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Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

blog.stackoverflow.com

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Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#181

Post by metaphorm »

ryandrake wrote: post #32

Before everyone inevitably piles on about how such-and-such a salary "seems low compared to That One Guy At Google I Know That Makes $300k", keep in mind average Bay Area salaries for software people in the Bay Area are not as large as you think. T.O.G.A.G.I.K. makes several standard deviations above the self reported mean of $100K-$105K [1][2] and BLS reported median [3][4] (around ~$125K or so depending on job func…

in addition to that, I think it should be pointed out that self-reported salaries on anonymous internet forums are highly susceptible to ego-driven inflation.

I mean, it should be obvious, but people just lie all the time. even if they don't even make that salary they still want to say that they do because they have some notion that it will boost their status or something.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#182

Post by ebcode »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #158
jc4p wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Stack Overflow. I don't think anyone can be _the_ very best and I think that's not a reasonable or attainable goal. We value T shaped developers, and our salary matrix values both spreading breadth (e.g. as a mobile dev if I up my skills in sysadmin or data science) or depth (which is a bit harder to do if you're already experienced) which fits into that nicely.

I don't know how to _not_ come off sounding argumentative here, so don't take this harshly, but: > I don't think anyone can be _the_ very best and I think that's not a reasonable or attainable goal. ... kinda proves my point of not needing a "five" rating.

The problem w/ ranking people (in general) is that it embodies this idea of "the best". At SO, it appears this ranking system is internalized by the employees who are consistently ranked below "the best" (5). So why bother trying to be "the best", when it's made to seem so impossible by the ranking system? Ranking is demoralizing.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#183

Post by jachee »

POWERSTOMP wrote: post #80
JasonPunyon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also like to point out that...we're a largely remote company. We don't index our salaries to the most expensive time and place to hire developers ever. We don't have to support Bay Area rent, or duel it out with AppAmaMicroGoog to keep our people from getting poached. We hire people everywhere in the world and through that lens, we're competitive. I live like a king in Buffalo, NY.

What Punyon said. fwiw I live like a true Necromancer in the backwoods of Indiana.

> Necromancer

I misread that as "Neuromancer" and pictured you as Case-on-hiatus, jacking into your deck up in amongst the trees.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#184

Post by metaphorm »

megadethz wrote: post #8

The salaries generated by the calculator while transparent are not validated by the market and are laughably low. Given the elasticity of supply and demand the salary mush be constantly evaluated against the market. This seems like just another trick to suppress wages for a qualified engineer. In today's market, a person with multiple offers would command at least twice the listed compensation at any of the software…

stack overflow is a relatively small company and not a "software major". Google pays 50% more than small companies.

this is also base salary. I hope you're considering that and not just adding in bonus and stock grants thinking you're doing a fair comparison.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#185

Post by JasonPunyon »

dpark wrote: post #178
JasonPunyon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have offices in NYC, London, and Denver. If I'm remembering correctly, I can count the number of developers who've left the company on one hand. We currently have ~20 engineering staff in the NYC office. Retention doesn't seem to be a huge problem.

Is there significant compensation not captured by this tool (bonus, equity, amazing benefits)? $132K for a "2" with 10 years experience just seems really low in NYC. $171K for a "5" seems really low, too, since that person would be principle at Google or Microsoft.

This is the standard stuff from our company page (http://stackoverflow.com/jobs/companies/stack-overflow)...

20 days vacation (to start)

Flextime

No Copay Health Insurance

Whatever workstation you want (PC/MAC/Build Your Own), Monitors out the wazoo. Seriously, I have 128GB of RAM and a GTX 1080, we don't skimp here.

$3,500 a year + 3 days conference budget

Gym Reimbursement Tuition Reimbursement

In NYC and Denver we have in house chefs

Unlimited sick time

Fully Paid Parental Leave

...but our people team is pretty empowered to make you happy.

And yeah, there's equity.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#186

Post by blakeyrat »

ZeroFries wrote: post #61
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #52

There is something not right with both having a salary system like this and having it available to the public. I know I personally would not like to work at SO just because of this. It seems demoralizing, because it reduces your relationship with the company down to rules, shifting responsibility away from people. It may seem attractive on the surface, but in the long run I don't think it will serve the employees or…

The 1-5 rating system is where personal judgement/responsibility come into play. If I were a very good developer but poor at negotiations, I would find this system to be the opposite of demoralizing.

