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Comment by mpeg | Hacker News Reader

Okay, before you all start adding your data there, consider the fact that it's all made public.

In the UK, post codes are usually very specific (sometimes to a single building) and I'm seeing someone from Colindale that has put in their entire postcode alongside their salary, this would be very easy to deanonimise by doing a reverse lookup on census data and then checking the job titles of the full names you'd get for software professionals (for instance, via Linkedin or Facebook).

In that specific example, I was able to find the social profiles of the person who added their salary with just a couple searches in the UK open register; ironically, a data engineer.

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Well, sure, but really, so what? I understand that we historically have a culture in which salary figures are secret, but that all seems to come from a bunch of social-hierarchy stuff about keeping up appearances and saving face. If someone doesn't care about that then what harm could even potentially come about as a result of sharing useful information with peers?

It could be a problem at companies where salaries are under an NDA. If the companies find out you broke the NDA you could get fired. I'm pretty sure my company has such a clause.

I think I would enjoy the experience of daring assholes like that to fire me.

If they're smart they'll just find a legal reason to fire you. Ever surf the web for personal reasons at work? Every use your personal mobile on work time? There are so many rules that people violate every day without repercussion until the company needs a reason to get rid of them.

What kind of company do you work at that has such rules explicitly spelled out? What's the procedure for firing someone based on that data? Don't they need proof of such activities? Does your workplace have cameras and sound recording at all times trained on their employees? If you do and you don't enjoy that, then maybe it's time to look for something else?

"We no longer have the budget for your position"

Done.

If they're smart and they want you gone, they won't bother with petty stuff like that. They'll just run you through the formal process, six months of PEP then PIP then fired, speaking the ritual words and performing the ritual ceremonies necessary to generate a paper trail that will comfort the lawyers, all tied up and neat. You'll know exactly what happened but there'll be nothing you can prove.

If they're smart and they want you to stay, they still won't bother with petty stuff like that, because firing people is expensive and hiring them even more so; they'll either look the other way or find a diplomatic way to deal with it.

That's my standard answer when a prospective employer asks what I'm making now.

At least in germany a nda about your pay in the emoloyment contract is non binding.

That's illegal in many countries, including the United States, not sure about yours

Not to be snarky or anything, but shouldn't you know what is in the NDA that you signed?

Yes, I should. It was 10 years ago, and I have no interest in discussing it with anyone, though, so in this case, it's not a big deal.

You don't see anything wrong with sharing your full address on the internet?

Without even getting out of white collar crime, knowing your name, profession, salary and address makes it easier to steal your identity.

My name is spectacularly unique, my full address is a matter of public record, I've had the same profession my entire life, and my salary is $135K/year. If someone wants to create trouble for me there's not much I can do to stop them, but they'd be unlikely to make much of a profit in the exercise, so I'm not particularly worried about it.

I generally don't bother thinking about potential bad things unknown people might do, because most bad things are done by known people and the people who know me are unlikely to have any such motivation. In the improbable event that some significant crime or terrorist act or whatever did happen to affect me, nothing I could have done in advance is likely to have made any difference, so I believe that I'm better off ignoring all such possibilities and focusing my attention toward the aspects of life where my choices are meaningful.

Other people will of course make different choices based on their different experiences and different feelings about risk exposure. This is just the way I live my life - I'm not suggesting everyone should do the same. But I'm pretty comfortable with it, personally.

In any case, I don't get your point, because I don't see why deciding to share one's salary figure should have any bearing on a decision about whether to share one's address.

Good shout. And 120k GBP sounds like a lot. Is it supposed to be USD? Or is he converting a contractor's daily rate to a perm's salary?

£120k is a hell of a lot. I've got to assume that's been translated into dollars.

Being the internet someone will tell me that "everyone in London with at least 2 years experience makes that, easy", but yeah, that number is high for a country where the Home Office considers £35k to be a fair reflection of skilled salaries.

On the subject of conversion, there are currently three jobs in central London. The salaries are 58000, 59331, and 70000. 59331 USD is 40999.97 GBP at the moment, so that's someone earning £41k who's converted properly. The others are round numbers, which suggests to me that they're in GBP and haven't been converted.

Not sure what to make of the fact that it's the two people with the highest salaries who didn't read the instructions.

It's definitely not a normal salary for a developer regardless of experience, even as a mid range manager (say managing a team of 20+) it'd probably be on the higher end.

Most likely a contractor, or adding on other considerations like stock grants; when I was at Salesforce.com they gave the stuff away like candy, so while my base salary wasn't too great the full compensation was good.

Contract rate seems likely; £500/d * 240 working days gives you £120k.

Yes, that's about right from my position of working as a contractor in London.

A fair amount of that is then paid out by the contractor's company in annual corporation tax and a little more in PAYE/NI.

As a contractor, you'd be looking to keep about 70% to 80% of what you invoice depending on how much you take in salary vs dividends.

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