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The Programmer Salary Taboo

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Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#91

Post by chrislomax »

I'm at a company as a senior developer. I know the other senior developer is on more money than me but it doesn't bother me. He is more experienced than me and brings a lot to the table. I have been at the company longer and got the development team going, I even hired the guy. I will continue to be "above" him in a respect as I am part of the decision making team about which routes to go down.

I value the development work more than the decision making though so I stand by the fact that it doesn't bother me he is on more.

You wouldn't accept a job if you were not happy with the conditions, its a two way street. If they offer you a job then you decide whether you want to take it or not, they don't force your hand.

I know I could get 10k more than I am on now if I moved to another company but I'm not in my MD's office telling him I'm leaving because I know this fact. I believe in company values, I am helping a company grow. We are relatively small and I have a chance to make a big difference.

When your work is your life (If you are a dev then your work IS your life), then it's more about the experience than the cash.

But if someone came along and offered me £100k to do my job, I would take it. I'm loyal enough to stay but I'm not stupid enough not to go.

I once worked for a company where I bragged about a massive pay rise, I was young and stupid. It led to a lot of hard feelings. I had been promoted to manager and given some great responsibilities. I ended up losing a lot of friends short term (they got over it) but I learnt a valuable lesson, even if they money you were offered comes from a position above you, you are condemed for taking it.

A lot of people hate to see other people do well for themselves, all the people who say that they should openly discuss their wages are either on a decent package or they genuinely do not care what other people are on. All the people that want to keep it private understand that it only leads to upset and arguments.

If you can be close enough to a work colleague for them not to take it personally then go for it, I would not say an open forum of discussing wages is a good idea though.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#92

Post by swombat »

Tycho wrote: post #82
jrockway wrote: post #2

I've always wanted to write exactly this blog post. Keeping your salary confidential is great for big companies, but it benefits you in no way. You should be making what your coworkers make. If you make less, you're being fucked, plain and simple. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can remedy the situation. Sadly, some people go their whole careers without doing so. FWIW, my first programming job only paid $…

Hmmm... when I graduate I'd definitely take a £18000 p/a job. I mean it seems at this age getting your foot in the door, getting started and putting some 'commercial experience' on your CV is far more important than the actual salary. On the other hand, if I could make a living doing freelance web development, then I could build that up until I have an income that employers would need to match (rather than just throw…

Tip: When asked about my salary expectations for my first job, I said "£20-24k". I got £22k. Many of the other people who started alongside said lower figures - and that's what they got.

Don't quote something way out of the range of the company you want to work for, but don't undersell yourself either. You'll probably get what you asked for... £15-25k is dirt cheap anyway, for any large corporation, but that £10k makes a whole lot of difference to your life.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#93

Post by njharman »

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…

> So the company is a bit screwed in this situation.

Yes, and the problem is the company is passing on (externalizing) that screwedness onto their employees.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#94

Post by wging »

MrFoof wrote: post #62

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…

$175/hour * 40 hours/week * 50 weeks/year = $350,000/year, for anyone else (like me) who can't immediately estimate equivalent yearly rates.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#95

Post by JangoSteve »

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…

He's no better than the other 9 people you have already hired.

Except, for the purpose of salary, he is better than the other 9 people you have already hired, in that he has a competing offer and the others didn't. Unfortunately, it's not just about programming skill, it's about marketability.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#96

Post by derwiki »

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.

But what if it had already cost $10k in resources to recruit him and get him this far? What if it costs $10k to find the next person who will accept $100k? Then it's a wash, and all you've done is lost time.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#97

Post by kragen »

ewams wrote: post #79
AretNCarlsen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though you have to pay your own taxes -- probably 30%, in the end -- and your own medical.

You pay your own taxes now.

In the US, there's a Social Security payroll tax (previously 12.4%, now 10.4%) that's split between employer and employee. Self-employed people pay it themselves; their clients don't.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#98

Post by njharman »

m_myers wrote: post #74
dstein wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to CNN's cost of living calculator ( http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.htm... ): $100,000 in Mountain View, CA = $58,302 in Austin, TX = $73,992 in Seattle, WA = $71,306 in Chicago, IL = $61,660 in Cleveland, OH And from a quick skim down any real estate listing for Mountain View, CA I think these numbers might be a bit on the high side.

Interesting; it turns out I make right around MV$100,000. Never realized that. But given two roughly equal-valued salaries, I think the higher absolute salary is still superior. Savings, for instance, don't scale with cost of living; saving 20% of $100,000 is much different from saving 25% of $40,000.

But cost of living can mean you save none of the $100,000 and lots of the lower salary.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#99

Post by cookiecaper »

euroclydon wrote: post #87
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…

Here's what I though you were going to say: You're hiring up an engineering team. You have five slots. Four are filled at market salaries. The four people range in productivity from marginal to good-at-stuff-no-one-else-likes, but none of them are that great. You almost have to keep the four folks, because they're entrenched in deliverables and plus, they've shown their dedication to the company. In walks a candidate…

The first step should be giving some disclosure to the candidate. Say, "55k? You're so silly. We'd hire you for much more than that, we only pay fair salaries here. Let me talk to my people and see what we can make available."

If the other people aren't providing a value commensurate with their compensation, you should fire them whether you have an expensive replacement on tap or not. If they are providing such a value, it's probably better to keep them in place. Too often people overestimate new hires and underestimate the value of institutional knowledge. But if you have people that need to be fired anyway, that'd be a good opportunity to do it.

If your bosses think you're an idiot, you should leave. If you ask the board for more money and they have more money to give, they'll probably give it, unless they think you're an idiot, and then you should quit.

If there's no way you can get the additional allocation, just tell the candidate that you'll hire him at 55k for now if he's still interested and give him a bump when the money for a raise materializes.

If you're upfront with people, life is much easier, and you'll find yourself looking over your shoulder much less. :)

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#100

Post by slashcom »

wging wrote: post #94
MrFoof wrote: post #62

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…

$175/hour * 40 hours/week * 50 weeks/year = $350,000/year, for anyone else (like me) who can't immediately estimate equivalent yearly rates.

$x/hour * 40 hr/wk * 50 wk/yr = 2n1000

The general rule is always "times 2, add 3 zeros" to do it in your head.

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