[rsavage]

What tech needs is transparent salaries from businesses.

Buffer leads the way (https://buffer.com/salaries) and at my startup we have transparent salaries too (https://www.runn.io/careers)

I wish more tech founders would do the right thing - rather than trying to hide reality will only ends up unfairly hurting under represented groups and those who aren’t strong negotiators.

[andsoitis]

Buffer might lead the way with respect to transparency but at first glance those salaries don’t look very competitive.

[JohnCurran]

I feel I must ask where you live / what competitive salaries look like to you, because as far as I know, a software developer salary of $190,000 USD+ in Barcelona, Spain is eye-poppingly high

[stopagephobia]

I think he's talking about runn where the compensation honestly looks terrible: $43k as a junior and under $80k as a senior. I wonder if the goal of transparency there isn't to avoid wasting time with the majority of people who won't put up with a salary that low.

[rsavage]

I am sure it’s low in the Silicon Valley. Here in NZ - we are the highest paid tech juniors I know off. Most offer around 60k NZD.

Need to remove your US bias. However - the whole point of transparent is that everyone knows.

If the salary is low for you, you will never apply. But you know exactly what you’ll be paid, and know it’s the same as everyone else doing the same role/level.

That is the benefit to being transparent - it doesn’t have to be the highest paid, it’s simply fair. equal and transparent.

[Aeolun]

Isn’t that still good? Just means they’ll get mostly local candidates.

[noahtallen]

I don’t think $43k is good in most local markets, even for juniors.

[Toutouxc]

What are you even talking about? The median yearly take home pay (sorry, don't know the right word for it) in my middle-of-the-pack EU country is around $16k.

Let me say that again, this country is in 35th place out of 193 by GDP per capita and this is how much people make here.

[danwee]

What? Maybe in 4 or 5 countries in the world. In the rest, 43K is high-pay for juniors.

[magnio]

Double the median income is not good enough for juniors?

[Aeolun]

Lol, no. Not good salary. Good for everyone considering applying.

[ZephyrBlu]

In New Zealand that is pretty good compensation, unfortunately.

[googlryas]

In the US at Big tech cos(FANG style), that would be the base salary for someone with 7-10 years experience. And then you add on generous compensation packages(stock grants, 20ish% bonus target, signing bonus).

I would say it is eyepopping for US techies who haven't made it into the "big leagues", but there are probably a million software devs in the US making that.

[spacemadness]

Right, but that’s normally in extremely expensive US cities which is an entirely different league cost of living wise than Barcelona.

[efficax]

in norcal or new york, $190k is pretty standard for a senior role, with equity compensation on top. I get $185k with 7 years of professional engineering experience + rsus worth about $150k over 4 years, and really I could get more if I left for a bigger company, which I don't want to work at. Europe has lower salaries in general, but also a lower total cost of living and better gov't services.

[Art9681]

6 figure salary for an executive assistant in Tennesse is quite nice. A lot of engineers I know dont make that much and the skillset gap required between both professions is quite large IMO.

[lotsofpulp]

Skillset gap is not what determines price. Supply and demand ratios do, which does not necessarily correlate with skillset gap.

For example, I might be able to be an executive assistant, but I imagine the quality of life of an executive assistant is worse than what I do now, so I would want even more money to be an executive assistant.

[deltasevennine]

>Skillset gap is not what determines price. Supply and demand ratios do, which does not necessarily correlate with skillset gap.

It correlates big time. It's just that there are exceptions to the rule.

[AmericanChopper]

Salary transparency, like all levelling mechanisms, pushes salaries down. Your highest salaried team members are simply replaced by contractors as they realise that their remuneration is now tied to the impression it gives to their colleagues rather than the value of their own labor.

[JohnCurran]

It seems to me, in my uninformed layman opinion, that it would do the opposite. Maybe it would force the outliers down but perhaps bring the average up.

These are two common scenarios I see:

- Two employees at the same level on the same team. One is paid $X higher than the other. Employee one asks for raise based on the fact they do the same job as employee two

- New hire is paid $X more than member of team who has been there receiving meager raises yearly. They can point to the new hire and request $Y more due to their experience

That said, this is conjecture and not backed by anything. Are there published works on salary transparency = lower pay for employees?

[hwbehrens]

> These are two common scenarios I see:

There is a 3rd scenario that I've occasionally seen: Two employees with the same title on the same team. Employee One is unhappy because they are paid 10% less than Employee Two, despite same experience and title. Employee Two ALSO unhappy because in practice they do 50% more work than Employee One for 10% more pay.

I still don't see the parent's connection of transparency to lower pay, but there is a rich scientific literature on the concept of "Comparison is the thief of joy" -- I hypothesize that turnover rates might positively correlate with transparency because they could promote intra-team competitive feelings.

