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Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

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131–140 of 206 posts

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have never applied math above Calc in your life. Just admit it here. It will be good for your soul.

Almost all my math is from MIT OCW on YouTube and a bit of 3blue1brown. I don’t think there’s any shame in that. What’s your PhD in?

My Bachelors is in finance and stats. I do hope that makes you feel better.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you felt you were underpaid, leaving is fair. I don't really understand the requirement that all bosses are paid more than those they supervise, though. I mean, emotionally I can understand feeling that way. But I don't think it's a rule of nature or something. For instance, coaches often make less than their star players. Directors and producers often make less than star actors. Hospital directors seem to make le…

My boss doesn't know how much I'm paid. I like it that way. He communicates how he feels I'm doing to the people that need to know and it's working out ok.

I find that interesting, and also concerning.. but I suppose it depends on the office culture.

I tried to ignore my peers and direct reports salaries when I first moved into management... I lost an employee after 2 years when another place offered him a 80% raise.

At that point, I realized I couldn't count on a 3rd party to properly evaluate an employee's worth, and I started to take an active role in ensuring people are paid as close to market as we could afford (though, as a non-profit, we struggle to compete for technical talent)

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#133
On one hand, this is pretty nice. I've always hated the career management aspect of working in the software industry, and so to have it so transparent and approachable makes a ton of sense so you can focus on doing work.

However, my big question is how expectations and performance management scale with level? If someone's not there yet, but hits the years of experience for the next level, are they fired? Likewise, whose responsibility is it for people to get those skills by the time they age into the next promotion?

Quick edit: Also wanted to call out how well written this post is. It lays out the facts, peoples objections, unknowns, and anticipates questions (salespeople remain on variable comp, equity isn't being addressed yet). So kudos to the author for the great writing on this thoughtful piece.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you felt you were underpaid, leaving is fair. I don't really understand the requirement that all bosses are paid more than those they supervise, though. I mean, emotionally I can understand feeling that way. But I don't think it's a rule of nature or something. For instance, coaches often make less than their star players. Directors and producers often make less than star actors. Hospital directors seem to make le…

Telling or managing a player to kick the ball into the back of the net is a lot easier than actually kicking it in the back of the net. Telling or managing a team of 20 people to put products on shelves is a lot harder than putting products on shelves.

I like the analogy, but I don't fully agree with it. If the "product on shelf" is a basic CRUD app, then sure, managing a team of 20 people might be harder than doing the individual tasks related to putting the product on shelf, but oftentimes there are challenging technical aspects related to the product. In some cases those technical challenges might be harder than management of the team.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#135

Strong disagree with basing salary on years of experience. I see almost no correlation between output, skill, and years of experience. I actually consider this an anti-pattern that actively encourages coasting.

The OP did not say that they were basing salary on years of experience, but that they were using "years of relevant experience". That is a big difference, and relevant experience is a pretty arbitrary measure.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#136
post #120
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experienced a very similar situation in Berlin. I assume it may actually be a norm. Loyalty to the company > experience/skills.

That's very interesting, and a contrary norm to many big companies in the U.S. Companies here are happy to pay whatever it takes to fill an empty position, but they often have limits on pay raises that prevent loyal employees from getting fair pay as they gain skills and rise to higher levels of responsibility in the company. Many people enjoy the familiarity and relationships at their job and would rather accept bei…

Yes, I have seen this many times in my career. Internal transfer has no pay rise and may require equally difficult interviews as external offer. Yet, leave for similar position at another firm is up 20%. And, managers are so "offended" that you are leaving (lack of loyalty). I always think internal transfer is for suckers, as an external transfer almost always means +20%. Bizarre.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you felt you were underpaid, leaving is fair. I don't really understand the requirement that all bosses are paid more than those they supervise, though. I mean, emotionally I can understand feeling that way. But I don't think it's a rule of nature or something. For instance, coaches often make less than their star players. Directors and producers often make less than star actors. Hospital directors seem to make le…

Telling or managing a player to kick the ball into the back of the net is a lot easier than actually kicking it in the back of the net. Telling or managing a team of 20 people to put products on shelves is a lot harder than putting products on shelves.

>>Telling or managing a team of 20 people to put products on shelves is a lot harder than putting products on shelves.

no it isn't

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#138

I worked for a very old fashioned company in Germany that used a similar system to pay employees. After about a year I became the lead of my team. But since some of my colleagues had been in the company about 10 years, they were getting paid more than me. Frustrated, I left for a better (and better paying) job. I believe these systems produce a "dead sea effect". High performer will leave, being able to get better de…

[deleted]

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#139
While I like this promotion system, I think it lacks something like what the military calls "billets". If I'm a principal engineer and I lead two teams of engineers to deliver projects then I should be compensated for my knowledge as a principal engineer, then I should be compensated for the magnitude of responsibility of being a team lead. They are, in fact, two separate things.

Re: Rethinking Levels, Promotions and Salaries

#140

This is sort of well-articulated and someone thought about it a lot. The salaries seem fine, as long as there’s 1MM in liquid equity to go with the L7 one like Google does. But it doesn’t seem to address the real issue (to which I also don’t have a final answer): the jock/nerd thing is still playing out. If, as I believe is mostly true, A16 is pretty on the money with the software eats the world thing: hackers “shoul…

I work in finance. I have the seen the same situation play out with salespeople. As risk taking at large investment banks has fallen dramatically since 2008 regulatory reforms, the value of sales people has only risen. The "alpha" sales person seems to have no ceiling. Ideally, this sales person is working in a product area that does not increase balance sheet risk... holy moly... they are worth more than weight in gold. They bring big new accounts that trade like crazy, but balance sheet (and risk) does not balloon.

And now to offer a small criticism of your post: I prefer to say "conventionally attractive" over "tall white guys", because that would be more inclusive. Yes, really, I have seen very successful women who present just shy of pornstars-in-real-life and absolutely clean-up by selling to drooling old (dumb) white, male, portfolio managers. The sooner all of this is replaced by passive investment, the better for all customers -- but not big banks(!). After all, as the saying goes: "Where are the customers yachts?"

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