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In the vast majority of cases, you’re not going to know what an individual brings to the job for 6 months to a year at the minimum. The majority of the pay diff

In the vast majority of cases, you’re not going to know what an individual brings to the job for 6 months to a year at the minimum. The majority of the pay difference between 2 people with the same job title (assuming standard bigco leveling) comes down to negotiating ability. Published pay ranges aren’t going to solve anything, but they do reduce the information asymmetry a little bit. They give you and idea of what is possible for they title in that company at that location. Companies have an incentive to post a relatively accurate range, and in most of the jobs I’ve applied for it was.

pc86 3y ago
> The majority of the pay difference between 2 people with the same job title (assuming standard bigco leveling) comes down to negotiating ability. No, it comes down to about 1/3 negotiating ability and about 2/3 prior experience, impressions you give at the interview, and leverage (e.g. other offers real or perceived). The first one you can get from the resume and the other two happen over the course of the interview(s). If your resume shows you as a perfect fit for a position with a ton of relevant hyper-specific experience, you will naturally get an offer higher in the pay band than someone with half the amount of pseudo-relevant experience. Pay bands even $40-50k will help because most people actually do have a decent idea how qualified they are for a given job. I've applied for things where I'd be happy getting an offer toward the bottom of the pay band due to no relevant experience, and applied for things where I knew I should be at the very top.
- sarchertech 3y ago
  When I say negotiating ability I also mean to include multiple offers. Which in my experience is the single biggest factor in determining pay for most software engineers. I agree more specialized and very senior rolls are different, but most people are going into much more generic roles. Even then bad negotiating skills can swamp out everything you else if you throw out a low number to someone willing to take advantage of it. All said we agree that realistic pay bands will help here.

pc86 3y ago

> The majority of the pay difference between 2 people with the same job title (assuming standard bigco leveling) comes down to negotiating ability. No, it comes down to about 1/3 negotiating ability and about 2/3 prior experience, impressions you give at the interview, and leverage (e.g. other offers real or perceived). The first one you can get from the resume and the other two happen over the course of the interview(s). If your resume shows you as a perfect fit for a position with a ton of relevant hyper-specific experience, you will naturally get an offer higher in the pay band than someone with half the amount of pseudo-relevant experience. Pay bands even $40-50k will help because most people actually do have a decent idea how qualified they are for a given job. I've applied for things where I'd be happy getting an offer toward the bottom of the pay band due to no relevant experience, and applied for things where I knew I should be at the very top.

sarchertech 3y ago
When I say negotiating ability I also mean to include multiple offers. Which in my experience is the single biggest factor in determining pay for most software engineers. I agree more specialized and very senior rolls are different, but most people are going into much more generic roles. Even then bad negotiating skills can swamp out everything you else if you throw out a low number to someone willing to take advantage of it. All said we agree that realistic pay bands will help here.