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Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

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Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#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 function).

1: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa....

2: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en....

3: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41940.htm#15-0000

4: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41860.htm#15-0000

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#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 unsurprising but still a bit off-putting.

It does seem to be an industry-wide phenomenon, but at the end of the day it makes no sense to me why a company would value an employee less that is expected to keep their services up, rain or shine (which presumably make them money) vs someone who is presumably focused mostly on adding additional features (may make them money). This is especially vexing in light of the fact I've never met a highly qualified Ops person who wasn't also a skilled developer. Mostly I've found the opposite, developers (skilled or otherwise) who have next to zero understanding of systems concepts, networking, or automation.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#35

A couple of things that stood out. 1) I'd imagine stock options are part of the job, but I don't see that anywhere. Do new employee's get stock options? I'm guessing they keep this hidden as it allows them a bit more flexibility on offering signing bonuses to entice employee's they want to hire? 2) I don't see any section for bonus on the calculator. Do stackoverflow employee's not get bonuses? 3) Why are years of ex…

You should never calculate stock options, or bonuses into your base salary, ever. I don't care what anyone says. Bonuses, and stocks are exactly that. Bonuses and stocks. They are great when they are way up, and shitty when they are way down. For the first time in fifteen years, I didn't get a bonus, and the stock price is way down. Never, ever, let someone hiring you convince you otherwise. They tried this when I got hired, and I held out, until my base pay was something reasonable.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#37

A couple of things that stood out. 1) I'd imagine stock options are part of the job, but I don't see that anywhere. Do new employee's get stock options? I'm guessing they keep this hidden as it allows them a bit more flexibility on offering signing bonuses to entice employee's they want to hire? 2) I don't see any section for bonus on the calculator. Do stackoverflow employee's not get bonuses? 3) Why are years of ex…

You should never calculate stock options, or bonuses into your base salary, ever. I don't care what anyone says. Bonuses, and stocks are exactly that. Bonuses and stocks. They are great when they are way up, and shitty when they are way down. For the first time in fifteen years, I didn't get a bonus, and the stock price is way down. Never, ever, let someone hiring you convince you otherwise. They tried this when I go…

I disagree. While it might be difficult to calculate the value of stock options and bonuses, they are part of your compensation for working at the company. If the company gives you a car for free use, it's also a compensation. At least the tax office in the country I live taxes the car as a part of an income.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#38

Does anyone have an opinion self reported salary websites like glass door? Do they skew high or low? What about other online salary websites?

Considering the sheer number of fake reviews on Glassdoor, I'm not inclined to trust them with anything, including salary numbers.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#39

Very cool. Salaries seem on the low-end of the industry standards from what I've seen. $120k for 5 years of experience in the Bay-Area is pretty insulting.

It looks to me that it incentivizes working outside of SF, or NY. $110k for a developer with 5 years experience in Cleveland is just about right, if not on the higher end.

Whaa... I must be doing something wrong, because I'm in Dallas with 14 years of total engineering experience and 8 years of software engineering experience but have yet to break $93k.

Re: Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

#40

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…

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.
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