The exception would be if there were a rigid structure that you know going in, similar to how e.g. government pay scales work. Since you know going in that the only input is seniority, you won't care that exceptional work is not rewarded because that was made clear from the get-go, and if that would have bothered you you wouldn't have accepted the offer in the first place.

The natural counterargument to that is that if the only input to compensation is seniority, then there is reduced incentivization for performing "above and beyond", possibly cultivating a culture of mediocrity.

It also would promote pay equity, however, since e.g. employees' implicit biases and social conditioning would not come into play under subjective evaluations.

[Gareth321]

While I support pay transparency on principle, I have never seen it work. In practise, no two employees are ever equal. Even those with the same years of experience, the same qualifications, and the same roles. One might be happy to work late. The other might be happy to pick up the phone on weekends. One might prefer working alone. The other might play better with colleagues. One might offer to take on more projects. The other might not, but they have better attention to detail. The differences go on ad infinitum. There is no "objective" way to determine the market value of each of these two employees. The best we can do is let each business make subjective judgments of each employee. We know this is far from perfect, but it could be more fair than paying two very different people the same wages just because they studied the same thing at university and worked in the industry for the same length of time. One of them will be contributing more to the business bottom line - sometimes significantly so - and they probably know it. They'll leave if they're paid the same as their lesser-performing colleague.

[AmericanChopper]

You can observe it by counting the contractors in any company that has salary bands, or transparency, or any other similar system. Very few high performing employees are prepared to accept that their remuneration is being constrained to prevent the lower performing employees from getting jealous. They are strongly incentivised to either leave or become contractors, increasing their remuneration even more. Only the average performing and under performing employees readily accept such an arrangement, because they are either unaffected by it, or benefit from it. You don’t need to do a study to figure out that people avoid things that are detrimental to their own interests.

[rsavage]

This is only true if people are underpaid in their salary bands -- which certainly can happen.

However, it doesn't have to. We are still small with our experiment, but we pay 95% percentile in our market, plus provide additional benefits well above the norm.

We have no issues hiring and retaining high performing staff because we pay as much or more than they would get elsewhere in the local market.

[halper]

We don't even need to speculate about it. In for example Sweden, everyone's tax return is public information. You just call the tax office and ask how much income someone declared last available year.

[willio58]

Do you have empirical evidence of this? I struggle to understand how salaries being in a black box helps your chances getting paid more as an employee.

[lucasfcosta]

I strongly agree with this approach.

It will be really difficult for all individuals to share their salaries if some of them are on low salaries and fear not being able to scale up if they publish those.

There's also an intrinsic bias in sharing salaries in that the well-paid folks are more likely to share theirs because they feel validated by the value itself.

[Varqu]

We are also on this side and on the job boards we run [1], the companies are required to publish real salary data™ (and we also gather stats based on that).

What is real salary data™ - contrary to the flawed regulations in a few states, which basically allows putting something like 1$ - 100'000$, we require companies to be more specific and have a max range of 30-40k.

Interestingly, the majority (approx. 2/3) of companies are completely fine with publishing this information (if they are forced to) and out of the remaining 1/3, half can be convinced, and the other half is a lost cause (basically, management will not allow it)

[1] Our job boards:

https://swissdevjobs.ch

https://germantechjobs.de

https://devitjobs.uk

[joshuamorton]

With recent laws in California, NYC, soon nys, and the existing one in Colorado, only Washington needs to pass one for all the priciest tech hubs to have mandated transparency in job postings and internally. It's really promising.

[godelski]

Do you and buffer pay the same regardless of location? Honestly that always seemed more fair to me than "cost of living" adjustments which often fail to capture a lot of the nuances of actual differences in costs of living.

[rsavage]

Buffer don't currently pay same regardless of location -- but they have published a blog post stating they will.

Runn pays the same regardless of location (with exchange rates locked in yearly, and only ever adjusted upwards)

[Aeolun]

Honestly, I think it’s more amazing that you give a grand total of 2.5 months of paid leave a year (6 weeks paid, 4 weeks sick) .

[WalterBright]

Why should the employer be required to show all their cards, but the candidate not?

[1991g]

To answer your question as posed: to fix the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth.

To answer your question the way I wish to: thanks to Equifax's TWN, candidate resumes, reference checks, background checks etc - the candidate is already showing all their cards.

[WalterBright]

> the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth

Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid.

It goes both ways.

I know you likely don't believe me, but I've been employer and employee, at min wage and professional wages. If you ever become an employer, you'll find out real fast how little power you have over employees. Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much?

