<story><title>Leak of Microsoft Salaries Shows Fight for Higher Compensation</title><url>https://onezero.medium.com/leak-of-microsoft-salaries-shows-fight-for-higher-compensation-3010c589b41e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lbriner</author><text>It seems like a strange premise to share salaries on the basis that if we both have the same experience and work at the same paygrade, we are worth the same amount of money - or even for me to know the range so I know whether to ask for a raise.&lt;p&gt;The underlying problem is still that it is very hard to accurately measure someone&amp;#x27;s worth as a developer (or manager for that matter) and that there are many who are &amp;quot;experienced&amp;quot; who have not improved in any meaningful way over time and that&amp;#x27;s why they might not get a rise or a promotion. Pay grades are quite arbitrary and personally, I don&amp;#x27;t think that a lot of these &amp;quot;super coders&amp;quot; are worth as much as they think unless they also do management (except perhaps for really niche skillsets).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lacker</author><text>At the engineering departments of most large tech companies including Microsoft, people at the same pay grade are &lt;i&gt;supposed&lt;/i&gt; to be making about the same amount of money. The idea is that if you deserve a raise, you deserve a promotion too. So your job title and your salary aren’t like two different things.&lt;p&gt;Differences arise for many reasons. The most common in my experience is people who negotiate a higher starting salary. You don’t want to just give them more money forever so every year they get their salary tweaked back a bit toward the average for their level. There are also some bonuses that operate outside the normal system.</text></comment>
<story><title>Leak of Microsoft Salaries Shows Fight for Higher Compensation</title><url>https://onezero.medium.com/leak-of-microsoft-salaries-shows-fight-for-higher-compensation-3010c589b41e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lbriner</author><text>It seems like a strange premise to share salaries on the basis that if we both have the same experience and work at the same paygrade, we are worth the same amount of money - or even for me to know the range so I know whether to ask for a raise.&lt;p&gt;The underlying problem is still that it is very hard to accurately measure someone&amp;#x27;s worth as a developer (or manager for that matter) and that there are many who are &amp;quot;experienced&amp;quot; who have not improved in any meaningful way over time and that&amp;#x27;s why they might not get a rise or a promotion. Pay grades are quite arbitrary and personally, I don&amp;#x27;t think that a lot of these &amp;quot;super coders&amp;quot; are worth as much as they think unless they also do management (except perhaps for really niche skillsets).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mlthoughts2018</author><text>This is a big lie. It’s not hard. There are no 10x developers. Most people doing a job of the same title in a similar team are likely worth the same money.&lt;p&gt;People on HN say all kinds of crazy nonsense about it being hard to measure software engineer productivity. It’s nonsense that helps suppress wages and keeps the situation set up as a fight between engineers who should be cooperating for mutual betterment.&lt;p&gt;Companies don’t approach measuring the worth of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; employee with any sort of fine-grained metrics except in highly commoditized jobs.&lt;p&gt;Also, as a software engineer your value is not all (or even mostly) from writing software. There’s reviewing resumes, attending recruiting events, evaluating new technology the company might adopt, filling out forms, sitting in meetings, sitting in diversity training, etc., etc.&lt;p&gt;You might even be adding value just by being a name on a sheet of paper. Your headcount tells a small portion of a story that wins the next funding round or puts the company in a better position with an acquirer or gets the company a high rating from a regulating agency or brings hope that causes other key employees to stay at the company or whatever.&lt;p&gt;These are reasons why some people make 100% bonuses and millions in equity while others get 15% of a low-ball base salary in options they end never able to exercise.&lt;p&gt;The reason pay is wildly unequal is not because it’s hard to measure productivity. Companies aren’t doing that anyway. Even if they were, they’ll do anything to avoid paying what you’re truly worth.&lt;p&gt;Pay is unequal because developers don’t know their worth or what forms of compensation are negotiable, because it’s all kept very secretive. Developers don’t develop good negotiation skills and they let themselves often very foolishly believe less tangible and less enforceable properties of a job (like “interesting”) are worth a big pay trade-off.&lt;p&gt;It all boils down to the same thing. We have crappy pay (compared to the real value we add) and we get stuck in open-plan hell hole offices and on and on because developers won’t say “no” to these jobs and seriously negotiate under the willingness to walk away if conditions and pay don’t improve.</text></comment>