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Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

blog.stackoverflow.com

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Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#211

Post by ryandrake »

dpark wrote: post #195
JasonPunyon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants to work at Google. I know I don't.

Google was just a proxy for software engineering employers who pay well. Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon all pay similarly. So do a number of other companies. The finance corps in NYC probably do too, but I wouldn't really want to work there either from what I've heard. Regardless, I certainly would not encourage you or anyone else to leave a job they love if it pays them an amount they are happy with. Going to Google or…

It's good to keep in mind that "software engineering employers who pay well" don't necessarily pay everyone that well, or even most of their employees. My guess is that very few Googlers get that mystical $200K (although no doubt someone will reply here with an example to "prove" me wrong). Always comparing your salary (or as a business owner, what you offer your employees) to what Google pays the top 0.1% of their talent is bound to leave you disappointed.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#212

Post by meggar »

jayzalowitz wrote: post #198
meggar wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm being ripped off too. graduated during the recession after the dotcom bubble, took the first dead-end dev job I could find, not exactly marketable experience.

email me your resume.

Will do, which email?

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#213

Post by dpark »

ryandrake wrote: post #211
dpark wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was just a proxy for software engineering employers who pay well. Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon all pay similarly. So do a number of other companies. The finance corps in NYC probably do too, but I wouldn't really want to work there either from what I've heard. Regardless, I certainly would not encourage you or anyone else to leave a job they love if it pays them an amount they are happy with. Going to Google or…

It's good to keep in mind that "software engineering employers who pay well" don't necessarily pay everyone that well, or even most of their employees. My guess is that very few Googlers get that mystical $200K (although no doubt someone will reply here with an example to "prove" me wrong). Always comparing your salary (or as a business owner, what you offer your employees) to what Google pays the top 0.1% of their t…

No doubt. I'm would not expect that most devs at Google are getting paid $200k. I would expect that the top-of-the-top (i.e. the '5s' here) are getting paid $200k and more, though. Basically, I feel like the entry-level pay here looks reasonably competitive, but the senior pay looks low relative to my experience and what I know of others' salaries and salary ranges. This is of course largely anecdotal, so maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#214

Post by antisthenes »

phamilton wrote: post #88
grobaru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SF is a bubble and very unhealthy to the whole IT industry. It basically raises the costs for everyone. It makes no sense to hire a person in SF for much more (and he will not really benefit from it) just because you compete with multi billions dollar businesses that can cut costs somewhere else. At some point people do not want to change the world with next Instagram. They just want to live nicely.

The counter point is that companies are profitable despite high salaries. That suggests an engineers contributions exceed even the bloated salary and therefore they are undercompensated.

That's literally true of every profitable company then.

Seems like great advocacy for communism if I've ever seen one.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#215

Post by 15155 »

edwhitesell wrote: post #104
brwnll wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what employers you interact with that believe a prospective employee should take a sub-market pay in exchange for the privilege to work at their company, but it's terrible. There have been many good articles on HN about salary negotiation, setting freelance rate, and seeing through the "one day you'll be a billionaire because of these options if you work for almost-free" and the kind of nonsense your tou…

I didn't say anything about options. I also didn't say anything about taking sub-market pay in exchange for a privilege. I said that 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. In other words, employees who actually want to be there are far more valuable than those just looking for a high paycheck.

> I said that 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.

In any publicly traded company, this is an unacceptable viewpoint.

How is it in any way reasonable for an employer (who has a fiduciary responsibility to return maximum value for its shareholders) to take this stance and then admonish their at-will employees for it?

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#216

Post by jsmeaton »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #208

TIL I'm very glad I don't work for Stack Overflow and feel very bad for the underpaid devs who do. Apparently, with only 5 years experience, my salary has eclipsed a maxed out 25 year veteran of "5" skill. Not to mention my salary is only about half of my total compensation. I don't say this to brag, but to help raise awareness to the underpaid devs out there. You have to stand up for yourself, realize your value and…

Are you living around SV? Are you also working at one of the top tier companies? From my experience and from some others here the tool is reporting decent salaries. It seems most of those disagreeing are from companies in the valley.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#217

Post by Natsu »

Sharlin wrote: post #165
caminante wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a "job security" lens, the sysops crew needed to keep the site up will be the last to go during downsizing.

There are plenty of managers with the "why are we paying them when everything just works?" mentality.

Yeah, firefighting is a more visible show of "value" to those not directly involved than reliability is, because nobody at too many places likes to ask why we're always fighting fires in the first place.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#218

Post by WhitneyLand »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #208

TIL I'm very glad I don't work for Stack Overflow and feel very bad for the underpaid devs who do. Apparently, with only 5 years experience, my salary has eclipsed a maxed out 25 year veteran of "5" skill. Not to mention my salary is only about half of my total compensation. I don't say this to brag, but to help raise awareness to the underpaid devs out there. You have to stand up for yourself, realize your value and…

Do you have to work in the SF or other expensive area, or can you be totally remote like Stack Overflow?

I'd be really interested to hear your examples of companies that pay significantly more and allow you live in a low cost/high quality city.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#219

Post by ap22213 »

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)

I graduated 1999 and made $38k; Now make $190k (and I'm definitely not a top 1% candidate).

Based on your assessment, I should expect to make a lot less in the future. But, yet people are contacting me weekly saying they can't fill positions at my salary level.

It seems like you're doing something wrong.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#220

Post by serge2k »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #204
fecak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing, and I hope employees keep us updated on this experiment (because transparency). My reference to negotiations was mostly for a negotiation upon hire. A job is advertised at a certain range, and the applicant expects the top of that range. I know that Stack Overflow's process might be a bit more evolved, but most companies that advertise a range probably leave a little wiggle room at the top and don…

> This comes across more like assessing candidates for hire based on ego or confidence rather than actual skills. Our hire/no-hire policy is only based on competence, however true competence includes the capacity for realistic self-assessment. Keep in mind that our skill scale, especially for core skills, goes from "I could be better" to "I am world famous for this skill", so it's fairly easy to prove or disprove whe…

Don't people find it very demotivating to look at their work and go "yeah, I think I did pretty good" then look at some scale and go "huh. 0-1 across the board."
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