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Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

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Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad more companies don't up their 401k contributions, most people don't realize their employer can put in 40k a year (!!!) into an employee's 401k. Due to the wonders of tax law, that is equiv to 60k cash, and that isn't counting the earnings or the flexibility to reallocate 401k investments w/o having to pay taxes on earnings when changing where the money is invested.

One benefit of not working for Big Tech and instead for a privately held company, instead of stock grants I get 120% match up to 6% of my salary and an annual 4% profit sharing bonus into my 401(k). Sure, my actual salary could be higher working for a "proper" tech company, but I get more employer contributions into my retirement savings than the Google's, Microsoft's, and Amazon's of the world will give to an employ…

It's hard to see how this would beat Big Tech, where the standard match is 100% up to the 401k limit ($20,500) irrespective of income. Say your salary is $200K at private company, would be $240K at Big Tech. You'll be getting 1.2 * 0.06 * 200 = $14.4K in matching funds. The Big Tech employee would stash the full $20.5K into their 401K, get $20.5K match, and then end up about $35K ahead on post-retirement income.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't epwr's claim. His claim is that Washington has written and passed a law that binds Microsoft's operations outside Washington state, which I'm pretty sure would violate the commerce clause.

> His claim is that Washington has written and passed a law that binds Microsoft's operations outside Washington state, which I'm pretty sure would violate the commerce clause. The commerce clause does not prevent states from having laws which impact interstate commerce unless: (1) They are preempted by federal exercise of commerce clause powers (though that's really a supremacy clause issue), or (2) they discriminat…

Wouldn't this qualify under the dormant clause if it protected firms in Washington state by making it uneconomical for recruiting firms from elsewhere in the country to enter the Washington labour market? This isn't just about listing wages for positions in Washington state - it would be viral and would contaminate a business's operations everywhere. It would be very cozy for recruiting businesses that operate in Washington state exclusively.

This would kind of be like the Exxon case, but if Maryland had tried to prevent Exxon from having gas stations ANYWHERE in the US if they started doing business in Maryland.

"Enter if you dare, but all your business in the rest of the nation will be affected and you will lose your competitive edge vis-a-vis recruiting firms that stay out of Washington!"

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#273
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on what the other things are. Most years I get half of my take home pay in December because of my bonus (some of that is my 401k maxing out in November), there have been a couple bad years where the bonus was less, but at least I was able to keep my job. Keeping my job is a factor as well, since I have a family to support, if I'm laid off (like most companies do all the time) that means I'm scrambling to…

Out of curiosity, why does your 401k max out in November? If your employee does matching then wouldn’t you want to spread it as evenly as possible throughout the entire year?

If you assume a bull market it's best to max out the 401K ASAP, because if stock prices rise throughout the year you want to buy stock early before it gets expensive. A lot of FANG employees max out their 401K in January because they set their bonus 401K percentage to 100% and just fully fund their 401K from the bonus.

This strategy is getting reamed this year, but it's historically been a good bet about 85% of the time.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#274

It's incredible in these comments that so many of you who work in the industry on the employee side are arguing against having more transparency for the employee, and for having more leverage in the negotiating process for the employer instead. I want all the advantage as an employee that I can get. Any secret withheld from me is not to my advantage.

It's the old, "what if one day I'm the billionaire, then it might harm me!" combined with pride if they already have a high salary (in their opinion).

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Because everyone knows that once enough key employees live nearby It is almost like, in any context, centralization is bad. I am not sure why we has a civilization have to keep learning this lesson, over and over and over again Anytime you centralize anything it results in bad outcomes. Diversity, Diversification, Distributed Models, etc are ALWAYS preferable, I dont care if you are talking about Stocks, People, Ho…

Decentralization of people and housing == suburban sprawl, car dependency, tens of thousands of fatal collisions, the climate crisis, etc. Decentralization shifts the difficulty into communication/coordination, which is sometimes more tractable but also sometimes not.

Centralization of people is not "good" for the environment either, People are polluters, high levels of people in an area causes pollution as well

This is my problem with the studies on suburban sprawl is they do not factor in all of the things, they are generally only looking at one thing namely car and home pollution

Then you have Higher Crime, and a whole host of other matters that come with Dense Urban Centers that you do not get when people spread out.

On Balance I will take suburban sprawl over Urban Density every day, and twice on Sunday

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why the company is responsible at an individual level for what’s going on in the Bay Area. They can’t tell you how to manage and interact with the expenses of your life. If you’re mad at anyone, walk down to city hall and tell them to build more housing.

