it happens a lot, there are probably some behaviors you can change on your end to get a better idea of fit before jumping into the job. Either that, or the specificity of what you want would scare me as a potential employer. I wouldn't want to hire someone if there was an 80% chance they would decide the job was mentally unhealthy and leave within a few months.
    - xena 4y ago
      2016 was a year full of confounding factors. I've been idly considering removing everything from that year from my resume entirely.
      - ATsch 4y ago
        I personally found that part very comforting. Very few people generally talk about getting fired or quitting early, which created this sort of impression to me that everyone just had a model career and never ran into any roadblocks and that I would be under pressure to do the same. Seeing that someone who is quite succesful and to me admirable got terminated multiple times was very reassuring there.
- kevinmgranger 4y ago
  As much as I detest this mentality, it is indeed great at filtering out companies I'd never want to work at.
- ATsch 4y ago
  I see the opposite: Someone who can be confident enough in their skills that they don't have to worry about finding another job if they are unhappy with the current one. Of course, many companies would prefer desperate employees who are afraid to hit the bricks instead. But is that really who you want to be working for, given a choice?
  - throwoutway 4y ago
    I see it as they’re great at interviewing but their personality is not compatible with the teams they are on, and when multiplied over a dozen role changes in less than a decade.. then I’m less inclined to believe it’s the “company that was the problem” and they should probably be more introspective
- kodah 4y ago
  I haven't worked with Xe but I've been in a lot of overlapping communities. That might be the impression you have but it wasn't mine. There's a lot of legitimate things that can cause that in tech, with the paragraph that leads this page being one.
rsyring 4y ago
There are still people in tech who think this and would do the same. Maybe even a lot of them? But, the demand is so high compared to apply, it apparently hasn't kept the author from finding work.
makeitdouble 4y ago
You discover a lot when entering the job. It might be more true in tech than other jobs; god can the shock be awful, even after hours and hours of interviewing and asking questions. Someone quitting within weeks usually has a discussion with HR the first few days and stay there only long enough to hire someone else. That's I think a sign that the person has decent communication and just wont let you down at a random time because they're too pissed to do their job anymore. In this specific case, looking at the short job spree and the much longer tenure coming afterwards, I would not see it as a "throw the resume in the trash" kind of issue. Perhaps just bad interviewing skill (couldn't properly judge the company) and bad luck.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  > You discover a lot when entering the job. It might be more true in tech than other jobs; god can the shock be awful, even after hours and hours of interviewing and asking questions. The worst job I ever had was to be an excel administrator. They had business critical spread sheets which only ran against certain version of excel and windows. A great way to learn the ins and outs of virtualization two years out of university. A sad day for humanity overall though. The job was sold as cloud native DevOps.
urthor 4y ago
This. I am all for salary data to defeat discrimination. What the OP is doing isn't salary data. It's a blog of their life story. And it reflects terribly on them. Do not do what OP has done. Submit your salary data to an anonymized public platform if needs be.

pcurve 4y ago

Very brave to list this. Does anyone you know it real life know about this ?

xena 4y ago
My coworkers know it exists. I've previously had it on a blogpost that I updated, but after I had a discussion with someone (I forget who, may have been in a group?) I just decided to make it a more prominent thing. This page has had absolutely no impact on my career.
differentView 4y ago
Most public employees' pay are public. https://www.federalpay.org/employees https://www.federalpay.org/employees https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/all/ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/all/

nullc 4y ago

Not to be too cynical but: California passes a new law that prohibits employers from seeking salary history information about an applicant "personally or through an agent." ... and now there is a high profile HN thread urging people to publish it on their own.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

> Archmage of Infrastructure I love it. Is that your actual title?

xena 4y ago
Every job title has imaginary meaning. I've always wanted the title "Archmage" anyways.
Aeolun 4y ago
I think at smaller companies you can be anything you want. Having it on a business card makes it somehow more official though. Principal Engineer doesn’t sound nearly as fun as Supreme and Exalted Overlord.
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  I don't like non-standard titles. Some of them are cute, but I don't put them on the resume. I will map them to something else. I once had a company hire me into a Senior Software Engineer role but they gave me the title "Software Specialist". I have no idea what that is. It sounds like I'm working behind a counter at an Egghead Software. I just used "Senior Software Engineer" on my resume for that role. I got nervous once when I got this total RotoRooter colonoscopy of a background check for an offer I accepted, but it didn't raise any flags.
  - xena 4y ago
    I also legally can't call myself an "engineer" where I live unless I get a degree that says I'm an engineer. My official title is something boring like "Software Designer". I don't like that title, it makes me sound less capable than I actually am. I originally came up with "Archmage of Infrastructure" with the idea to change it every time I was asked but it stuck.
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      Cool. Did the company you work for presently accept that title?

