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The Programmer Salary Taboo

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Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#41

Post by michaelochurch »

harryh wrote: post #29

Consider a hypothetical scenario for the person on the other side of the table: You are hiring up an engineering team and hope to hire up a team of 10 engineers paying 100k/yr each. So far you've hired 9 people at 100k and are working on filling that last slot. You find someone perfect but he has a competing job offer and is asking for 110k/yr instead of just 100. He's no better than the other 9 people you have alrea…

Several strategies exist:

1. Bump everyone to $105k and ask if he's willing to take that number. If he's going to turn the job down over $5,000, do you really want him?

2. Offer him a $10,000 signing bonus and the same salary as everyone else.

3. Hire him at $110k but give him more responsibility-- including tasks that the other developers don't want to do, such as responsibility for 3:00 am phone calls when the database dies. How many people are going to complain about someone else making 10% more than they are when that "someone else" is taking on the worst projects with a smile and giving them more time to work on the good projects?

4. Discuss it with the team. Are they willing to hire this person at a higher salary than they are themselves going to get? Maybe they think he's quite good and want to work with him. Maybe they think he's not worth it. There's a lot of valuable information that can come out of this discussion.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#42

Post by jhamburger »

psadauskas wrote: post #34
harryh wrote: post #29

Consider a hypothetical scenario for the person on the other side of the table: You are hiring up an engineering team and hope to hire up a team of 10 engineers paying 100k/yr each. So far you've hired 9 people at 100k and are working on filling that last slot. You find someone perfect but he has a competing job offer and is asking for 110k/yr instead of just 100. He's no better than the other 9 people you have alrea…

Keep the offer at 100K. If he's no better than the others, you can find another one. If you keep missing out on hiring because other companies pay more, then you need to raise your standard salary, because all your other engineers will jump ship within a year or two.

Well these engineers weren't savvy enough to figure out that they could make 110K right now. Who's to say they will in two years? Or maybe you just give them a raise to 110K in two years and they'll be happy with that and never figure out they're worth 125K now.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#43

Post by GrooveStomp »

joezydeco wrote: post #15

My teeth always grind when I read articles like this. Yes, you can make $100K at Google. In Mountain View, California. How does that correlate to someone doing the same job in Austin, Seattle, Chicago, or Cleveland? The cost of living swings greatly when you depart the west coast. Decent wage databases will add another variable to the position and experience axes: the geographic area where the job is offered. (Exampl…

I wonder what the difference is like between Canada and the States? It must be lower in Canada, even in Vancouver, BC with all the expenses here. Still, I'm sure I'm making well below what I should be. Well, whatever the situation, I'm happy I'm working at a fantastic place with great people and interesting work! I also make far more money than I need to live comfortably.

[edit] I make far less than $100 000.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#45

Post by smokinn »

teej wrote: post #21
joezydeco wrote: post #15

My teeth always grind when I read articles like this. Yes, you can make $100K at Google. In Mountain View, California. How does that correlate to someone doing the same job in Austin, Seattle, Chicago, or Cleveland? The cost of living swings greatly when you depart the west coast. Decent wage databases will add another variable to the position and experience axes: the geographic area where the job is offered. (Exampl…

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...

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#47

Post by mgkimsal »

elbrodeur wrote: post #14
michaelochurch wrote: post #7

I actually think full transparency on salary could make this nasty issue go away. Post what everyone is making and let people negotiate a fair package. There would be some transitional pain in the first 2 months, and payroll costs might go up 10 percent, but people would be happier in the long run. Why use inaccurate gossip instead of full transparency? What drove up compensation in banking in the 2000s was inaccurat…

Transparency would also level the playing field in terms of negotiations. Whether or not you are a good negotiator should not affect how much you get paid for most types of positions. As it stands, in most companies, negotiation is welcome and if you're savvy, you can get all sorts of perks that someone who is not savvy will be unable to get. I'm a big fan of salary transparency -- the last startup I was a part of pr…

"Hey, I'm performing at or above this person's level, I should be compensated accordingly".

The value you bring to the organization should be the deciding factor, and your performance relative to someone else might be a way to measure this, but probably isn't a good measure.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#48

Post by michaelochurch »

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 disagree. First of all, workplace social conflicts develop very fast and are often irrational in nature. If salaries are public knowledge, then people have time to accept that there's just that one incompetent guy making 20% more than he should and within a few hours they forget about it. It's mildly annoying, but as long as people are happy with what they're making and with their own job security, they aren't going to risk their jobs or reputations over it. It's when secrets are discovered that people become irrational, angry, and vindictive. Othello teaches this lesson. Dude discovers a scarf in the wrong place and loses all sense of reason, and kills his innocent wife in the process.

People would get angry and leave in a public-salary system. My contention is that people discover a lot of this information anyway and get more angry in a private-salary system.

Annual performance bonuses should probably be secret. The ranges or "buckets" for each year/class/job description should be public; who fell into what bucket should be private.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#49

Post by michaelochurch »

gavingmiller wrote: post #40
michaelochurch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fog Creek has a "ladder" system based on some fairly objective criteria. Based on years of experience and certain assessments of project scope and skill level, each employee gets a number between 8 and 16 that determines pay. This means that compensation is based on performance. Now, the only point of controversy is whether the employee and employer agree on performance. If there's a discrepancy there, at least there…

Could you elaborate on this criteria?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Ladder.html

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#50

Post by egor83 »

gavingmiller wrote: post #40
michaelochurch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fog Creek has a "ladder" system based on some fairly objective criteria. Based on years of experience and certain assessments of project scope and skill level, each employee gets a number between 8 and 16 that determines pay. This means that compensation is based on performance. Now, the only point of controversy is whether the employee and employer agree on performance. If there's a discrepancy there, at least there…

Could you elaborate on this criteria?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/04/01.html more links inside

older version http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html

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