[colinsane]

> The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid.

that employee's coworkers and team members surely would realize how well the pay matches though. or at least, they could, wherever the employer makes that info public.

my own experience with internally-public compensation at a 70-engineer company: is that there's so much _error_ in setting salaries. i don't think my employer really cared if the salary they pay for equivalent work varies randomly by 20%: to them that's just the cost of doing business and they have enough margin to cover that. but when i see that my teammate, who's putting in literally 20-hr weeks and producing half the output as the rest of the team, is being paid 20% more than me? that's reason to feel that my employer isn't treating me fairly and to leave. that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy.

i felt like there was a catch-22 here: in theory erroneous salaries could be more quickly corrected if they were internally public. but it's risky to make salaries public before the employer is reasonably confident that they're accurate.

[WalterBright]

You don't have to leave. Just document the value you provide, and go negotiate. Yes, you can do that. I have.

> that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy.

I.e. there's your leverage. Go make your case. No excuses!

[colinsane]

i made my case. i pushed for negotiations. i presented the ultimatum as tactfully as i could manage. and i exercised that ultimatum.

i believe the company truly just did not have the resources to expend on getting everyone's salary as accurate as would take to make me happy. it was a flat organization, in such a way that only a handful of people were responsible -- on top of their other duties -- for the determination of salaries for those 70 engineers. i think they are on track to fixing this broadly, but just not in time for me.

[ryandrake]

I've always hated the simplistic "Just negotiate, bro!" advice. I wish it came with more concrete tactics to use that work. I've never in my 20+ year career asked for more money from an employer and got it--no matter how many documents and facts I came in with.

Here's how it goes with existing companies:

[Me] Hi, I'd like a raise.

[Co] Nope.

[Me] OK, here are examples of the value I'm providing and how it's increased over time.

[Co] Your current salary accounts for this.

[Me] Other companies offer 20% more and I'm only asking for 10%.

[Co] ...

[Me] OK, I have an offer from the other company. Last chance.

[Co] Well... Bye?

Here's how it goes as a new hire:

[Co] Here is your offer letter with your salary, bonus, and equity. (it's 0.2% more than my current TC)

[Me] <gulp> I think the market rate should be much higher, based on my experience and skills.

[Co] We don't agree.

[Me] Can you be flexible with the equity?

[Co] No.

[Me] Can you offer a signing bonus?

[Co] No.

[Me] Can you be flexible with the base pay?

[Co] LOL No.

[Me] What about hours, time off flexibility, and so on...

[Co] Look, do you want the job or not? There's a line forming behind you, my dude.

I hate that a skill (negotiation) that is unrelated to my actual job has to be one of the primary drivers of my compensation.

[WalterBright]

BTW, I have a friend who, when he interviews candidates for professional positions like accounting and such, asks them "how much is 20% of $20,000?"

A significant fraction, even those with masters degrees, even those who claim to be accountants, are flummoxed by it.

There's a lot of resume inflation going on.

[sokoloff]

I sometimes ask people who claim a lot of C experience "could you give me an approximate value for 2^30?", which is vastly more difficult than 20% of $20K for an accountant.

I find it interesting the different approaches that people take. They've ranged from "I know 2^32 is a little over 4B, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", "I know max signed 32-bit int is a little over 2B, so...", "2^10 is a little over 1K, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", to "that's literally impossible and there's no way I could give you so much as an indication as to whether it's positive or negative, even or odd; I'm not even sure it's an integer..."

[WalterBright]

There are lots and lots and lots of mental shortcuts one can take to get an approximate answer.

[ghaff]

Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree. Yes, it should be easy but I imagine I could make a lot of people flail at questions that they could answer easily sitting around a coffee table.

[WalterBright]

> Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree.

Yeah, it does. Accountants work with percentages all the time. And if they can't do literally trivial arithmetic, they aren't fit to be accountants.

He'd give them an hour.

So let's see. What's 10% of $20,000? Then double it? (There are many other shortcuts to the answer.)

[NoraCodes]

> They'll hide things like stretches in jail.

Why would a company pay someone less because they've been in jail?

[WalterBright]

There's the elevated risk of re-offending, or being less trustworthy. For example, if they did a stretch for embezzling, they'd be placed in a position where trust is less of an issue, which would likely pay less. I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you?

[Supermancho]

> I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you?

Funny enough, that comes back on a background check...if it was within 7-10yrs depending on source, if you want to pay for it, iirc. JP Morgan will go back as far as they can to seek out any sort of theft or fraud charge for ANY position. Ostensibly this is about transparency for developers, so alcoholics are pretty common in corporate jobs the higher up you go in salary.

[sokoloff]

If you invent a 4-year stint at respected company XYZ to cover your resume gap, the company might pay you based on the value that faked experience brought.

It’s not that I’ll pay less because you were in jail a while, but rather that being in jail likely makes you less competitive skills and experience wise compared to someone who worked straight through.

[antisthenes]

> Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. It goes both ways.

I'll explain why I disagree with you and downvoted you (since you are making an argument in bad faith).