xena 4y ago

Author here, feel free to ask me things I guess. I never expected this page of all things to get on the front page of Hacker News.

legitster 4y ago
Did your coworkers ever see this page? Any responses to it?
sosodev 4y ago
Are you happy with the move to Canada despite the reduction in salary?
- xena 4y ago
  Would you be happy to live with your husband/wife in another country if it meant a reduction in salary?
  - sosodev 4y ago
    I like to fantasize about moving to another country but many things hold us back. The big cut in current and future salary is definitely a part of it.
    - xena 4y ago
      I took the leap because it was easier than continuing to be in a long distance relationship. Everyone is different. It helped that I was trying to get away from my natal family anyways.
    - xupybd 4y ago
      Things can cost less in other countries. I get a small fraction of the average US developer but have a pretty good life and we're raising our children on a single income.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

knaekhoved 4y ago

I feel like a lot of the people who are into salary transparency stuff are not high earners. I would like to see some game-theoretic analysis of salary disclosure dynamics from someone who is on the right tail of the distribution; my suspicion is that salary disclosure is bad for the rightmost X% of the distribution, where X is somewhere in the 10-50 range, depending on things like: * What is the scope of the distribution? Industry, company, friend group? * What are the social dynamics of their company/industry like? * Is there a partitioning mechanism that reduces the stress of having a wide range of salaries for the same conceptual job type?

sosodev 4y ago
I wonder if you're right. What do you think the risks of disclosure are for those towards the right of the distribution?
- knaekhoved 4y ago
  Things I worry about, as someone who's (I think) very/moderately/somewhat far to the right for my industry/sub-industry/company: * Coming across as bragging * Having people who earn less than me be jealous/envious/resentful * Making it harder for employers to justify my salary because people will be publicly envious about it and cause a stink. This could be anything from coworkers/candidates/random people saying "well why are you paying Knaek $X and not me?" (I have experienced people harassing my employers for lesser reasons) all the way to people seeing my industry as a political outlet for their envy * It's leaking strategically valuable information, probably more valuable than the info I would get in return (plus no solution to free rider problem) * It might help less aggressive people negotiate a larger slice of a finite salary budget, which has a negative impact on me And so on
  - firefoxkekw 4y ago
    I think is extremely shortsighted to openly show your salary, kinda like making a shopping list for criminals.
  - necovek 4y ago

sosodev 4y ago

This is very bold. I always post my salary anonymously but I'm afraid that acquaintances/coworkers will resent me if I do something like this.

xena 4y ago
This is not something that should be bold. This is something that everyone at every level should do unconditionally so that people can have fair discussions about pay.
- draw_down 4y ago
  No, I think there are solid reasons for not doing so. And regardless of that it’s private info that people should always feel free to not share. “Unconditionally” in your post is a big problem.
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    It sometimes comes up in these sorts of discussions that some places make people's tax returns "public" as in anyone can get them if they ask and have it made public that they asked. I don't know if I'd call that good or bad, but it's at least interesting.
    - draw_down 4y ago
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  That would require those discussions to also be equally frank about performance, which I could see being a bit of a stumbling block.

KindAndFriendly 4y ago

Out of curiosity: what was the reason for quitting your job at Pure Storage?

xena 4y ago
The company was a bad fit for me. I only really got that job so I could work with Foone. They said I would be doing product development but ended up maintaining Python 2 code. I left as soon as I could find an alternate employer. It being the year that the 45th president of the US was elected didn't help either. That whole year was a wash for me and I only list that stuff here because I use this data to help me write immigration forms.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is a dressed up way of saying “buck up,” which is neither helpful nor polite. The GP is clearly intelligent; it’s safe to assume that they might have reasons other than mislaid priorities.
- KindAndFriendly 4y ago
  Ok, thank you for the response. Have a nice day!
- brezelgoring 4y ago
  >I only really got that job so I could work with Foone That's very honest of you. I know you didn't ask but taking a job just to work with a microcelebrity seems a bit short-sighted, was it worth it in the end? I wonder if learning from him/her was your plan, did you learn something?
  - xena 4y ago
    I did learn from them (Foone prefers they/them pronouns). I kinda miss the chaotic energy Foone brought to the equation. Standups were fun. But I did also learn that it's okay to throw in the towel early if things aren't working out. It was a better work environment for me than I had at the prior job, but the job just wasn't for me.

