[pessimizer]

> The company pays you $$$ in exchange for your time and talent. That's the deal.

I'd disagree. They pay me for a specific amount and type of output, the same way they would for a new piece of machinery. It's not indentured servitude; they don't own me. If they just owned me, I wouldn't charge different rates for different things. A salary doesn't change that - a salary is just your assurance of my availability.

[Mauricebranagh]

Not for salaried jobs they don't (which is going to be almost all HN readers jobs) - piece work like Amazon delivery drivers is different.

[nataz]

Generally when you are on salary, you get paid a set amount of money for some number of hours worked annually.

You don't get paid different rates for different work.

While it is possible to have a salary position with expected outputs (teach x classes a semester, launch 1 product per quarter, etc.) the better position descriptions will talk about responsibilities not metrics.

[novok]

The point of being paid a salary vs per hour is that your entire time worked is abstract & non specific. It's also why salaried workers are usually exempt from overtime laws.

Our pay is also based on demand for our skills, based on the value it delivers, balanced with it's supply, which is why a software engineer is paid more than a McDonalds worker. If I could hypothetically produce the output of 100 google software engineers and I charged the price of 90 of them, any company would take me up for my offer and would be out competed by companies who didn't.

The fact that companies try to get the most for their money is just human nature and opportunistic. We don't need to actually go along with it, and nobody should feel guilty about doing the same with their employer too. If your a sales guy, you're considered a bad sales guy if you don't aggressively negotiate the best offer possible, engineers should not feel shy about doing the same too.

[meiraleal]

When you are on salary, you don't get paid to write code during all the time you are working. I can think about a problem for 6 hours and work 2 hours and fully deliver what the company expects from me.