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The Programmer Salary Taboo

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Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#61

Post by lukev »

michaelochurch wrote: post #48
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 goin…

>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.

Really? I'm not sure about that.

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

I've never personally heard of a person getting upset upon discovering someone else's private salary.

I know lots of people who are dissatisfied because they're obviously far more valuable than a peer at the same level, and lots of people who are resented because of their parasitism at a higher-level job. (This is in the government system, where salaries are pretty transparent.)

All in all, transparent salaries don't really work that well for the government. What makes you think the corporate sector could do better?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#62

Post by MrFoof »

Salaries never stay secrets forever. Hiding them only delays the inevitable.

Last year we were having a discussion at lunch. Coworker was building a new house, and when it came to the numbers it was let loose that it was going to cost about $700K. This didn't seem like much, except to a young guy that joined the previous year and had done nothing but kick ass and take names. The new guy was arguably the most talented guy in the company by a considerable margin, so he thought someone building a $700K home might've been overextending themselves. The person buying the home retorted that it was reasonable and asked the new guy why he wouldn't buy the Porsche Boxster he considered his dream car. The new guy responded that would never be prudent. That didn't seem right, as several of us at the table could've nearly swung a Boxster with just our bonus.

The conversation ended up in numbers. Coworker building the house pulled about $140K base (median for a programmer was probably $125K), and his bonus nearly matched the new guy's salary, which was an insulting $60K -- and got cut out of the bonus and raise in January for not being there a full year, only 11 months.

Turns out he was a doormat in negotiating, though his salary history was cringeworthy. It pained everyone to hear it, considering how nice of a guy he was. In all honestly, $60K was a big step up for him. Worst of all, this wasn't a cheap market (Boston). The guy probably shortchanged himself well over a half-million dollars in the past decade. This was someone who voluntarily put in long hours and went out of his way to teach others, and did everything he could to help other departments like operations and other teams. On top, he was beyond frugal. Supposedly he saved something around 40% of his take home pay, despite living alone in Boston. He grew up in a trailer park.

He spent the next day in non-stop meetings with HR, his manager and the CTO. That Friday he simply handed in his badge without a word, walked out and never came back.

Until 3 months later. As a consultant. At $175/hour.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#63

Post by lukev »

okaramian wrote: post #56
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…

The problem is that when you're hiding salaries you can't really evaluate the market. Really by hiding that information you're giving the salary giver most of the power and those shopping around for a higher salary need to do a lot more work to evaluate how much they're worth on the market. I mean if Joe is doing half the work I'm doing, shouldn't he get paid significantly less? You're kind of attacking this from an…

Does the market really matter if I'm happy with what I'm being paid?

That's ultimately the motivation for my argument - in which system are the greatest number of actors likely to be content?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#64

Post by Tuna-Fish »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #10
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…

I rather suspect that full salary transparency would result in a race-to-the-top.

In Finland, tax data is public -- you can go look up what your coworkers are making without the consent of either them or their employers. I don't think it has caused a race to the top in any meaningful way.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#65

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#66

Post by kenjackson »

ig1 wrote: post #30

Or you can look at actual data: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151031.htm Average salary for a software engineer is $90k, for California $103k (this excludes "programmers" who just implement fully spec'd code).

who just implement fully spec'd code

Fully spec'd code? I hope the PMs are getting a raise, as I've yet to see such a thing!

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#67

Post by kenjackson »

ig1 wrote: post #32
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.

Are government salaries merit based or tenure based?

Both. Often times in places like the military merit is only achievable as a function of seniority. So after x number of years after getting a grade you qualify to be promoted to the next. Whether or not the promotion happens at that point in time is a function of merit (and social skills).

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#68

Post by okaramian »

lukev wrote: post #63
okaramian wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that when you're hiding salaries you can't really evaluate the market. Really by hiding that information you're giving the salary giver most of the power and those shopping around for a higher salary need to do a lot more work to evaluate how much they're worth on the market. I mean if Joe is doing half the work I'm doing, shouldn't he get paid significantly less? You're kind of attacking this from an…

Does the market really matter if I'm happy with what I'm being paid? That's ultimately the motivation for my argument - in which system are the greatest number of actors likely to be content?

I'm personally happy if I don't feel like I'm getting screwed for my time/output. I can't really judge that very well other than gut feeling if I don't know how much other individuals around me are making.

In order to find out if I'm getting boned I've had to go out and interview with other companies to pull offers to gauge the market, this is probably a net negative for all sides.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#69

Post by michaelochurch »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #64
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather suspect that full salary transparency would result in a race-to-the-top.

In Finland, tax data is public -- you can go look up what your coworkers are making without the consent of either them or their employers. I don't think it has caused a race to the top in any meaningful way.

Even if it causes a "race to the top", is that such a bad thing? Shouldn't most of the fruits of labor go to the people doing the work?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#70

Post by jfong »

nostromo wrote: post #55

Here's a trick I once heard to share salary with your coworkers without the uncomfortableness of finding out you are over or under-paid. Over beers with several of your coworkers, each write down your salary on a piece of paper and then mix them up. Randomly draw them out of a hat and then read them to each other. If you're all roughly peers, then you get all the benefit of knowing the salary range of the group, with…

Good idea! Although for the most part if you don't work with people you consider friends this subject would never come up.
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