ghostoftiber 4y ago

https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ <- contributing your data would be appreciated.

voganmother42 4y ago

“Archmage of Infrastructure” - love it

cirrus3 4y ago

danhorner 4y ago
This observation seems unwarranted (and a little unkind). For a voluntary personal project - not to mention one that involves a bit of personal risk/discomfort - they can publish the data in whatever format they please and revise it at will.
- cirrus3 4y ago
  Usefulness of the API aside, the tone of it is full of red flags. Combined with all the other red flags, I can't help but to read it like this: "You should be grateful I ever bothered to make an API, if it changes that is your problem. I can't bother to make this API stable or version it, this data is so valuable I assume you will make changes on your end if you hope to integrate with it."
  - mplewis 4y ago
    When did they say anything of the sort?
xena 4y ago
I only say that because I may change this schema in the future. If API stability is important to you then I can be persuaded to believe so if you pay me to maintain the stability. Not wanting to commit to a data model is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that I am not omniscient and can and will make mistakes. This data model isn't as critical to me as things like the schema for RSS/JSON feeds. Not everything needs to be maintained to mission critical standpoints. EDIT: I removed the verbiage about the API route.

rsavage 4y ago

What tech needs is transparent salaries from businesses. Buffer leads the way (https://buffer.com/salaries https://buffer.com/salaries) and at my startup we have transparent salaries too (https://www.runn.io/careers https://www.runn.io/careers) I wish more tech founders would do the right thing - rather than trying to hide reality will only ends up unfairly hurting under represented groups and those who aren’t strong negotiators.

andsoitis 4y ago
Buffer might lead the way with respect to transparency but at first glance those salaries don’t look very competitive.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  Salary transparency, like all levelling mechanisms, pushes salaries down. Your highest salaried team members are simply replaced by contractors as they realise that their remuneration is now tied to the impression it gives to their colleagues rather than the value of their own labor.
  - halper 4y ago
    We don't even need to speculate about it. In for example Sweden, everyone's tax return is public information. You just call the tax office and ask how much income someone declared last available year.
  - JohnCurran 4y ago
    It seems to me, in my uninformed layman opinion, that it would do the opposite. Maybe it would force the outliers down but perhaps bring the average up. These are two common scenarios I see: - Two employees at the same level on the same team. One is paid $X higher than the other. Employee one asks for raise based on the fact they do the same job as employee two - New hire is paid $X more than member of team who has been there receiving meager raises yearly. They can point to the new hire and request $Y more due to their experience That said, this is conjecture and not backed by anything. Are there published works on salary transparency = lower pay for employees?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

eightnoneone 4y ago

Rewrite your links without the word “here.” Hypertext does not require stage direction.

xena 4y ago
x
- eightnoneone 4y ago
- stopagephobia 4y ago
  Man stop trying to get other people to fix your blog. The whole world isn't your editor.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    He doesn’t have to respond to any requests to fix it either.
    - stopagephobia 4y ago
      Yeah ok, I wasn't complaining about that stuff. Literally he could have just ignored it or fixed it (the actions people normally take) and nobody would have cared either way.
      - senorrib 4y ago
        Interesting that you do seem to care.

Ancalagon 4y ago

Slight nit, you spelled it 'payed' in the first paragraph and 'paid' in the second. The latter is correct.

