[jawns]

My career path was 10 years in journalism, during which I was also programming as part of my responsibilities, and now 11 years in full-time software development.

Under Daily's levels system, I'd have 11 years of "direct" experience and 5 years of "indirect" experience, for a total of 16 years of experience, putting me in their highest band (Level 7) with a salary of $270K.

But as I've told every employer who's hired me since leaving journalism, and particularly as I've transitioned from an IC to a manager, those years of experience in journalism were invaluable. I learned how to ask the right questions; how to handle the stress of always being on deadline; how to be a generalist, quickly learning enough about a subject that you can clearly explain it to others; how to communicate effectively in general; and many other skills that are absolutely relevant today.

Obviously, it wouldn't matter for this banding whether those years are treated as "indirect" or "direct" experience -- I'd be in Level 7 either way -- but I could see it matter for others.

Full disclosure: I applied to Daily last year but they ended up filling the position with an internal candidate.

[Mezzie]

Yes, the years of experience metric greatly underestimates the value brought by rare synergies.

I'm a decent programmer/developer, but that isn't my primary worth to a company. My primary worth to a company is that I'm a competent developer with additional specializations in both high-level research and media relations/communications.