Salary transparency at Stack Overflow • Hacker News Board

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#61

Post by ZeroFries » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #52

There 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 1-5 rating system is where personal judgement/responsibility come into play. If I were a very good developer but poor at negotiations, I would find this system to be the opposite of demoralizing.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#62

Post by drewbug01 » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #33

At 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…

Came here to say this. At minimum, an SRE is worth at least as much as a developer - and frankly, are probably worth more.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#63

Post by mobiuscog » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #21

dexwiz wrote: post #14

Either I am vastly underpaid or the numbers are very high for newer developers. Even with 0 experience and 0 skill, it quotes $86k.

MM yes it give me £120k for a London role - where do I sign up :-)

It gives ~£65K for a non-London developer, with zero experience and skill.

Looking at the average for that around here being £20K, I'd suggest it's really well off the mark unless you're in Silicon Valley.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#64

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #58

tristor wrote: post #33

At 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.

In my experience as a hiring manager, it was a lot easier to find qualified developers than it was SREs or similar. Plenty of people doing ops work, but not a lot of them at the senior level. And the senior ops people we find demanded, rightfully, much higher salaries than the developers.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#65

Post by zaroth » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #27

chrisferry wrote: post #20

These salaries seem SUPER low. Engineering manager with 15 years experience < 150k? Try 200+k here in NYC.

These salaries seem SUPER high. Developer with 10 years experience at 120k? I'm making less than half of that and don't feel particularly ripped off. (I guess both of our comments don't help a lot in general, except to show that you personally don't seem to consider an application at SO while I'd love to do just that)

A competent developer with 10 years experience at less than $60k gross?! I imagine any sized company in any location in the US would hire that person in a heartbeat. If you are a productive developer in a common programming language with 10 years experience, you have decent communication skills, and are able to work in a team, earning less than $60k -- then you are significantly underpaid.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#66

Post by rkangel » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

8draco8 wrote: post #26

NKCSS wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Location, location, location; I live in .nl and with about €55k, I'm at the upper end of the job market here (14 years experience).

You are right but you have to also consider US working hours. Apparently it's not unusual to work 60 hours a week while here in Europe we have ~40 hours working weeks. If I have to choose I would definately stay on my UK salary that is about half what this calculator is showing for my experience and keep 40hr working week.

Don't forget having more than 2 weeks of holiday a year.

I could cope with 50-60 hours a week. I could not cope with only one proper holiday a year.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#67

Post by lloyd-christmas » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #27

chrisferry wrote: post #20

These salaries seem SUPER low. Engineering manager with 15 years experience < 150k? Try 200+k here in NYC.

These salaries seem SUPER high. Developer with 10 years experience at 120k? I'm making less than half of that and don't feel particularly ripped off. (I guess both of our comments don't help a lot in general, except to show that you personally don't seem to consider an application at SO while I'd love to do just that)

My starting salary was higher than your 10 year experience salary. You are WAY off the grid, even with quality-of-life arguments factored in. Unless you work less than 30 hours a week, you ARE getting ripped off. I don't know anyone who started with less than 60k other than my brother who was 3rd man in at a bootstrapped startup. If you enjoy your job, awesome. However, you're very easily in the bottom half of starting salaries if not lower.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#68

Post by borplk » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #27

chrisferry wrote: post #20

These salaries seem SUPER low. Engineering manager with 15 years experience < 150k? Try 200+k here in NYC.

These salaries seem SUPER high. Developer with 10 years experience at 120k? I'm making less than half of that and don't feel particularly ripped off. (I guess both of our comments don't help a lot in general, except to show that you personally don't seem to consider an application at SO while I'd love to do just that)

but where though?

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#69

Post by fecak » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

edwhitesell wrote: post #57

fecak wrote: post #23

As 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 int…

Companies that filter out candidates that prioritize money as a high criteria are potentially doing themselves a disservice by not hiring on ability. An excellent coder who wants to maximize their compensation shouldn't be penalized for that.

If "fit" for an organization means not caring (as much) about money, that almost always indicates the organization is paying below market rate. I have clients that pay below market rate, and candidates who value money above other things will filter themselves out when they discover the ranges being paid.

Not sure I follow the second point. My example would be if Jane sees herself as a top contributor and earns 100K and she learns that Joe (who she feels is not a top contributor) earns 120K, Jane won't be happy. I don't think Jane will think "what can I do to earn what Joe does?", because she already feels she's doing more than Joe.

I might have misunderstood your point, but wanted to clarify my post.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#70

Post by mseebach » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #33

At 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…

And a Product Designer is $5k less still.

It's not a question of "valuing" employees, it's about what salary you need to offer to be able to hire and retain people at the required skill level. And good SREs are apparently willing to (or plentiful enough to need to) accept slightly less money than equally good developers.

That said, the phenomenon extends well beyond our industry. It's common in all industries that the people who design (as in architecture, not graphic design) and build the product make better salaries than the people who operate the infrastructure, however critically important their role is.

> This is especially vexing in light of the fact I've never met a highly qualified Ops person who wasn't also a skilled developer

Be careful to compare like for like. A highly qualified ops person compares to a highly qualified developer, not merely a "skilled" one. For all the difficulty of objectively measuring skill, I would assume that a highly qualified ops person would make substantially more than a merely skilled developer.