If the people in the company want to be good (and they should, because being good makes you happy), they will ensure the financial success of their workers. If the people in the company want to be bad (and they shouldn't, because being bad makes you unhappy), then they will callously disregard the needs of their workers, and say it's someone else's fault.

As the Baltimore philosopher Butchie put it: "Conscience do cost."

Feeling good makes people happy. What's measured to produce that feeling is the outcome of the am-I-good thing in your brain's evaluation of whatever you did, and Goodhart's law is always in effect. You can pay the cost of being good and earn a good evaluation—or you can do whatever you want, enjoy the rewards, and trick the am-I-good thing into always saying yes.

Since the latter method makes you feel good cheaper and faster, I'd expect it to be fairly common. In my experience it is.

So it's really option 3: do bad things and don't feel bad, with views on right and wrong aligned suspiciously precisely with your personal interests.

(Hopefully I've made it clear I'm not endorsing this, just describing it.)

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decentralization of people and housing == suburban sprawl, car dependency, tens of thousands of fatal collisions, the climate crisis, etc. Decentralization shifts the difficulty into communication/coordination, which is sometimes more tractable but also sometimes not.

Centralization of people is not "good" for the environment either, People are polluters, high levels of people in an area causes pollution as well This is my problem with the studies on suburban sprawl is they do not factor in all of the things, they are generally only looking at one thing namely car and home pollution Then you have Higher Crime, and a whole host of other matters that come with Dense Urban Centers th…

What specific forms of pollution besides transportation and home energy use do you think are important here? Humans are mainly polluters by virtue of our homes and cars, which a lot more intense in decentralized environments.

Suburbanites are at very high risk of life-altering consequences from the actions of other humans. Many of those actions are crimes (DUI, distracted driving, reckless driving), but worse, some are not even crimes (incompetent driving, tired driving, intentional killing of annoying cyclists). That we feel so differently about these compared to more traditionally urban forms of crime is just cognitive bias with a helping of racism.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#278

Individual states’ pay transparency laws are already applying upwards pressure on salaries across the country. My company has multiple groups in different states including Colorado, and in anticipation of needing to post salary ranges for our open positions in Colorado, my group (with no positions in Colorado) preemptively bumped up everyone’s salaries to the midpoint of their pay bands to avoid anyone becoming frust…

The noncompete thing is actually a much, much bigger deal than the pay transparency thing. I have a friend who is waiting out a 2Y noncompete that he foolishly agreed to in Texas.

So he’s getting paid full salary for two years and doing nothing? Sounds like a dream!

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decentralization of people and housing == suburban sprawl, car dependency, tens of thousands of fatal collisions, the climate crisis, etc. Decentralization shifts the difficulty into communication/coordination, which is sometimes more tractable but also sometimes not.

Centralization of people is not "good" for the environment either, People are polluters, high levels of people in an area causes pollution as well This is my problem with the studies on suburban sprawl is they do not factor in all of the things, they are generally only looking at one thing namely car and home pollution Then you have Higher Crime, and a whole host of other matters that come with Dense Urban Centers th…

The greenest place for humans to live is in dense cities. https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1418581766047105025

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One benefit of not working for Big Tech and instead for a privately held company, instead of stock grants I get 120% match up to 6% of my salary and an annual 4% profit sharing bonus into my 401(k). Sure, my actual salary could be higher working for a "proper" tech company, but I get more employer contributions into my retirement savings than the Google's, Microsoft's, and Amazon's of the world will give to an employ…

It's hard to see how this would beat Big Tech, where the standard match is 100% up to the 401k limit ($20,500) irrespective of income. Say your salary is $200K at private company, would be $240K at Big Tech. You'll be getting 1.2 * 0.06 * 200 = $14.4K in matching funds. The Big Tech employee would stash the full $20.5K into their 401K, get $20.5K match, and then end up about $35K ahead on post-retirement income.

You might want to go check the match of the big tech companies again.

Google: Greater of 100% up to $3000, or 50% up to contribution limit (whichever is greater)

Amazon: 50% up to 4%, vests after 3 years

Microsoft: 50% up to contribution limit

Facebook: 100% up to half of limit, 50% for the rest

Netflix: 100% up to 4%

I also don't just get the 120% up to 6%, I also get a fixed 4% of my salary contributed every year. So it's a hyothetical

    200 * .06 * 1.2 = 14.4
    200 * .04 = 8
    14.4 + 8 = 22.8
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