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Comment by tshaddox | Hacker News Reader

I find it very difficult to believe that an employer that would be happy to fill a certain position at $80k would also be willing to fill that same position at $180k.

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I am actively interviewing someone with 4 years and someone with 20 years of experience for the same role. Our needs are quite specific but it is not our first or last hire in that area; as long as someone can fill them we are willing to be flexible about to what extent this particular hire fills our overall need and will adjust accordingly down the line.

Given the stage of my company, our hiring plan, and the fact we hire remote across the US, we absolutely could have a role with a salary range of $80k or more.

Did you happen to see the part where I explained that a company could hire someone at a relatively junior, mid-level or senior opening- in an extremely competitive market for software developers? Like, let's say you're X Startup, you desperately need a Golang developer, not having another good Golang developer on your team is costing you Y amounts of money per month, and you just can't find one in your preferred experience range. Do you A) do nothing and just continue to lose money each month for lack of a good developer, or B) hire someone who knows Golang, regardless of whether they're more junior or more senior than you were hoping? Does that kinda make sense?

I understand that some companies might want to do this, but it’s explicitly not giving clear salary ranges for certain positions. It’s basically saying “we will pay you whatever, based on what we determine you are worth,” which is precisely the status quo that transparent salary advocates want to change.

I know this is a bit of a loaded term, and I'm trying to use this in a non-political/nonpartisan context here- but isn't paying people based on rigid salary bands a bit, uh, Communistic? Like yes the company should pay you, an individual, based on what they're worth- if someone has 3 years of experience but they're better than someone with 10 years, shouldn't they be paid more? I thought tech culture was about individualism.

You know who definitely has preset salary ranges for years of experience and isn't paying based on individual ability? The government & heavily unionized jobs. Seniority Trumps Everything there. I dunno, is that the world we want? I thought tech was philosophically opposed to that kind of mediocrity?

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