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Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

open.bufferapp.com

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Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#181

Post by steveklabnik »

mrjatx wrote: post #173
steveklabnik wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you determine market pay when salaries are private? You end up with what we have now: looking at what companies post publicly for salary offers. Some companies don't publish those numbers publicly, and that's only 'new hire' salaries. So it's inaccurate.

You as the employee with that skill DETERMINE the market value. If every IOS developer refuses to work for $40k and want $80k the market will start having to pay $80k. Yeah there will be outliers, maybe someone desperate for a chance to prove themselves, or someone who was unemployed will take that $40k but that is not the market value. It's not some vooodoo a company makes up, you yourself have a direct affect on th…

Right, but it'd be easier, for example, for every iOS developer to not take $40k if they knew that other developers are being paid more.

Basically, keeping information private gives an advantage to the people who know the private info versus people who don't. If no information is private, that edge is lost, aka, a more level playing field.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#182

Post by Arnor »

baddox wrote: post #176
Arnor wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit (add quote for clarity) > I see this openness at buffer essentially being a tool for management to deny raise requests, etc... with... If we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody... More likely, the response would be along the lines of: "You'll get a raise when you qualify based on the criteria that have been clearly explained to you and the rest of the world."

Sure, but what does that have to do with salary openness?

Nothing, it was a direct response to the parent. I edited to clarify. Thanks.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#183

Post by Volscio »

mrjatx wrote: post #154
tikhonj wrote: post #134

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or les…

I disagree completely. You should, as the potential employee, be well aware of the market pay and what you are willing to be paid to perform the job that you're applying for. Not to mention their job postings actually list a salary window ($88-110k for Backend/Frontend). What the person sitting next to you is paid should bear absolutely no impact on your life or your work ethic. If you're happy to make $88k and the g…

"I can't fathom what being aware of your coworkers salaries could possibly do for positive team building."

Everyone knows what each other makes in the Army. When I was in, we never talked about relative pay at all. We didn't need to.

Oh, and we had tons of positive team building. :)

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#184

Post by qq66 »

swombat wrote: post #65
bjpless wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. Hard to imagine all employees signing off on this release for the sake of a HN article. But I hope that they did. I would be very upset if my salary were published unbeknownst to me.

You would only be upset because you currently work in a company with a culture that doesn't value transparency as a core value. If you worked in a company like Buffer or GrantTree, you'd be wondering why others are so secretive about their salaries, and find yourself more and more disliking the idea of working for a company which is not transparent. Habit is a powerful thing. Change your surroundings and you'll chang…

"Why don't you borrow money for a car from Cousin Ricky? I read online that he has a fancy job in San Francisco paying him $98,433, he can't say no."

"Why don't we break into this guy's apartment? I read online that he makes $98,433 and he should have some expensive stuff in there."

"Hello Sir, sorry to call at dinnertime but I'd like to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy the timeshare of your dreams. You should be able to easily afford it on your $98,433 salary."

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#185

Post by warmfuzzykitten »

owenmarshall wrote: post #80
JonFish85 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add on top of that, who says that this kind of transparency breeds trust? Transparency is great in some areas, terrible in others. Take away bathroom stalls to find an area where this isn't as true (extreme example). I trust co-workers when they do what they say they will, when they are respectful & smart, when they show up on time, when they tell me when I screwed up in a nice way, etc. I could care less what the…

>I could care less what they make--to me it would be a distraction. Are you 100% sure that you've valued yourself accurately? I played "show me yours and I'll show you mine" with a coworker once and he discovered that we were both working the same position but he was paid $8K less than me. The difference was that I negotiated my salary like crazy and he didn't. Information asymmetry is the best way for companies to e…

How did your coworker _feel_ when he got that information? Was he happier?

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#186

Post by kansface »

jonlucc wrote: post #26
wmeredith wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's pretty ballsy. Seems like they're exposing themselves to unnecessary poaching risk. And what do they do in that situation? What if someone has a competing offer and they want to keep them around? Offer a bonus?

It seems like they're ok with the poaching risk. I would assume most of their employees are happy enough, or they'd leave. I'm not sure having the salary posted is a big change from that perspective.

People don't work that way. There is quite a bit of discontent or discomfort people will put up with until they are sufficiently motivated to take action. The number of people who are underpaid by 30% and unwilling to look for another job is far greater than the number who would accept that offer once its in front of them.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#187

Post by lstamour »

sliverstorm wrote: post #118
DominikR wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say I'm a competitor, and I find that Niel (randomly picked) is someone I want to hire. All else being equal, I offer him $100k (website says he's making $88k). He comes to his boss to say "I like it here, can you match it? This happens all the time anyways, hiding the salary of the employee isn't going to make any difference in most cases. And is it so hard to guess what some (say iOS engineer) earns? The sa…

Of course on the other hand it could mean your salary haunts you during future interviews and at future jobs. Salary Negotiation 101 is, don't tell them what your old salary was, right? But now the cards are all on the table, and they'll try to say "Well, I see you made $X, we'll beat that by 4%"

There's a difference between salary history and salary expectations.

And if they had the nerve to Google your past salary, then I think you could turn that around and ask for a similar matrix to what you had at your last, more transparent company.

If they refuse, and you can't justify the salary to yourself given the situation, you're probably better off staying at the transparent company. There's more to a job than money, after all.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#188

Post by lstamour »

JonFish85 wrote: post #85
DominikR wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say I'm a competitor, and I find that Niel (randomly picked) is someone I want to hire. All else being equal, I offer him $100k (website says he's making $88k). He comes to his boss to say "I like it here, can you match it? This happens all the time anyways, hiding the salary of the employee isn't going to make any difference in most cases. And is it so hard to guess what some (say iOS engineer) earns? The sa…

No, the fear would be that employees look at someone with a 3x salary differently than they would if they didn't know what his salary was. It's just a distraction. I don't know how much my boss makes. It could be half what I make, it could be triple. I don't really care. If I found out suddenly that it's triple what I make, then maybe I'd look at him differently. Does he bring in 3x value to the company compared to m…

I remember hearing about a Brazilian company where employees could pick their own salary, and everything was totally transparent. The catch, of course, is that you have to continue to show you're "worth" that salary. And if you don't hit deliverables, well, maybe your salary or expectations should change.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#189

Post by truthlaidbear »

digz wrote: post #47
untog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chief Anything Officer should probably be paid more than engineers, or they shouldn't have the words Chief and Officer in their title. And that seems like a very developer-centric viewpoint. Yes, good customer service can add a lot to a company's bottom line. Some companies have huge engineering issues and need engineers to solve them. Some companies have huge sales issues and need sales people to solve them. Some…

Disagree. The founders of my company (including me) are paid less than almost everyone else that works with us. I know few rigorous investors that would stand to pay their CEO/founders more than ~80k a year, at least until it's clear the company is maturing. Also, as a founder with significant equity, I'd much rather put as much of my salary that I can spare (My wife and I need to eat, pay rent, etc.) to go towards b…

>You're building an app to schedule tweets. This is not rocket science. Get to work!

You're building an app to post 140 character strings. You're building a closed blog network. You're putting ads on a website.

ETC, etc, etc.

You sound like an idiot.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#190

Post by zmitri »

humanrebar wrote: post #160
zmitri wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. For less than that amount I had a floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn, 20-30 minute commute via subway, paid off 10 year student loans in It's that's "only" middle class, the world is in serious trouble.

Sounds middle class to me. Having a few months expenses in the bank and a 30 minute commute. Checks out modulo crime rate and quality of local public schools, both of which vary a lot in Brooklyn.

How long have you lived in New York?
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