[s1t5]

> determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company

Nobody does this. It's not even possible apart from the most contrived cases. Salary is determined by a number of factors none of which have anything to do with the employee's worth to the company.

[kyriakos]

I agree that it's not happening but this is how it should be happening.

[BeetleB]

I believe that s1t5 is trying to say no one does it because it is very hard to do.

Especially in a bigger company, where the work you do is tied to so many others' work in the company (sales, etc) - how do you expect them to figure out what the value of the work you did is, vs your teammates, let alone vs all the non-SW folks involved?

Example: You could have done a great job, but someone further down the pipeline screwed things up and the product never got released, and your code is never reused. This is a case where your work produced no value to the company (through no fault of your own). Should you get paid $0?

[mandelbrotwurst]

> "none of which have anything to do with"

This is hyperbole, right?

[BeetleB]

Not by much. Salary is mostly decided by supply and demand. These are tied to your worth to the company, but very loosely.