1. Padding a resume is sometimes necessary to bypass automated systems. If the choice is between slight embellishment and never getting an offer, then I believe it is morally justifiable to pad the resume just enough to conform to requirements. It's really an open secret - recruiters will openly tell you to do this.

Also, to go further on this, job requirements are very often written by less technical people (HR) who will make mistakes in the number of required years in tech, or have ridiculous requirements that would limit the candidate pool to maybe...10 people on this entire planet.

2. Padding the salary history is almost impossible and easily verifiable through pay stubs. I very much doubt this happens often enough at desirable jobs, especially where people's reputation is on the line.

3. They'll hide things like stretches in jail - Again, almost impossible to hide, considering court records are public record. Even you or I could check this and not proceed with offering them a job. If the company doesn't do this diligence - that's on them, they certainly have the resources to do so.

> The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid.

What about cases where the employee ends up being better than expected and brings way more value to the company than the originally agreed upon offer? How quickly is that reconciled? It goes both ways, after all.

> It goes both ways.

While it does go both ways, it's like saying a pedestrian is also causing damage to the car during a collision. The amount of resources a company/corp has is insurmountably higher than any individual could hope to achieve (barring billionaires). This is why we have multitude of protections for employees (that corporations are continuously trying to circumvent)

> Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much?

The mere fact that they are able to pay a million dollar salary to a single employee signifies one of the following:

1. The employee is indeed a genius who brings this amount of money in or more, or contributes to the company growth in a way to justify this.

2. The company enjoys something like monopoly presence on the market and can afford to overpay for truly mediocre employees. If this is the case, then it's hard to feel sorry for the company.

[WalterBright]

You can disagree with me, but there's nothing "in bad faith" about what I wrote.

> Padding a resume is sometimes necessary to bypass automated systems

You're justifying lying. Not a good start for a relationship with your employer. Would you hire someone you knew was lying on their application?

> recruiters will openly tell you to do this

If they do, you know you're dealing with dishonest recruiters. Is that who you want to do business with?

> who will make mistakes

Just go to another company where you do qualify.

> Padding the salary history is almost impossible

Back before the internet, other people endlessly bragged to me how they got a better offer by padding their salary. When I interviewed for jobs, I'd bring a paystub to show the interviewer that my salary history was honest. They appreciated that. They were aware that such padding was routine.

> If the company doesn't do this diligence

A lot don't do that, especially smaller outfits.

> What about cases where the employee ends up being better than expected and brings way more value to the company than the originally agreed upon offer?

Simple. Document the value you brought to the company, go to the manager and start negotiating. If he won't budge, quit, and interview at the next company, being sure to present your evidence of the value you bring. P.S. if you really did bring the value, the company will be happy to raise your pay in order to keep you.

> The amount of resources a company/corp has

The only power a corp has over you is if you give it to them by being afraid to negotiate and afraid to walk away. They're not going to hire thugs to beat you and shoot your dog.

BTW, just for fun, I've been watching "Power", a miniseries about drug kingpins. I have to laugh at how they negotiate. It's always "do this for me or I'll kill you". Way to inspire loyalty! Or at least the silly Hollywood fantasy way.

[10000truths]

> I'd bring a paystub to show the interviewer that my salary history was honest. They appreciated that. They were aware that such padding was routine.

While I agree with everything else you said, this strikes me as a poor strategy unless you have some highly assured leverage with which to negotiate your salary (e.g. you have lots of competing job offers, or you know that you're uniquely qualified for a job with few applicants).

[JamesianP]

You can gather info on companies just as well.

[WalterBright]

As a bonus, you're more likely to get an offer by researching the company beforehand and demonstrating familiarity with it.

[googlryas]

Candidates do essentially have to show their cards - employers verify your salary history with products like "the work number".

Most people don't even know their salary is being reported by their company to a third party, which then packages and sells that data.

[WalterBright]

I thought there was a law in some states preventing that.

[googlryas]

Yes, but it is less than half of the states(though I'm not sure what percent of the population are covered), and even then, many of the bans are phrased such that pay history questions are only banned before an offer is made, or it is voluntary but employees may not know their rights.

It is still legal to rescind or modify an offer after you discover salary history in most states with a "pay history" ban in place.

https://fitsmallbusiness.com/salary-history-ban

[dt3ft]

Kudos! This is the way it should be done.

[Simon_O_Rourke]

I think you're right there - the transparency needed is from the companies, not the individuals. Otherwise it becomes a competition, and people stop sharing salary themselves because some doofus claims to be on 750k/year starting salary straight out of college.

Levels.fyi has some salary data too I think, and there's more and more being shared in Indeed and LinkedIn.

[collegeburner]

aren't people who are strong negotiators generally more valuable anyway?