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Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

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Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#133
post #104

It's strange to me that these salary discussions are so narrowly focused on just pay/bonus and don't seem to care about benefits and work/life balance. Here's stuff I track in my own career spreadsheet and compare new jobs against these metrics when considering a new one: * Vacation, sick, and holiday time off * Distance to work and traffic considerations * Relative cost of living * Health insurance cost and coverage…

Agreed! This myopic focus on salary numbers is disheartening. I'd add to the above:

    * culture
It's related to "expected work hours per week" but tells so much more and is probably the single largest contributor to whether or not you'll like working there.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#134
post #40

I think the results spreadsheet and how disorganized the results are is the answer to the question "why not". Most people just omitted the employer name, which I believe is the most significant factor to one’s salary.

I omitted the employer name because I don't live in SF and would be easily identifiable if I didn't.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#136

This makes me wonder how many people are okay with being underpaid. Like my title is officially VP of Engineering. But because of the circumstances of my position and what I was hired to do, I am probably making less than what someone in my position gets in sign on bonuses. $30,000/yr This is because I am not only the first employee but the only employee (if you don't count CEO) and only technical person. I was hired…

I know the feeling. I make $46k/year as (mostly) a Ruby on Rails/Javascript dev, but without moving to another city (likely in another state), there are no reasonable alternative job prospects. Not really okay with it, but I don't want to move to NY/SF/LA as lifestyle there is so much more miserable. (Current work: 7 to 15 minute commute, decent time off, can be hiking in the great outdoors within 30 minutes, and sti…

Glad you're happy, but $46k is too low. If you've been at this for 2-3+ years look for a remote position! Even something like $60-70k will be a lot better.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#137

Does anyone know why engineering salaries are so low in Chicago? Especially with regards to city size / cost of living / amount of tech? It baffled me when I lived there, and it still baffles me when I don't.

My anecdata having worked in Seattle and Chicago now: Chicago's 'tech scene' is mostly either trading or tech applied in an incremental way to an existing business model, eg Groupon. The trading firms do pay quite well, but you'll be in an extreme niche and likely have limited insight into how you could ever leave, given you've not been building products/programming so much as coding performance improvements. The few…

This conforms to a somewhat surreal experience I had talking to an internal recruiter in Chicago a few months ago.

"Oh, you already have offers on the table in NYC and Boston, with no family here? Yeah, I understand why you wouldn't be interested in Chicago"

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#138
post #77

What I'd like to see is a salary aggregator that works as a native app only: 1) It should use the Facebook model of release where only "elite" institutions are allowed on at first and only one at a time. 2) It should use geolocation as a way to verify the user works there (other ways are easier to game or too burdensome). Yes, this does leave out remote workers. See #1.

It's trivial to game geolocation, e.g.: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lexa.fakeg...

Sure, but 1. even a small amount of friction will cut off the vast majority from doing it, especially when 2. there's no payoff to lying about your location in a salary transparency app

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#139
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the feeling. I make $46k/year as (mostly) a Ruby on Rails/Javascript dev, but without moving to another city (likely in another state), there are no reasonable alternative job prospects. Not really okay with it, but I don't want to move to NY/SF/LA as lifestyle there is so much more miserable. (Current work: 7 to 15 minute commute, decent time off, can be hiking in the great outdoors within 30 minutes, and sti…

I don't know what state you are in, but that is very low for RoR/JS dev. There are remote-only positions that would pay double that easily. That would mean 0 minute and you can stay where you are.

Where/how does one find such positions?

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment. What are your thoughts on including: - "jump ship literally tomorrow salary requirement" (base, equity, signing bonus) regardless of whether you're looking, and an anonymized means of contact. It literally can't hurt. I don't think it even gives off any signal. I mean if you saw "$130K/undisclosed options/Bay Area/ Jump ship literally tomorrow: $180K + $15k signing bonus" it's next to no information. Th…

Personally, "jump ship tomorrow salary requirement" is one of many items used to decide whether to actually jump ship or not. At the end of the day, these type of data is only one aspect to consider when deciding what to do next, or even to contemplate the next step. Having these data available adds another input into the mix.

for sure! It's not like if our example gets an email saying someone would like to hire them for $180K, then they'll drive over for an interview and hand in their notice the same day.

But do you think this is information that (as I think) should be asked here? I'm thinking it can only help workers.

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