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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#291
post #41

I checked earlier today and yep, my employer is selling my data and future earnings potential to the company that is infamous for poor data security. A confounding factor is that as a hiring manager, and at least for all the hiring decisions I have been involved in, I know we did not use this to check candidates. So what's the upside? EDIT: ADP Workforcenow appears to do this automatically. I'm curious to find out if…

I worked in a two person company last year where I ran payroll with ADP. It's there for me too, and I don't recall opt in permission on this.

Just to add another data point, our startup uses Gusto and my salary isn't in the data. My old salary from Google (which I think used ADP) is though.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If society was a meritocracy this might be true, but I’ve seen plenty of engineers paid significantly more than peers that were far better than them. At the end of the day compensation is really about politics and not performance.

In the job market, it’s mostly a matter of labor supply. If you really need people, and they demand $[x], you pay it or you don’t get an employee.

This only works for the people with the awareness and confidence to know what they’re worth. Even selecting for that small subset of the population, it’s still sometimes difficult to ascertain what the optimal salary is in any given environment. The issue is, the labor supply and its cost is known by the employer, but is largely hidden to the laborer.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#293

Meanwhile in Norway, every citizen can check the income, wealth, and taxes statements of other citizens and companies. https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/forms/search-the-tax-lists/

Interesting to read about the Norway's system! I would guess that "If you search for anyone, they can see that you did" is pretty fair but can hinder one's curiosity for searching the information.

Also interesting that public lists for media is no longer distributed. How have media outlets taken this?

Here in Finland Tax office publishes lists of all over 100k earners to media and they are published as public lists online [0]. In addition to that, anyone's income information can be accessed at tax offices or by phone, so this does not leave a trace [1].

After GDPR, one is allowed to prevent one's information to be released to media by objecting to this. However media can still access and release your data via phone or tax office's computer [2] and in 2021 media outlets won a case in Administrative Court where they can also get a list of those who objected [3]. So basically after tax records go public, journalists just take this list and make the calls.

But yeah, as SP mentioned, this is very different approach than in the link of this thread.

[0]: (in Finnish) https://www.is.fi/verotiedot/

[1]: https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...

[2]: https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...

[3]: https://yle.fi/news/3-11893060

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#294

That last link says that data is exempt from CCPA. > The Work Number® database is subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) > Data that is regulated by the FCRA, as well as data used for employment purposes, is exempt from the CCPA.

That sounds wrong. TWN having this data is not a condition of my employment.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the system not ask for SSN to pull this data? If yes, how did Google get your SSN? Disc: Googler.

At the very least you need to provide proof of your SSN before you start employment in the US (as a US citizen at least). This is required for your social security benefits and some tax info. I believe in most states you actually have to physically show your social security card on the first day of employment now too.

I think you are thinking of form I-9, which is federally required. SS Card is one of may accepted forms of ID, I always use my passport instead.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So.... how much do you make?

I'd be in favor of salary sharing in this sub-thread: $155k base $145k/year RSUs (2021); $175k RSUs (2022 est) "Senior" SRE in SF 3.5 YEO, 3.5 years at current company

Nice, what's WLB looking like in your role? What industry IYDMMA?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#298
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200/hr as a full time ML consultant. Contracting is interesting. You make more, but there’s more downside. No sick days. Though the last 3 month contract was kind enough to calculate the start and end dates to be exactly 12 work weeks (60 work days, skipping holidays) which was a nice Jedi mind trick. I still don’t get paid for Christmas, but somehow it doesn’t feel like I’m losing a day since the end date was exten…

Out of interest what’s your cv look like for that rate?

https://battle.shawwn.com/Shawn%20Presser's%20Resume.pdf

If it looks surprisingly dull, I hope it inspires you to realize you can get similar rates. I’m not particularly special; just determined, and willing to say no to low offers. (The initial offer was salary equal to half this rate plus stock. Being completely uninterested in stock is a tricky thing — you can offend your colleagues unless you’re especially tactful.)

My cv hasn’t been updated since 2016, but it’s also the exact cv I used at this company. That should indicate how much cvs matter relative to forming personal connections with founders.

The technique in this case was to ask an ML engineer on the JAX team what a hypothetical total comp package would be for this type of work at google. They said “making up numbers, but ~$400k.” So I refused any offers lower than that by pointing out that I could make this at Google rather than a high stress startup for half the pay plus stock.

I hope some of that is useful to anyone.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#299
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow placing a freeze requires filling out a PDF form, attaching a scan of your ID, and then sending it in over email, mail, or fax. The PDF lacks built in form fields you can type in. The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...) The Equifax CCPA reques…

When I submit the myprivacy.equifax.com validation it hangs at "Processing..." indefinitely. #AbolishCreditAgencies

Credit, bank checking (ChexSystems), and personal information aggregators like Lexis Nexis and Thomson Reuters Clear ought to be abolished or curbed indeed. I hate to bring trans politics into this. I'm sure that's the last thing anybody wants to hear about right now. However we are a class of people whose sexuality can be unfairly identified by these databases.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, employers can forbid you from using their facilities or property to facilitate these conversations.

Even if you're on company time, using company facilities and company resources, you have the legally protected right to discuss working conditions with other workers. It doesn't matter if you're using the company's Exchange or Matrix server to do so or not.

I’m afraid you are mistaken. I hope you are not confidently spreading this false information to others as it could put their jobs at risk.

https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4582ec1a7e

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