xena 4y ago
Oops, I'll fix that later. EDIT: removed link to the source code with a suggestion to file a PR. I have apparently erred. EDIT 2: the fix is deployed.
- x86a 4y ago
  dude, seriously?
- chromeunagi 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - stopagephobia 4y ago
    I vouched for this comment because even though it's phrased kinda aggressively, it's also not wrong. Best case scenario it shows a profound lack of social awareness and competence in interpersonal dynamics. Probably something for him to work on.
- stopagephobia 4y ago
  Seriously dude? Nobody's making a PR to fix your typo on your site. And not trying to get too personal but this may be hinting at why so many of your jobs are incredibly short tenure.
- moosedev 4y ago
  > Oops, if you could make a quick PR to fix that it'd be great! You might get some seemingly strange or flippant reactions to this, and since you wrote it, I figured you might benefit from some insight into why some people might react negatively. GP pointed out a tiny bug in good faith. Your reply asking them to fix the bug they found in your code comes across (to me, I'm sure not everyone sees it this way!) as a little presumptuous or entitled, I think because there's no expectation in this context that GP was signing up to "do work" (check out the repo, make a change, submit a PR to you) for your project. A less... feather-ruffling response might have thanked GP for the bug report and maybe also mentioned the repo link in case GP or anyone would like to contribute, vs. straight-up asking GP to do the work. Maybe someone else can weigh in with more detail. Or disagree vehemently with the vibes I'm trying to illuminate :)

jefftk 4y ago

Please consider publishing your salary data like this as well. Strong agree! I do this too: https://jefftk.com/money https://jefftk.com/money

xupybd 4y ago
Whoa, those are some big numbers! Well done!
- googlryas 4y ago
  Unfortunately the 2021 numbers were really juiced because of stock performance. It looks like OP took a different job, but if he didn't, he should expect his comp to drop to a measly 400k or so in 2022
  - jefftk 4y ago
    That's about right: three things would have combined to decrease my 2022 comp: * When I came back to Google my stock grant vested evenly over four years, creating a 'cliff' in year five. They don't do this anymore, I think because people tend to leave. * My 2021 comp included several past years of stock grants, and the company's stock had been growing much faster than the market. * The market overall is down since 2021. I think I would have made about $470k in 2022 if I'd stayed the whole year. 2023 would have been higher, because it would have been my first year getting the full L6 comp. (And I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I definitely wouldn't consider $400k "measly" -- even after donating 50% I had much more to live on than most Americans, let alone most people globally)
    - spacemadness 4y ago
      They’re absolutely being sarcastic.
  - xupybd 4y ago
    > measly 400k Here in NZ $140,000NZD would be a good wage for a software developer. That is about $80,000USD. $400k US is about $700,600NZD. That is a massive amount of money for one years work. Edit: My sarcasm meter is broken. In reading other comments I seem to have missed the joke. Sorry.

cirrus3 4y ago

Salary data is the least interesting part of this... You have been fired 3 times, quit 4 times, demoted once, and twice had contract not renewed. At what point do you conclude that maybe your problem isn't "pay discrimination", but that you've personally had some negative impact in the outcome of your career salaries?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thrown_22 4y ago
archarios 4y ago
Maybe trusting OP's lived experience is the best path here. This is the kind of thing that someone is only going to conclude for themselves. So I don't think you're doing anyone any favors by saying/asking something like this.
- donatj 4y ago
  Never trust anyone's lived experience, ever. Everybody lies, especially to themselves. Everyone's opinion of their own life is a lie they tell themselves to sleep at night. No one is the bad guy of their own experience.
  - xena 4y ago
    If you can't trust lived experience, what can you trust?

aerovistae 4y ago

> The JSON format is not stable. Do not treat it as such. I reserve the right to change the formatting or semantics of the JSON format at any time without warning. I find this snippet mildly hilarious. As though it's a realistic risk that someone is going to be building an app or API dependent on this guy's blog post, and then might take legal action.

xena 4y ago
I'm just going to remove that bit. It's apparently causing more trouble than it's worth.
- cirrus3 4y ago
  good call
- LanternLight83 4y ago
  Aw, for what it's worth I (and I think GP) like it, but I'll take your word that trouble has occured~

kyleblarson 4y ago

Such frequent job changes on a resume will be a massive red flag to any hiring manager.

