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Comment by _Codemonkeyism | Hacker News Reader

How is Google handling pay? Is there a level system with fixed pay levels? Or can anyone negotiate his salary - in limits - when starting his job?

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Check out the court ruling in the labour vs Google case:

https://www.oalj.dol.gov/Decisions/ALJ/OFC/2017/OFCCP_-_SAN_...

Page 10 has the information:

A “compensation team” sets the salary for each hire. Tr. 165-69. The team has no direct contact with the applicant and does not have the applicant’s name, gender, race, or ethnicity. Id. For industry hires, the committee might be given the applicant’s current compensation but no earlier compensation data. Tr. 175-77.

For the employees included in the September 2015 “snapshot,” about 20 percent were campus hires. Tr. 197-98. The only circumstance under which Google might increase the starting compensation for a campus hire is when the applicant has a competing offer greater Google’s. Google will not offer a larger salary or annual bonus plan, but it might offer a larger sign-on bonus or one-time stock grant. Tr. 207, 210-16, 223. There are no starting pay negotiations, and Google considers no other factors. Tr. 197-98.

That doesn't pass the smell test. They've been paying huge sums of money for some people (deep learning, and Levandowski's $100 million). Their process is far more arbitrary and open to negotiation than that summary claims.

Maybe for little people they have a standard process. But certainly not for everyone.

Thanks!

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-salary-ranges-of-each-lev...

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm

It seems similar to the way it was at Facebook in that when you start, you'll be assigned a level based on your previous experience and it'll be corrected soon afterwards if it turns out to have been wrong. They mostly corrected up, though - it was very rare for someone to be assigned a high level and then downgraded afterwards.

Obviously the Glassdoor link shows that there is a pretty big range in the salary bands - I think some of this is down to people reporting total target compensation (including RSUs, bonuses etc) versus base salary but there was a fairly large range at FB too. It wasn't uncommon to stay at the same level but have your base salary go up by $20-25k.

The ranges are wide to give room for salary negotiations at the beginning of employment, but also to allow for salary raises for people who are not yet considered to be at a higher level. E.g. you could be a junior developer, but a very good junior, who deserves a pay rise because of performance, engagement or whatever, but still a junior technically.

If you get quite far into your own salary range but never get promoted (if that's how the company works), it's time for some reflection on the situation, for both yourself and the company. Note that the ranges can also overlap between job levels, in some cases.

P.S. Not talking about Google specifically.

How do you move someone from junior to the next level? For me if someone has a better performance he/she should move to the next level regardless of the time he/she has been a junior. Are seniors consider that because of their performance?

Each company has its own guidelines. A junior could be for example someone who focuses too much in the particular case of a problem rather than looking at the big picture. In interviews, for example, if they present you with a problem to solve and you don't have any follow up questions, you appear as less senior in the eyes of the interviewer.

This is just one of the criteria used, there are more.

So there is a band and you negotiate your salary?

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