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I've been appalled to find out how much more I make than some of my colleagues, even though we have the same job title. Now, I feel like I produce more than the

I've been appalled to find out how much more I make than some of my colleagues, even though we have the same job title. Now, I feel like I produce more than they do (and higher quality, to boot), so maybe my higher pay is justified, but really, I don't think it's that justified. I would much rather have levels with merit bonuses than have to rely on being a good negotiator. I could be the best programmer in the world sitting next to the worst programmer in the world, but if she negotiates better than I do, she makes more. Or vice versa. And I don't think that's particularly fair.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago
> I've been appalled to find out how much more I make than some of my colleagues... Have you done anything about this?
- Jemaclus 11y ago
  I did complain to my immediate boss, and then when I became a manager, I went to HR fought to make the pay more equitable. Not a whole lot happened, as far as I can tell. To be fair to them, it's not quite so easy though. You can bring underpaid people up to "fair", but you can't really bring overpaid people down, so you still wind up with some unfair (imo) compensation going around. Incidentally, the last time I got a raise was when I became a manager and became more aware of the exact compensation numbers for the rest of my team. My plan for the next time I get a raise was to ask them to give it to some of my underpaid team members instead, but I'm leaving this company soon, so I won't be able to see if that strategy would work or not.
fleitz 11y ago
It's very fair, if your company similarly does a poor job of highlighting benefits of purchasing your product it will similarly be killed in the market. Negotiation is primarily about your value prop. Workers who understand this ensure they are contributing the most to the bottom line of the company and have the data to back it up. Changing the color of buttons,etc generally adds far more to the bottom line than making the code run a little bit faster / use less hardware. (obviously there are exceptions, but you can only cut costs to zero where as revenue can grow infinitely) eg. I bet the invention of the Like button vastly outweighs the invention of HVVM for FB in terms of adding to the bottom line.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago

> I've been appalled to find out how much more I make than some of my colleagues... Have you done anything about this?

Jemaclus 11y ago
I did complain to my immediate boss, and then when I became a manager, I went to HR fought to make the pay more equitable. Not a whole lot happened, as far as I can tell. To be fair to them, it's not quite so easy though. You can bring underpaid people up to "fair", but you can't really bring overpaid people down, so you still wind up with some unfair (imo) compensation going around. Incidentally, the last time I got a raise was when I became a manager and became more aware of the exact compensation numbers for the rest of my team. My plan for the next time I get a raise was to ask them to give it to some of my underpaid team members instead, but I'm leaving this company soon, so I won't be able to see if that strategy would work or not.

fleitz 11y ago

It's very fair, if your company similarly does a poor job of highlighting benefits of purchasing your product it will similarly be killed in the market. Negotiation is primarily about your value prop. Workers who understand this ensure they are contributing the most to the bottom line of the company and have the data to back it up. Changing the color of buttons,etc generally adds far more to the bottom line than making the code run a little bit faster / use less hardware. (obviously there are exceptions, but you can only cut costs to zero where as revenue can grow infinitely) eg. I bet the invention of the Like button vastly outweighs the invention of HVVM for FB in terms of adding to the bottom line.