lukas099 4y ago
It doesn't seem to have caused them much trouble.
callahad 4y ago
Note that each row is not necessarily a new employer; raises, promotions, and contract-to-permanent conversions are also represented as new rows. From external appearances, I'm not too concerned about Xe. They'll be able to find an interesting role if Tailscale fails to pan out.
notjulianjaynes 4y ago
Why is this considered a red flag? Honest question. Ignoring exchange rates, this person is making about double the median income of Massachusetts, which already is one of the higher paying states. Is it really a red flag if someone is still going to pay you $150,000/year? I wonder what effect this would have if non-tech workers did the same. Going back to Massachusetts (guess where I live), a recent law prohibits employers from asking about your previous salary, presumably so they can't then low ball you based off that.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > Why is this considered a red flag? Hiring people takes a lot of work. You have to recruit and interview a large number of people, interview them until you've settled on the best candidate for the job, get them to accept an offer, and then send polite rejection letters to everyone else. If the candidate you hire then quits within a few months, you have to start the process all over again. Even worse, you've also lost several months of progress that you were hoping to make on this project with the new hire, as well as another month while you try to re-fill the position. On top of that, you already rejected your 2nd and 3rd choice candidates, who probably have taken other jobs already or are otherwise not interested. Beyond that, a pattern of short jobs with large gaps in between can be a warning sign of behavioral or personal issues that make the person difficult to work with. This shouldn't be assumed from a few short jobs on a resume, but if someone has 9 different back-to-back jobs of less than 12 months each, the interview process should do a very deep investigation into why those jobs didn't last very long so you can decide if your company will stand a better chance at retaining this employee than the last jobs.

Aeolun 4y ago

> Archmage of Infrastructure So, you work with Kubernetes?

xena 4y ago
Not anymore.

kodah 4y ago

Like with all things I'd keep the numbers you see from others in context. A lot of companies do a thing I like to call "geopay". In its most cynical view, it subsidizes home prices in a given area, which adds to the employees net worth more than someone from an area where cost of living is low if both own homes. In its most optimistic view, it allows for income equalization in the short-term. Most companies these days do less "geopay" and more "how much are my direct competitors for talent paying", which is even worse. That said, I don't use these numbers to job hop. Instead, I use them to remind my employer that geopay isn't ethical even if they refuse to listen.

zuhayeer 4y ago

This is great! A huge reason why we built Levels.fyi was because of how much this information is kept in the dark. We’re on a mission to bring these hidden pockets of data out into commons for everyone to benefit. For those of you who want to help, but don’t necessarily want to publish under your full identity for whatever reason, you can pseudonymously share your compensation here: https://levels.fyi/salaries/add https://levels.fyi/salaries/add We recently released the anonymization toggle and it allows for your entry to automatically hide details such as the company, level, or exact years of experience until we have enough data points to make it safe to show. Disclosure: I’m one of the founders of Levels.fyi

CSMastermind 4y ago
First off, I love levels, have contributed my salary to it, and thank you for building such a useful site. With that said, I'm very hesitant to share my compensation or financial information personally. Like many in technology I'm very well compensated but perhaps unlike many I grew up poor and many if not most of my social acquaintances have far less money, then I do. It's not that my friends and family probably don't know this intellectually, like I'm sure if you asked them, they'd probably tell you that was the case, but I'd imagine if you quizzed them on how much I make per year they'd guess $90k, maybe $100k. I worry that tying my actual compensation to my name publicly would lead to all sorts of awkward at best and relationship ending at worst interactions. I've always felt fairly compensated for my work and I can't say I really have a desire to know what my peers make. Isn't there a quote about jealousy being the thief of joy? With that said, I do think there's tremendous value in aggregated anonymous salary data like Levels provides. I think that it helps identify systemic biases and as a hiring manager frankly helps me calibrate to how the market overall is valuing talent. So again, thank you so much for the tool. I like it a lot better than the way OP shared their information.

donatj 4y ago

What I'm getting from this is that I should get fired a couple times to earn more.

hayst4ck 4y ago

Salary can already be transparent to employers because equifax may sell your salary history. That may offer direct salary information which allows asymmetric salary negotiations. I've read, but can't cite, that many companies contract with consultants, where they share salary bands and get other companies salary bands in return which likely offers a form of soft collusion. We've also seen companies like apple and google cartel-ize the labor market. Equifax selling your data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here you can see the salary portion of compensation for H1B workers: https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/ The less salary information we have, the more our ignorance can be abused.

