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Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

businessinsider.com

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Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#41

Post by jachee »

sokoloff wrote: post #29
dom96 wrote: post #6

At this point is there any disadvantage to legislating that all companies should share a transparency report where they list their levels + avg, min, max, median salaries for each level?

I’m opposed to disclosure laws that would be prone to expose the income of individual people. If Alice is the only SWEPR5 at a company, that proposal publishes her salary. If Bob is clearly the best SWEPR4, Cathy the middle, and Dave just barely got promoted to that level, their salaries are also individually published. I don’t object to good faith ranges being required in job listings, but I oppose anything that wou…

Management is the only one who benefits when labor doesn’t openly share salary information. Let the information flow. Knowledge is power.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#42

Post by tellarin »

prepend wrote: post #4

Anyone know why they start at level 52? Is there some story behind 52-70 instead of 1-19? Or is it just arbitrary?

Not sure if there's an actual reason. But 59 is the actual starting level that matters for software developers.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#43

Post by mrweasel »

prepend wrote: post #4

Anyone know why they start at level 52? Is there some story behind 52-70 instead of 1-19? Or is it just arbitrary?

I've noticed that a lot of US organizations love to use "levels", but coming from the outside it's borderline impossible to know what those levels mean. We have IC levels, and I'm sure I'm on some level, but have zero clue as to what the level may be or mean.

In cases like this where you just have payment guidelines for a level 52, you might as well not know. What's level 52? Is that an intern or senior management?

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#44

Post by DrReachAround »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #13
steveBK123 wrote: post #9

Would be interesting to see people rough idea of YOE to Level mapping for MSFT. Everything from Level 50 through 60 looks pretty junior, like grad hires and possibly outside HCOL areas. Surprised there is so much granularity. I do also find the base to stock ratios interesting. I guess base pay caps out in FAANG the same way it does in fintech / Wall Street tech. $360k base is a lot of money obviously, but its intere…

Level 59 is entry-level for an SE (e.g. an undergraduate hire), Level 58 is for Interns. People at Level 59 are expected to reach Level 60 within 2 years or they'll basically get managed-out, but once you get past Level 61 people generally take things more slowly. In West Coast circles (Blind.app, et al) Microsoft's reputation is that it's still "the country club" where you go if you want a stable career without too…

The downside is you have to put up with Microsoft's ineptitude. I was on a Microsoft project for about 6 months and it was a terrible experience. Everyone was out for themselves, asking questions was treated as an annoyance. Condescension at every turn. It was a small team and perhaps not representative of all of Microsoft, but it was a bad enough experience that I'd never consider working there in any capacity.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#45

Post by matwood »

xvector wrote: post #28
dom96 wrote: post #6

At this point is there any disadvantage to legislating that all companies should share a transparency report where they list their levels + avg, min, max, median salaries for each level?

Every company I've talked to with "transparent" comp has offered absolutely terrible comp, even for their highest possible offer. In reality "transparent comp" becomes an excuse for companies to not negotiate.

People in general don't like to have the hard conversations where they tell Bob that Sue is better than him and she makes more money. It's easier to just normalize transparent salaries lower. If everyone is transparent it will change over time though.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#46

Post by roland35 »

prepend wrote: post #4

Anyone know why they start at level 52? Is there some story behind 52-70 instead of 1-19? Or is it just arbitrary?

I'm not sure about Microsoft specifically, but at other companies I've worked at (including the federal government) a level number is somewhat standardized across all roles, not just engineering.

So that means an entry level engineer would start at a higher level than a senior secretary, or whatever the case is.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#47

Post by eastbound »

jachee wrote: post #41
sokoloff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m opposed to disclosure laws that would be prone to expose the income of individual people. If Alice is the only SWEPR5 at a company, that proposal publishes her salary. If Bob is clearly the best SWEPR4, Cathy the middle, and Dave just barely got promoted to that level, their salaries are also individually published. I don’t object to good faith ranges being required in job listings, but I oppose anything that wou…

Management is the only one who benefits when labor doesn’t openly share salary information. Let the information flow. Knowledge is power.

No. With full public information, bad employees benefit from being able to ask for more, good employees just flee elsewhere. Because it’s impossible to reason someone on their skills.

Full information is hell on Earth.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#48

Post by efitz »

m0rissette wrote: post #11
dom96 wrote: post #6

At this point is there any disadvantage to legislating that all companies should share a transparency report where they list their levels + avg, min, max, median salaries for each level?

Wouldn’t all the companies then just conspire to pay everyone lower wages?

No, because they need to attract employees and employees would generally not be attracted to uncompetitively low compensation packages.

As a result, companies absolutely track how much employees of a type and level get paid elsewhere, so that they know where to aim compensation packages competitively.

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#49

Post by flangola7 »

sokoloff wrote: post #29
dom96 wrote: post #6

At this point is there any disadvantage to legislating that all companies should share a transparency report where they list their levels + avg, min, max, median salaries for each level?

I’m opposed to disclosure laws that would be prone to expose the income of individual people. If Alice is the only SWEPR5 at a company, that proposal publishes her salary. If Bob is clearly the best SWEPR4, Cathy the middle, and Dave just barely got promoted to that level, their salaries are also individually published. I don’t object to good faith ranges being required in job listings, but I oppose anything that wou…

[dead]

Re: Leaked Microsoft pay guidelines – salary, hiring bonus, stock awards by level

#50

Post by Mechanical9 »

sokoloff wrote: post #39
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it matter if Alice was the only one or not? Disclosure laws inherently expose the income of everyone

If there are 100 SWEPR5s in the proposal above, Alice's nosy co-worker or neighbor only learns the range of Alice's salary. If Alice is the only one, they learn the precise value.

I think the question is more why should an individual's salary be private?

Personally, I think money is power, and I want to know about power disparities to better protect myself. But I understand there are factors to consider.

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