If you were poor at negotiations, you'd probably also be poor at the skills required to get a "5" rating (selling your own accomplishments, etc.) I mean I don't know anything about you, but devil's advocate.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#187

Post by specialist »

tristor wrote: post #33

At my self-assessed skill level and years of experience, they're offering $11k/yr more for a "Developer" than a "Site Reliability Engineer". I find it interesting that they value someone in a "Developer" position higher than someone in a "Site Reliability Engineer" position. Having been an Ops person for my entire career and at the same time a competent developer in numerous languages and environments, I find this un…

A very good friend and senior, expert, skilled developer just transitioned into a DevOps position. I was very surprised. His motivation was to have a greater impact on the success of his org. Commendable.

I guess I did something similar when I served as a QA Manager, years ago. I loved the work and felt really good about the progress that team made.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#188

Post by sulam »

metaphorm wrote: post #181
ryandrake wrote: post #32

Before everyone inevitably piles on about how such-and-such a salary "seems low compared to That One Guy At Google I Know That Makes $300k", keep in mind average Bay Area salaries for software people in the Bay Area are not as large as you think. T.O.G.A.G.I.K. makes several standard deviations above the self reported mean of $100K-$105K [1][2] and BLS reported median [3][4] (around ~$125K or so depending on job func…

in addition to that, I think it should be pointed out that self-reported salaries on anonymous internet forums are highly susceptible to ego-driven inflation. I mean, it should be obvious, but people just lie all the time. even if they don't even make that salary they still want to say that they do because they have some notion that it will boost their status or something.

I can say as a hiring manager, engineer, and friend of recruiters -- these salaries are a little low compared to top tier tech companies at every level, at least for developers. By top tier here I mean Google, Facebook, etc.

They're not horribly low, and they're probably in range for 2nd-tier companies that you'd recognize but that I don't want to name because I don't have recent salary data for them.

Honestly I think they're fair, although I personally would end up having to ask what counts as living in SF, because if you tell me I don't live in SF because I'm 20 minutes outside the city, I would agree until I found out it lowered my salary by 15% (or w/e the percentage is). :)

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#189

Post by mahyarm »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #158
jc4p wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Stack Overflow. I don't think anyone can be _the_ very best and I think that's not a reasonable or attainable goal. We value T shaped developers, and our salary matrix values both spreading breadth (e.g. as a mobile dev if I up my skills in sysadmin or data science) or depth (which is a bit harder to do if you're already experienced) which fits into that nicely.

I don't know how to _not_ come off sounding argumentative here, so don't take this harshly, but: > I don't think anyone can be _the_ very best and I think that's not a reasonable or attainable goal. ... kinda proves my point of not needing a "five" rating.

But if someone happens to be the best and being the best is valuable then why not reward them?

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#190

Post by dpark »

JasonPunyon wrote: post #185
dpark wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there significant compensation not captured by this tool (bonus, equity, amazing benefits)? $132K for a "2" with 10 years experience just seems really low in NYC. $171K for a "5" seems really low, too, since that person would be principle at Google or Microsoft.

This is the standard stuff from our company page ( http://stackoverflow.com/jobs/companies/stack-overflow )... 20 days vacation (to start) Flextime No Copay Health Insurance Whatever workstation you want (PC/MAC/Build Your Own), Monitors out the wazoo. Seriously, I have 128GB of RAM and a GTX 1080, we don't skimp here. $3,500 a year + 3 days conference budget Gym Reimbursement Tuition Reimbursement In NYC and Denver…

Interesting. So you have good benefits, good vacation, and some equity (of questionable value, since it's not publicly traded), but nothing that adds another 30k in value to the package over your competitors. If the numbers from the calculator are accurate, I don't know how places like Google aren't vacuuming up all your senior+ devs. A principle dev at Google in NYC must get paid at least $200k. I'd bet the bottom end there is more like $250 with bonus and (tangible) equity grants.

Good for you guys for managing high retention. Something is keeping your devs happy and it's not the money.

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