Talking About Money

And it would benefit the employees of the company, who are disadvantaged because they only negotiate salary every now and then vs the hiring manager who does it all of the time, and who also has insider information on what the company is willing to pay and what everyone else in the same position is earning.

For an employee, knowing that your company, and probably your manager, reduced your income simply because they could is not very good for morale and loyalty to the company.

...some arbitrarily made rubric...years worked, which is a terrible standard

Totally agree with you there. Structured pay tables have to be based on more meaningful metrics than seniority and job title. I got glass-ceiling by that for a long time because I didn't want to switch from development to management, and my company (CTO and his toadies) didn't want to let me join the Architects group.

...engineers and business development people devalue each others work...Each side can find a justification on why they are being under-compensated while the other over-compensated.

That's true, but the business development people tend to be more highly compensated, work fewer hours and more regular schedules, and have much more political power within the organization. It'd be better if there were objective metrics for measuring everyone's value that both sides could understand, so they don't devalue each other. Everyone doesn't have to get paid equally in order for everyone to get paid fairly, and if a startup can cultivate a culture where everyone feels they're being treated fairly, they're going to be a great place to work.

Interviews reward people who can handle stress and negotiate.

Also people who are good at "faking it until they make it" and other techniques that work well for interviewing but not so much for doing the job. I don't think taking the salary negotiation out of the interview would reduce the stress level much, or the interviewers ability to judge how the interviewee handles stress.

You're going to want a leader on the engineering team to negotiate with the strategy makers to find an equitable solution.

No, you want a leader on the engineering team and a leader with the strategy makers to collaborate on finding the best solution for the company's needs. There should be no negotiation involved at all. This is mathematical constraint-solving, not deal-making.

10 years.

So I provided it to them, and one of the companies (who was out of business) could not verify my salary (Pay stubs were not enough, they had to talk to someone).

After this they said they may have "adjust the offer accordingly" and it would most certainly be less because the offer was based on my stated salary at the time.

As most of you are probably guessing, I declined their offer and withdrew myself. Ever since then when they ask my current salary, I don't give it to them.

so far they've all said yes to what I considered very high.

Make it look more or less like the original. As long as nobody sees the original next to the mock-up, who's ever going to notice that one or two digits changed?

Do you mean in Japan or the US? Because you certainly don't have to do that in the US.

> From there it's trivial to calculate your previous salary.

And even if you did do it in the US it would be impossible to calculate your salary from it because it depends on how many exemptions you claimed in your W4 (which you can change at any time - it doesn't have to be how many children you have, it's basically a number to fine tune how much tax you pay so you don't overpay and need a refund).