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Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

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Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#271

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Isn’t it a stretch to call it “socialism” that the same job at the same company with two people who have the same set of skills “socialism”? In that case though since a free market is conditioned on both sides having equal knowledge would you be okay if employees were forced to disclose all employees salaries?

It certainly begins to play into the realm of Socialism when one advocates that there should be laws in place which mandate salary laws which restrict an individual's ability to negotiate for themselves. I'm not saying that you're necessarily advocating for that because I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I have been involved in a number of discussions with people who are interested in exploring that path. >…

certainly begins to play into the realm of Socialism when one advocates that there should be laws in place which mandate salary laws which restrict an individual's...

Strangely enough you were the only one to bring up anything about laws being passed.....

Are you also opposed to the government forcing products like cigarettes to have disclaimers where the buyer can decide to buy them or not knowing the risk involved?

Would you be okay with all of the products you buy having no prices and people getting better prices based on negotiation?

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#272
post #38

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When people in the US talk about disadvantaged minorities, they generally mean minorities in the US. And a bunch of white American male software engineers disclosing their salaries can definitely help black and female software engineers.

Are black and female software engineers in USA right now the demographic that really needs helping? Im not American, so I probably need clarification, but what is their current situation compared to white males in the same position at a company?

Absolutely. And it isn't always about discrimination. People who consider themselves outsiders in the field will usually jump on the first offer they get, while the expected practice would be to get multiple offers and negotiate. They will also not ask for raises and promotions as much as their co-workers. Both of these result in a sizable disparity in salary, even though they may be higher performing than their co-workers.

Seeing a list of "here's what people around you are making" is VERY helpful to give one the confidence to finally ask for that raise they deserve.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#273
post #188

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Situations like this make me wonder how much money there is to be made by going remote.

I live in Germany and work for US companies, which is quite lucrative. I only work a few months a year.

Are you a consultant? How specialized are you, and how do you find projects?

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#274
post #253

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Welcome to Europe. European salaries in general are low. Take home pay too, and goods and services are much more expensive. It's important for people to realize this, that "free" healthcare, education, etc. are far from free.

I'll take "paid parental leave, not being let go on a moment's notice and not being bankrupted by unforeseen medical issues for everybody" over "a bit more cash just for me". It's also worth noting that the U.S' "not free" healthcare costs the taxpayer more than (for example) the U.K.'s "free" system ( https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... ). It's almost as if the word 'free' is not a useful…

It's somewhat disgusting but these aren't issues faced by many tech workers. We're paid well, hard to hire, and get great benefits.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#275
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany and work for US companies, which is quite lucrative. I only work a few months a year.

Are you a consultant? How specialized are you, and how do you find projects?

I'm blogging for 3 years now and wrote a book about React, so projects are mostly coming to me.

At the moment I try to make a living by blogging (mostly ghostwriting) less risk than software development, okay-ish pay and flexible work. I also got a teaching gig at a university here, teaching frontend and mobile development.

When I started, I found projects by simply looking online for offers and write emails to companies.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#276

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If you know what your coworkers make, you have a better idea what you can negotiate up to than if you didn't. That's true even if you can't go into a discussion and name names and dollar amounts that you know. If a coworker told me their compensation, I would not reveal that in a discussion about my own pay. I hope that the reverse is also true. I think it's a mature and cool-headed position to have. Not everybody is…

I can “hope” that my coworkers wouldn’t bring my name up. But I’m not putting my career in the hands of my coworkers.

Would hate to work in the kind of environment where coworkers don't trust each other. At last big tech company, people willingly added their compensation to an internal spreadsheet.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#277

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US median family income was $60,336 in 2017, and $71,805 in California[1]. Junior developers in Silicon Valley have starting salaries around $110000, and I've heard for new college graduates getting up to $150K. I.e. twice median family income. You cannot have these high salaries without someone else getting shafted. There simply isn't enough money for everyone to be earning like this. Whether you consider inequality…

> US median family income was $60,336 in 2017 You're comparing full-time software development income versus the literal median income (which also includes people working few hours). That's your first mistake in the comparison. The median full-time individual income in the US is close to $50,000 now. Junior developers in SV are getting $110k? The BLS numbers are such that the US median for all 1.4 million software dev…

I'm not saying economic growth does not exist. I've replied to essentially the same point in other comments in this thread.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#278

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I wish there were just a little better filtering/sorting on their data. I want to know what people with my years of experience, in my metro area, in my specialization are making. You can kind of get some of that info, in certain forms. If their data (the data that is already publicly viewable on their website) were in a relational database I could write a query in about 60 seconds to pluck out what I want to know.

That level of breakdown would probably make deanonymization too easy.

They could set a minimum number of people in the results to be > $THRESHOLD or you'd get "not enough data". I believe Facebook ended up doing something similar after a college student targeted his room mate with a number of overly-specific FB ads, wrote about it, and the story went viral (before 2016 elections)

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#279

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> We both make the company the same amount of money. This is a common mistake. Compensation isn’t directly related to the value you produce. The value you produce for the company only sets an upper limit on long-term compensation. Instead, your compensation reflects your opportunity cost of staying with the company. The company seeks to pay you the minimum amount required for you to continue working with them versus…

Thank you for the deep dive. I'm curious what the effect of a global market and the ability for, say, a software engineer, to work 100% remote have on the "car mechanic" argument. If car mechanics could universally work on my car from anywhere in the world, it seems to me they'd all be charging the same. So yeah, either they'd all charge whatever the dude in SF is charging, or the dude in SF couldn't compete with the…

(I'll take a stab at this, but my knowledge is rather limited on this one so take it with a grain of salt).

Markets are a mix of locality. Some markets have more global reach than others.

The car mechanic example is a mostly local one, with the car parts being shipped from somewhere else, maybe in the same country or outside, which might take some influence on the price. Operation cost is local (rent, labor, other supplies) and customers are local, so the prices on mechanic services are stable and location based.

Software engineering has more global reach. It can be done remotely, but the labor is a mix of local and global (learning online, but also local universities, conferences, meetups), which justifies the pay gap between a local to the company (excluding timezone and culture differences, which makes the process and supply size smaller). It's also hard to evaluate the quality of work (see difficulties in hiring, analyzing performance).

The strongest argument I see is the cost of comfort (made somewhere else on this thread). Wages are largely decided on what other companies are paying and remote is a fairly new thing, so it's still highly unstable.

Pricing on products are also notoriously difficult. Some apps have prices adjusted by region.

Re: Developer salary spreadsheet compiled from tweets

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably exactly the point. They disclose salary info in a global forum without any context. For example, to begin with: what country is this? What city? Is this before or after tax? If this is before tax, how much do you pay in taxes? etc. etc. etc. People joining in continue this trend, often with quips like "I make $145k a year, I'm underpaid". WTF? How is that underpaid ? Oh? You probably mean "underpaid i…

It’s only a “dick measuring” contest if either you tie your self worth to salary or you think they do. When I see software developer salaries for SV companies, I’m mildly curious but I don’t look at them in envy. The two trade offs would be moving to the west coast and working for large companies. I’m interested in neither.

> It’s only a “dick measuring” contest if either you tie your self worth to salary or you think they do.

It is such a contest no matter what you think or do. I'll let this mini-thread articulate it better than I ever could: https://twitter.com/HeidyKhlaaf/status/1228605658393718784

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