The url shows a "Couldn't find blog.stackoverflow.com" error and a, albeit cute, picture of a panda.
Did they take it offline because it was causing a controversy?
Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
51–60 of 295 posts
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#52There is something not right with both having a salary system like this and having it available to the public. I know I personally would not like to work at SO just because of this.
It seems demoralizing, because it reduces your relationship with the company down to rules, shifting responsibility away from people. It may seem attractive on the surface, but in the long run I don't think it will serve the employees or the company well. People are so much more than just skill+experience+cost_of_living.
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#53These salaries seem SUPER low. Engineering manager with 15 years experience < 150k? Try 200+k here in NYC.
They wouldn't dare list actual salaries because then they would have to pay everyone higher, just see what happened with lawyers: http://www.wsj.com/articles/law-firm-cravath-raising-startin...
Unless they don't actually pay much which might be the case: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Stack-Exchange-Salaries-E73...
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#54The salaries generated by the calculator while transparent are not validated by the market and are laughably low. Given the elasticity of supply and demand the salary mush be constantly evaluated against the market. This seems like just another trick to suppress wages for a qualified engineer. In today's market, a person with multiple offers would command at least twice the listed compensation at any of the software…
> In today's market, a person with multiple offers would command at least twice the listed compensation at any of the software majors.
StackOverflow is probably OK with missing out on these comparatively rare beasts. For me, their formula would give me almost a 20% raise (if I could stay in Dallas), and that is not counting my six years of non-software engineering experience.
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#55Similar feedback, starting salaries seem about right, but beyond that seem low, the rating system isn't science and the CoL adjustment only for SF, NYC and London misses other expensive cities.
For instance, like for like (new construction in the most desirable neighborhoods), Boston housing is just as expensive as SF and in general your money goes further in SF.
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#56I wish they also shared the salary of their managers. That's way more interesting..
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#57As someone in recruiting and hiring, I love the concept of salary transparency on many levels, and I hope more companies at least make attempts like this to provide insight. That said, salary ranges and transparency can create two obvious issues. 1. Negotiations - I can tell you from vast past experience that when you tell an applicant "the salary range for this position is 80-100K", in almost every case any offer be…
I don't mean this to sound like a negative argument against your points, but here's a positive spin on both of them:
1. This generally means it's easy to filter out candidates who aren't a fit for your organization. In my experience, most employers would love to have employees where the salary is not the first (or even top 3) factors in their decision to take a job. (Rare, I know.)
2a. That seems like a good tail into #1. The employees who aren't in it for the team/company/career filter themselves out. 2b. Or, it's used as a comparison for employees to better themselves. "I want Job xyz because I can make an additional $20k/year. How do I improve myself to get it?"
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#58At my self-assessed skill level and years of experience, they're offering $11k/yr more for a "Developer" than a "Site Reliability Engineer". I find it interesting that they value someone in a "Developer" position higher than someone in a "Site Reliability Engineer" position. Having been an Ops person for my entire career and at the same time a competent developer in numerous languages and environments, I find this un…
Supply and demand?
Even if skilled SREs aren't as common as full-stack developers, it could be that so many more full-stack developers are required industry wide that companies have to compete harder on compensation for the best ones.
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#59As someone in recruiting and hiring, I love the concept of salary transparency on many levels, and I hope more companies at least make attempts like this to provide insight. That said, salary ranges and transparency can create two obvious issues. 1. Negotiations - I can tell you from vast past experience that when you tell an applicant "the salary range for this position is 80-100K", in almost every case any offer be…
> 2. Internal employees - Stack Overflow said this has been available internally for a bit, but when employees find out what others are making they are inclined to compare their own efforts/abilities vs others. It can lead to people either asking for raises to match their co-workers, or perhaps feeling slighted and seeking other employers.
Why is this wrong? The labor market should strive to be efficient, no?
Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
#60Before everyone inevitably piles on about how such-and-such a salary "seems low compared to That One Guy At Google I Know That Makes $300k", keep in mind average Bay Area salaries for software people in the Bay Area are not as large as you think. T.O.G.A.G.I.K. makes several standard deviations above the self reported mean of $100K-$105K [1][2] and BLS reported median [3][4] (around ~$125K or so depending on job func…
Just to add another link to the pile, the most useful database I've found of base salaries for comparison is the publicly available H1B data. You should account for the costs to the company of sponsorship in addition to the base.
The data is available down to the company and title: http://www.h1bdata.info/