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The Programmer Salary Taboo

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Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#271

Post by gnosis »

nvarsj wrote: post #195
tzs wrote: post #36

Wait...Google starts at $100k/year for people fresh out of college with an undergraduate degree? So what do they go up to for people with experience?

I think the best, non-hearsay source for this is anonymous data at glassdoor.com. Google has quite a lot of data there as well (over 500 reports from San Jose/Mountain View). http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-San... 533 Salaries - Mean is 107,174, with a range of [70, 133]. Median is about 100K. Bonuses are underreported in comparison. But of 24 reports, the bonus is 18K on average. This includ…

"non-hearsay source"?

What do they do, let you see people's W-2's?

Remember, people can lie.

And many people feel it's in their interests to lie regarding salaries. How can you even be sure the people who are reporting some salary figure on glassdoor.com even ever had the job they claimed to have had, never mind reported an accurate salary?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#272

Post by rapind »

jurjenh wrote: post #196
rapind wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 75% efficiency I assume you mean 3/4 * 2 * $175 * 1000 = $262,500 / year. 3/4 on it's own is less than %40 efficiency. I.e. Taking half the year off. You also just stated the same thing slashcom did while meaning to correct him?

yes, quite right... maybe I should go and lie down somewhere... But hey, at 75% efficiency at a half year's work at that rate I could probably afford it...

quite true ;)

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#273

Post by praptak »

ajg1977 wrote: post #153
brooksbp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please shed some light on what would be a good strategy to follow if you were in his position talking to HR, manager, CTO? What's the best way to save yourself once you've realized you're worth nearly double, triple, or quad your current comp pkg?

Honestly, the best way to obtain your newly-discovered market worth is to leave and find another job. In almost every job your only chance of negotiating a competitive salary is before you start. Sure, you can talk to HR and your manager and perhaps see some form of bump in salary, but if you're significantly underpaid then a) it's likely other people are too and they won't want to rock the boat, b) there's a decent…

This is a sad fact. There are huge (irrational?) barriers for giving employees big raises or bonuses. Take Borland for example - they'd rather sue Microsoft for brain-drain (i.e. paying the employees more) than match the offers: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-279561.html

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#274

Post by rglullis »

rglullis wrote: post #210
rlpb wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to knock up salaryshare.com? (oh look, it's already registered)

I just registered salaryshare.me. Let me see if I can get something going tonight.

Done and done! http://salaryshare.me

I also submitted it to HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2441888

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#275

Post by danssig »

masterzora wrote: post #242
icedpulleys wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a considerable difference between having a sense of entitlement and being rational.

Clearly. And this difference is exactly what we're seeing a lot of here. Rational: "I am unhappy with $60,000 because it does not meet my needs." Entitlement: "I was happy with $60,000 until I found out Fred was making $61,000."

Wrong.

Irrational: "I'm working in a free market world but I should just take what ever the company offers me and be happy"

Rational: "I'm working in a free market, selling my time so my time is also subject to market rates. I just found out a guy who has, IMO, lower market value makes more than me. This means something is out of whack. I view my market value higher than it really is, his lower than it really is, or I'm not earning my market rate even though my company (and CEO!) are"

The only entitlement in this picture is you two giving proxy entitlement to the companies to make even more money by underpaying everyone.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#276

Post by danssig »

jinushaun wrote: post #88

Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money for the sake of money just leads to accelerating inflation across the board. As far as I am concerned, salary is just a number and people can live just fine on $50,000 if they we weren't such a consumerist society.

I'm sorry but this is an utterly ridiculous, borderline offensive comment. Companies want to outsource because they want to keep more money themselves. Executive salaries have risen practically exponentially. Why is it that only the workers have to suck in their belt? If we should be happy living on $50k/yr then what the ever loving fuck do they need with MILLIONS per year?

If companies want to try and outsource then let them. They've tried and yet we're still all employed. Why? Because the market has spoken. This is what it costs to develop, full stop. People getting paid less than this are just an arbitrage situation in the company's favor.

It has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with those who have some understanding of how the market works and those who are utterly ignorant of it.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#277

Post by bphogan »

lukev wrote: post #35

As a developer who, admittedly, has never had trouble finding a salary I'm satisfied with, and who is comfortable negotiating, I'm not a fan of transparency. It seems like it would cause more problems than it solves. If salaries are private, then salary is purely a function of negotiation between employer and employee. Presumably both are happy, or at least happy enough not to terminate the relationship. If salaries…

I can't upvote this enough.

Most people can (and shoul) say NO to salary history questions, and only provide salary requirements. I just finished working on a group to hire someone for a state job. One candidate came from another state job and so his salary history was visible. It immediately put him at a disadvantage.

If I was to move to the private sector, I'd be at a disadvantage too - my salary history and benefits package is public info too.

When someone else besides you and your current employer knows your salary information, you lose.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#278

Post by danssig »

plus2 wrote: post #221

We need to remember "you are not your salary". Comments like "an insulting $60,000" or "only $100,000" makes me shake my head. Your salary is not something you have to brag about.Your worth is not determined by your salary. A developer can create millions of dollars in value. Think how much value DHH created with Rails or Linus with Git and Linux. Or Damien with CouchDB. Remember Steve Jobs salary is $1 a year. Our g…

DHH, Linus and Damien all got publicity from what they created. In marketing terminology, they did a "loss leader" and it worked. Jobs' salary is $1 a year but that's not what his stock options are. How do you think the man got to be worth billions?

>Our goal as hackers is to create value, millions of dollars worth of value.

I do want to create things and I don't care about how much money what I create is worth. Sadly, my landlord doesn't see it this way. I have to buy in a free market and work in a free market, why would I purposely avoid participating in one when it comes to my salary (i.e. my only hope to ever actually get to hack on what I care about hacking on)?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#279

Post by teamonkey »

smokinn wrote: post #45
teej wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cost of living adjustment is one of the easiest calculations to do. Is it as simple as this ( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+in+mount... ), or did I misunderstand your point? It doesn't seem that complicated to take a $100k salary point and normalize for cost of living.

Seems like a good idea but I doubt the data is very accurate. I live in Montreal which is well known to be one of the cheapest places to live in North America (very cheap housing, very cheap energy, etc.) but WA puts Montreal as the most expensive? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+in+mount...

And this is utterly ridiculous.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+Montreal+to...

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#280

Post by danssig »

hugh3 wrote: post #116
dbjacobs wrote: post #20

When working for the federal government everyone knows everyone else's salary. So it can be done, and is generally less corrosive than hidden salaries.

Would you say that the Federal Government is a hotbed of competence and hard work, though?

Would you say that the private sector is free of labor exploitation, though?
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