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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

#121

Post by bergkvist »

occz wrote: post #75
candiddevmike wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there are some countries where you can look up anyone's income?

Taxable income is public information in Sweden, and you can basically buy a catalog containing the previous years income for everyone in a given area if you'd like. Stuff like addresses and so on is also public information in Sweden, for what it's worth. This always makes me feel a bit strange when hearing people considering releasing someone's address to be doxxing and something horrible - like you can just look up…

Actually addresses being public are causing issues. Sweden has a lot of problems with gang violence, and gang members often register their public addresses to other peoples addresses, causing innocent people to be killed. The address you enter is in no way being verified beyond it needing to be a valid address.

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

#122

Post by thinkharderdev »

efitz wrote: post #48
m0rissette wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure if the parent's concern is valid but I think the argument would be that companies can conspire to all suppress wages so they don't have to compete on comp. That would be hard to do now because they can't "officially" conspire in this way (eg sign a binding contract with each other) because that would be illegal. Without an enforcement mechanism it is too easy for any one company to defect from the "gentleman's agreement" and offer higher wages. If all salary information was public though, then as soon as one company defected and offered one high-value employee a higher salary everyone else would immediately know it and start competing on salary again. So that makes the informal agreement more stable and leads to lower wages.

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

#124

Post by [deleted] »

occz wrote: post #75
candiddevmike wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there are some countries where you can look up anyone's income?

Taxable income is public information in Sweden, and you can basically buy a catalog containing the previous years income for everyone in a given area if you'd like. Stuff like addresses and so on is also public information in Sweden, for what it's worth. This always makes me feel a bit strange when hearing people considering releasing someone's address to be doxxing and something horrible - like you can just look up…

[deleted]

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

#125

Post by layer8 »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #98
figmert wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't Dave and Cathy know what Bob is earning? They're the same level, they should earn the same.

They're at the same level, but maybe not doing the same job. Even if they're nominally in the same "job code" the actual mechanics of what they are doing, the sensitivity of their work, the skills required for success, the markets/industries they are operating in, the pay scale where they live, the level of functional support they are receiving may all be substantially different. Of course there may also be other dec…

What does “same level” even mean then?

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

#126

Post by lotsofpulp »

WrongAssumption wrote: post #109
lotsofpulp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Information asymmetry is a natural thing. What does this mean? Why does natural even matter? Humans changed a lot of things that are “natural” to better their lives. >It benefits job seekers too because your prospective employer does not know everything about them. Temporarily embarassed billionaires. Aka you like to think you are the 1% who can out negotiate an employer because you are so in demand. 99% of people…

No he’s right. It used to be in my state that prospective employers could ask for salary history with proof. If you are leaving a place because of bad pay or just that you want to make more money the discussion was always tethered around your previous pay. A few years ago my state made it illegal to ask for that information, and can now only ask our salary expectations. It’s now tethered around what you want to make.…

> If you are leaving a place because of bad pay or just that you want to make more money the discussion was always tethered around your previous pay.

The employer wanted you to think that, but it was actually tethered around your other job offers and your willingness to say no.

If you have access to information for what other employers are paying, and are potential other options for your employment, the employer will know you know this.

More importantly, you will not have to waste your valuable time figuring out what other employers are paying, so you have to do less work to figure out the market.

The employer most likely already knows the market, that is part of their daily duties, and know that applicants have to do a lot of work to figure out the market. Hence trying to use people’s previous pay to lowball them, since they know that people only know that.

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

#127

Post by bergkvist »

hasperdi wrote: post #53
candiddevmike wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there are some countries where you can look up anyone's income?

Norway is one

But you can't look it up anonymously. You have to authenticate with your national ID number, and the person will be notified about who looked up their income.

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

#128

Post by ekianjo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #84
ekianjo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information asymmetry is a natural thing. It benefits job seekers too because your prospective employer does not know everything about them. If all info was freely available knowledge brokers would have immense power.

> Information asymmetry is a natural thing. What does this mean? Why does natural even matter? Humans changed a lot of things that are “natural” to better their lives. >It benefits job seekers too because your prospective employer does not know everything about them. Temporarily embarassed billionaires. Aka you like to think you are the 1% who can out negotiate an employer because you are so in demand. 99% of people…

Even if data is freely available evrerywhere it means it becomes a valuable occupation to collect it and exploit it and this is what a knowledge broker is.

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

#129

Post by sofixa »

velcrovan wrote: post #106
tristor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is tech compensation in Norway compared to the US? That's what I thought...

The raw numbers are different, I’m guessing (I haven’t looked). A tech worker in Norway also pays less for healthcare and housing, is healthier, spends less time in traffic and lives in a society where everyone lives safer and more equally, and has more power to walk away from a shit job than someone in the US. It’s a system that values autonomy for the most people over the power of a tiny sector of the economy to ra…

> A tech worker in Norway also pays less for healthcare and housing

Also doesn't start their work life with tens of thousands of debt at exorbitant rates that can't be discarded, childcare costs less, they get paid time off for leisure and for being sick, don't have to keep a rainy day fund of 6 months in case they get in a crash, get scammed with an ambulance ride and hospital bills, and lose their job over it, etc. etc.

There is so much more than just raw numbers for a salary it's kind of sad how many people use that as the only metric.

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