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Like other users, I really, really wanted this submission to be accurate, because I am interested in salary information myself. However, that didn't stop me fr

by vlad 17y ago

Like other users, I really, really wanted this submission to be accurate, because I am interested in salary information myself. However, that didn't stop me from questioning it. I've noticed that few submitters or commenters ever take a few minutes to question how the data might have been collected and/or measured before contributing. Here's a simple way to "test" results to see if any "bugs" exist. The user input could be misleading, the algorithms could be way off, or whatever. There is a lot of statistical terminology describing ways a conclusion could be flawed. Is the article is on the front page because it is accurate, or simply because users found it was novel? Is any of the results worth a damn? It's very simple to replace Programmer with Engineer to mix things up. This changed results as follows: C: (-24K), from 118K to 94K Matlab: (+33K), from 70K to 103K Also, the gap between Python and Ruby salaries increases from 8K to 19K. Python: (-4K), 92K to 88K Ruby: (+7K), from 100K to 107K http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Engineer%2C+Java&l1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q2=Engineer%2C+C%2B%2B&l2=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q3=Engineer%2C+C&l3=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q4=Engineer%2C+C%23&l4=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q5=Engineer%2C+Python&l5=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q6=Engineer%2C+Ruby&l6=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q7=Engineer%2C+Perl&l7=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q8=Engineer%2C+Basic&l8=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q9=Engineer%2C+Fortran&l9=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q10=Engineer%2C+Cobol&l10=San+Francisco%2C+CA&q11=Engineer%2C+Matlab&l11=San+Francisco%2C+CA&tm=1 http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Engineer%2C+Java&l1=San+... Thus, instead of trying to derive meaning from nonsense, it's better to move on. EDIT: The submitter of this article has "machine learning" in the about section of his or her profile. Isn't that statistics? EDIT2: And if you unclick "search titles only" for my query, then Java, C++, C#, Python, Ruby, and Perl salaries are all 100K +/- $2K (99K to 102K.) One could probably create a query that shows anything they wanted...

deleted 17y ago
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- vlad 17y ago
  Thanks for the reply. Small sample size leads to greater variance, naturally. Better samples with no location: The point is, changing programmer to engineer changes the rankings and salaries dramatically. pg called it noise. don't assume that any links here withstood the submitter's professional scrutiny (are you serious?) It wasn't a link; my understanding is the submitter (who happened to be you) specifically typed in all those parameters themselves. I apologize for coming off a bit cross; I almost always avoid that. I'm not seeing this I said the query I posted (with Engineer), not yours. Anyway, it was a great idea, and anybody should be able to submit whatever they want and let the public judge; in this case, the post title seemed to overstate what it was showing. It was called "Salaries in SF (2009)", as if it was a report with analysis, but it was something linking to a search result, something likely to be different two weeks or two days from now. Maybe a blog post would have been better, as it would allow for multiple runs, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology, and preserve the state of the results in the form of charts, as well.

by vlad 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

vlad 17y ago
Thanks for the reply. Small sample size leads to greater variance, naturally. Better samples with no location: The point is, changing programmer to engineer changes the rankings and salaries dramatically. pg called it noise. don't assume that any links here withstood the submitter's professional scrutiny (are you serious?) It wasn't a link; my understanding is the submitter (who happened to be you) specifically typed in all those parameters themselves. I apologize for coming off a bit cross; I almost always avoid that. I'm not seeing this I said the query I posted (with Engineer), not yours. Anyway, it was a great idea, and anybody should be able to submit whatever they want and let the public judge; in this case, the post title seemed to overstate what it was showing. It was called "Salaries in SF (2009)", as if it was a report with analysis, but it was something linking to a search result, something likely to be different two weeks or two days from now. Maybe a blog post would have been better, as it would allow for multiple runs, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology, and preserve the state of the results in the form of charts, as well.