Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#251

Post by brianwawok » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #143

toomuchtodo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is stopping engineers from saying "I'm going to contribute $1.5m to your bottom line this next year, I want you to pay me $1.4m", but they'll be shown the door because there's a guy that's willing to contribute the same $1.5m in exchange for $100k in compensation. Which is why you should be an owner/competitor versus an employee if you know the business well enough.

Having thought about this a bit, I actually come to the opposite conclusion. I think a lot of companies who might have previously hired devs would be better off trying not to anymore, with what devs cost today. This is going to mean all sorts of things, including more off-the-shelf stuff vs. home-rolled for companies, smaller software companies that don't get started because people would rather take the BigCo job tha…

Sure. And this seems an OK thing. Many tiny companies hire a programmer to write them excel macros. If they can be replaced by some SAAS app, then do so.

No reason for 100s of companies to write the same app.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#252

Post by jmde » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #172

jazzyk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are exposed! In case of financial trouble (very common at startups), who gets to be laid off first, the CEO or the developer? Also, rank-and-file employees are typically scape-goated in legal proceedings, example: finance people going to jail for rogue/insider trading, even though upper management at least encouraged such behavior.

Every employment position comes with some degree of risk exposure. But, the risk of "I might lose my job" is quite a lot less scary than "I might lose all my invested capital and/or be stuck with crippling debts after the company crumbles". Early-stage startup employees are given greater compensation packages than later-stage employees specifically because of the greater risk of going to work for an early-stage start…

Part of the disagreement that seems to be emerging is that not all management positions are the same. Being a CEO of a large company per se doesn't carry the same risk as starting your own business.

A CEO or manager at many large corporations often has very little risk relative to the employees, and their contributions are often small relative to that of the employees, and in the least often not greater than the employees. I'm not saying there aren't good managers, or that they do nothing, but management has become too top heavy in the US as a whole, and the salaries of management pathologically disproportionate to their relative contributions.

You don't have to look very far to find examples of CEOs driving businesses into the ground and then leaving with severance packages that dwarf average employees' salaries, sometimes even average employee lifetime salaries, or of CEOs sheltered from financial or legal consequences by corporate personhood. There's also plenty of CEOs who take over businesses that are already turning around from a downside, after reforms that were put in place, and then are credited with causing the improvements, even though they did nothing.

Starting a company is different from managing or acting as an executive of an existing one, and my guess is that this is what people are reacting to. Even founders are sheltered to some extent when you consider venture capital and the protections of incorporation relative to, say, acting as an independent contractor.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#253

Post by ohitsdom » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #247

I started off with a really low salary because I was working as a developer outside the SF bay area and in an industry that paid really low. Then moved to the bay area. Every company or recruiter tries to place you at maybe 5% to 10% more than your current job. There was a time when I was just hopping from job to job to increase my salary. If there wasn't this convention of paying someone the same I wouldn't have swi…

"Having a law that says you can't ask someone something seems to violate Freedom of Speech and it sets a dangerous precedent."

Like your age, religion, sexual orientation, or if you're planning on getting pregnant?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#254

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

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…

We buy the line that value drives price from sales people selling their wares to us. Yet we do not hold that line when it comes to the price we sell ourselves for.

@markonthewall, in the companies you start do _you_ pay your engineers based on their value or based on market rates?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#255

Post by aianus » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #155

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…

So, this supply and demand thing. We keep hearing from large tech companies that there's a crisis -- a massive shortage of qualified software engineers, to such a degree that they won't be able to operate at all if they can't raise the H1-B quotas and import more people to fill all the jobs currently going unfilled. If that truly is the case, then supply and demand would tell us that currently engineers are underpaid…

> why aren't they simply offering large enough compensation packages to attract the existing pool?

Well, they are. Compensation packages at the big tech companies are ridiculous. I know someone that got $100k signing bonus (cash, not stock) without a degree at 21 years old. He's not a genius either.

At a certain point, don't you think it's better to share some of that opportunity with smart foreigners? How many Teslas does an American twenty-something need?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#256

Post by bduerst » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #84

bduerst wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but smaller payscales means both sides are less willing to negotiate - i.e. an employer would be less willing to negotiate a programmer position as fiercely as an NBA team would for a starting slot.

You're right. They would just pass on the candidate and go with someone who isn't represented by an agent.

Salary and benefits negotiation usually comes at a point where the decision to hire has already been made, meaning it's costly for the employer to not negotiate.

That is why there is negotiation in the first place.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#257

Post by jonknee » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #235

hnal943 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions do not have a good history of preserving value, at least not in the USA.

High level executives at large corporations are a small enough group with enough common interests that they might as well constitute a union, and they have an exemplary record of preserving value for themselves.

Same for athletes, the MLB Players Union has been extraordinary in preserving value for its members (guaranteed contracts!).

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#258

Post by dvt » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #191

dvt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k-$300k in places like San Francisco and Menlo Park. Clearly, you don't understand how cost of living works. Also, to make that much, you need to be at around a level of SDE3/tech lead, which is by no means easy (a decade of making low six-figures & some political panache). See this top answer on Quora, for a pretty detailed analysis: https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire... You might be ab…

You can argue all you want, but I understand how cost of living works plenty well. SV is expensive but not so expensive that it wipes out $200k in income. If you're careful about expenses you can easily put away tens of thousands annually. This is backed up by own personal experience as a developer in NYC (hardly a low cost area). I expect to have a million dollars saved up within a decade and I certainly haven't rel…

Sorry for seeming incredulous, but if you're saying that you're saving 100k a year in NYC, then you must be making like 400k or living in a cardboard box.

Even with a 300k salary, you could only save 10k a month if you only had 5k worth of monthly expenses (3-4k is easily rent in NYC).

And keep in mind that making 300k-400k is not typical.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#259

Post by mindslight » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

dsp1234 wrote: post #63

lewisl9029 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else? I'd definitely be willing to pay for something like this. Make it commission based (pay as a percentage of additional salary negotiated) and the incentives between the negotiator and client will be perfectly aligned.

the incentives between the negotiator and client will be perfectly aligned. I'm not sure that this is the case when talking about such low amounts. Taking hints from a similar "agent with percentage", think real estate agents. Unless an agent is working with pretty high level homes, the 3% they are getting is not significantly effected by a something like 20k up or down on a $300k house. It's an extra $600, but often…

A better compensation structure would take into account that the majority of the price is a given, and compensate say 30% of the price over $270k.

But that would require realtors to give accurate and competitive assessments of property values, distracting from their primary hustle which is getting their client to sign an exclusive contract.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#260

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

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…

If it was true that the output of engineering alone was creating that value, then it stands to reason that dissatisfied engineers could simply leave and capture something closer to 100% of that value.

The reality, though, is that businesses themselves enable substantially all of the value they create through engineering. Google can't drive billions in revenue without engineers, that's true. But the Mets can't play in Shea Stadium without the janitors cleaning up after games, too.