englebert 4y ago
Yet another surprisingly fantastic reason to hate Equifax: - no security - no competition - no privacy - no recourse - unsubscribable spam - terrible phone processes force having an online account… which has no security And the other credit bureaus are just as bad (┛ಠ_ಠ)┛彡┻━┻
daniel-cussen 4y ago
ugh123 4y ago
My current company touts (internally at least) that they use "market data" to determine how competitive we are with salaries. We're near the top so everyone thinks its "justified" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- ignoramous 4y ago
  It shouldn't come as a surprise that "market data" for companies playing different hiring games is, well, different: https://archive.is/v5P8n https://archive.is/v5P8n (https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

gkroogkelemgk 4y ago

I’m also based in Canada and my base salary at the last place I worked (medium-sized kinda-well-known cloud company) was 185k. I haven’t been in the industry nearly as long as you - I suggest you ask for a raise!

causi 4y ago

Frankly I'd vote to make the tax records of every single person public domain information. Would do a hell of a lot to combat fraud and discrimination.

differentView 4y ago
How would that fight discrimination anymore than making salaries public?
westernpopular 4y ago
https://youtu.be/1bO8zEaSuWg https://youtu.be/1bO8zEaSuWg

deltasevennine 4y ago

This data is widely available on blind. Widely. Here's the thing though. On blind average salaries are like 300k+.

cyneox 4y ago

Nice and thanks for sharing! I recently listened to the "SE Radio Podcast - Episode 531" where you talked about tailscale. I've subscribed to your blog and now I see you again on HN :D

novolunt 4y ago

[dead]

kleiba 4y ago

For someone like me who has spent his entire professional life in academia, these numbers bring tears to my eyes. And not of joy.

langsoul-com 4y ago

This is the dumbest idea ever. Putting it anonymous like glass door makes sense, everyone benefits knowing compensation levels for job levels. But for personal? "Never talk about how much money you make, you either make more or less than them. Either way it makes for a very awkward conversation". Look at what happens to lottery winners, the ones who go public.

Hoasi 4y ago
> This is the dumbest idea ever. Opening that conversation is laudable. > But for personal? "Never talk about how much money you make, you either make more or less than them. Either way it makes for a very awkward conversation". It's true, but also in large part cultural. Culture changes, though. We should discuss transparency's merits. What are the potential downsides versus benefits of having a more open salary approach? I found that for freelancing, having an open-price policy is beneficial. For example, it filters out low-paying clients. And by providing this information to your competition, you also level up the entire field. Competition works better with a certain level of solidarity and fairness within a given field.
adaml_623 4y ago
You haven't made a strong argument here. Lottery experiences aren't relevant. Awkward conversations can be useful. Also in this case there's a web page so what is the topic of conversation?

rpigab 4y ago

Pros: - Can help negociate salary as a candidate - Shows which companies really treat their employees well - Might reduce discrimination (but only in salaries) - You can brag about it Cons: - Salary is one of the only measurable element about a job, so you could be able to easily compare salaries, but not compare ethics, how relevant the job is to you, if the company is committed to protecting the environment, etc., so it might pile up on the unhealthy pursuit of more money that's already terrible for the environment and many other things - Salaries depend on many things, skill is very hard to measure, so YMMV - Salaries depend on company budget, not only on candidate skills - Beyond a certain point, chasing even more money often indirectly leads to depression, and unethical company practices - People online are extremely judgemental, if you have a high salary, they will bombard you with questions about your lifestyle and if you donate to charity. Even if you do, they'll continue because your choice of charities is not the same as them. Because you made a little commitment to be transparent, you'll feel that you have to answer because not doing so would not be transparent, and eventually they'll delve into personal stuff that's really unconfortable, and your lack of answer will tell them what they wished to know, and that you might have wanted them not to know There may be all kinds of biases, but in my experience, when salary transparency is available, it's always in tech, and always top 10/20% salaries. The missing data points will paint unrealistic expectations for tech roles, and reinforce imposter syndrome, IMHO. So it's fine if you do it, but I won't do the same, and I hope nobody pressures me to do it (peer pressure could happen if a significant portion of people did it).

q-base 4y ago

I can see why salary transparency might help even out the differences for employees of the same type. But I can also see potential downsides for permanent vs. contractors for instance. As a freelancer I might gain something by knowing the going rate of others with the same experience. But I am not sure that me publishing my hourly rate would benefit my relationship with the permanent employees of the place I am working.

SNosTrAnDbLe 4y ago

This is also dangerous. It makes the publisher an easy target for cyber criminals.

fancyfredbot 4y ago

Is it normal in tech to have so many terminations on your CV? It seems a lot to me