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Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

nytimes.com

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Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#121

Post by jonknee »

slg wrote: post #58
markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

I am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

In Silicon Valley it seems popular to just start your own company and capture the value that way, but other fields have solved this issue by unionizing.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#122

Post by cheald »

dbingham wrote: post #117
slg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

This reality provides one of the best arguments for a switch from a capitalist economy, in which it is shareholders who have little to do with the creation of value in the economy who ultimately benefit the most from it, to a free market socialist economy (one based on democratically owned worker cooperatives). In an economy based on worker cooperatives, the distinction between "employee" and "owner" is eliminated. I…

Consider that practically every company begins as a democratic worker-owned cooperative, and those worker-owners generally can't wait to diversify themselves out of that position. Risk exposure is a lot higher when you're a worker-owner, and most people are horribly risk-adverse.

Ignoring the risk factor in the equation leads to some rather wrong conclusions.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#123

Post by blahi »

dvt wrote: post #111
blahi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This adage is used mostly by snake oil salesmen slinging get-rich-quick schemes. Working for somebody else is probably the best way to get rich. Putting a qualification here, rich is not filthy rich, but affluent to comfortably rich.

Uh, no. This adage is very very true. Sure, you can get a comfortable six figure salary, but that is by no stretch of the imagination "affluent". I'm defining rich as making 7 figures a year. I think that's a pretty fair assessment. You'll never get that working for someone else (especially as an engineer), barring extenuating circumstances. High equity employee #1 or co-founder is the way to go. High risk, high rewa…

You will get affluent in 10-20 years. That's my point. You get rich slowly, not quickly.

And wealth is not defined by how much money you make, but by how much money you have.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#124

Post by doki_pen »

ktRolster wrote: post #93
zenlikethat wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked on a project where management considered developers as pretty much interchangeable and added folks to the team that did more damage than good? If so, do you want to repeat that experience?

I'll say this: if you aren't writing code in a way that someone else can pick up the project when you leave, then you are being an irresponsible coder.

The problem is, that's 98% of coders that you've described.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#125

Post by slg »

zenlikethat wrote: post #72
slg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

Have you ever worked on a project where management considered developers as pretty much interchangeable and added folks to the team that did more damage than good? If so, do you want to repeat that experience?

My post had the condition of "competent developer". There are certainly some developers that aren't competent. In my experience those developers get weeded out of the industry relatively quickly. This cuts off the bottom of the bell curve leaving most most developers with something close to an average skill set or above.

I also won't discount the frictional costs of changing teams. If you take two identical developers and switch their jobs, each of their teams would see a temporary hit in performance as each one gets acclimated. But they will eventually get to the point were their team is exactly as efficient as it was with the other employee.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#126

Post by trentmb »

usaphp wrote: post #71
blahi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is straight up proletariat bull. You get hired, you get paid. If it doesn't pan out, you go somewhere else. You have 0 risk and a guaranteed career. And sorry, but 100k for a javascript "engineer" is more than the "fair share" in my opinion, but it's a market, so it is what it is.

Can you tell me the reason behind you thinking that "100k for a JavaScript engeneer is more than the "fair share"? And why you highlight the word "engeneer"?

Because we're not actually engineers.

https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe

Although there does appear to be a PE exam for software: http://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SWE-Apr-2013.pdf

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#127

Post by vonmoltke »

harryh wrote: post #88
tombert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that basically what a recruiter does? Every time I've dealt with a recruiter, they've done the salary haggling for me. EDIT: I should point out that that's what they do in regards to full-time W2 work, not contract.

Be careful. Recruiters (even 3rd party recruiters) work for the company. They don't work for you.

Third party recruiters work for themselves. Both sides in the transaction should remember that.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#128

Post by tacostakohashi »

slg wrote: post #58
markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

I am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

All of these things are true. However, there is another input into supply side, and that's alternatives to employment like starting a company.

Any employees that really create much more value than their salary can and will just leave and start their own company, where they get to set their own salary. By doing so, they'll also be leaving the pool of employees, and potentially hiring others too (reducing supply, increasing supply, driving salaries up).

Of course, every employee creates more value than their salary, to cover overheads, some profit for shareholders, etc. Employees that claim to be creating far more value than their salary, but not leaving to start a company, are probably deluding themselves, and vastly underestimating the value of the capital employed in their company, goodwill with customers, the sales and management functions, etc.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#129

Post by vasilipupkin »

cheald wrote: post #122
dbingham wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reality provides one of the best arguments for a switch from a capitalist economy, in which it is shareholders who have little to do with the creation of value in the economy who ultimately benefit the most from it, to a free market socialist economy (one based on democratically owned worker cooperatives). In an economy based on worker cooperatives, the distinction between "employee" and "owner" is eliminated. I…

Consider that practically every company begins as a democratic worker-owned cooperative, and those worker-owners generally can't wait to diversify themselves out of that position. Risk exposure is a lot higher when you're a worker-owner, and most people are horribly risk-adverse. Ignoring the risk factor in the equation leads to some rather wrong conclusions.

exactly. The point of shareholders is so that you can spread risk and reward. Instead of contributing all the capital yourself, you sell shares in your business to others, giving up some reward, but also a lot of the risk. Without this, the economy would collapse

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#130

Post by dudul »

duaneb wrote: post #47
dudul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a good engineer will have a say in what to build, not only how to build it. Otherwise all dev work could just be outsourced. IMO, the role of a good engineer is to deeply understand the business/domain to provide good insight in regards to what to build.

> Otherwise all dev work could just be outsourced. The value of American engineers is their ability to a) speak english well, b) show up at the office, and c) swallow large amounts of debt for college to ease hiring. So I'm not sure how outsourcing plays into this at all. I have never before heard of someone expressing a desire to hire a product manager/marketer/sales/brand strategist/designer because they're a good…

"I have never before heard of someone expressing a desire to hire a product manager/marketer/sales/brand strategist/designer because they're a good engineer."

I have. They don't have to be amazing engineers, but a background with some engineer knowledge is always a big plus.

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