Comment by bityard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bityard | Hacker News Reader

Cost/benefit analysis says there is nothing for me to gain by discussing my salary with my co-workers and only potential downsides.

Everyone wants to be paid more than they are of course and I'm no exception, but overall I feel like I am being paid pretty close to what I am worth. After accounting for the fact that I work for company with a decent culture, don't take part in an on-call rotation and pretty much get to pick my hours outside of scheduled meetings. I know what the market rate is in my area for my skills and experience, and I negotiate my pay (and raises) with my employer according to that data.

What _would_ hurt me (or at least my image) is if someone who does similar work to me went to their manager and said, "hey manager, bityard says he makes $x more than me, please give me a raise." Now maybe the manager is a completely reasonable guy and agrees completely. But it's a small company and maybe that particular manager isn't so reasonable. Now I'm the bad guy in that manager's eyes for "bragging" about my take-home pay and making him do the work to convince _his_ managers to approve the raise and justify the increased operating costs, passing along my name discreetly to them as well. Or maybe the raise is denied, and the guy quits. Then I'm the bad guy. Or the raise is denied and the guy is fired for something unrelated. It all gets murky and resentful real quick.

Further, if you ask someone at work what their pay is, how do you know they are telling the truth? I can think of several reasons people might lie about what they make by shifting the number in either direction.

At the end of the day, going to your boss and saying you and the other employees compared salaries is frankly a pretty lazy (and likely ineffective) way to ask for a raise. The _right_ way to ask for a raise is to do your own research on market rates, and then _prove_ to your employer why you deserve the going rate (or higher) based on your work performance and other relevant factors. As it always has been.

> nothing for me to gain by discussing my salary with my co-workers and only potential downsides

That sort of makes sense from a social consequences standpoint. But, if the data is open, the only real solution for employers is to correct upwards. They aren't going to lower the salary of high salary outliers. It seems like it would raise the water level for everyone.

It's also useful as a way to know you should ask for a raise. You don't have to necessarily mention it when asking.

> They aren't going to lower the salary of high salary outliers.

True, probably not. But I have worked for companies that would simply stop giving meaningful annual raises if forced to for some reason, which would be the same net result.

> You don't have to necessarily mention it when asking.

Also true, but if person A tells person B what they are being paid, person A has no guarantees that person B will keep their identity a secret. I like my co-workers but I don't trust them as much as I trust my family and friends so it's just not worth the risk.

I appreciate your pragmatism, but it falls apart in the statement "do your own research on market rates". How do you discover those without openness about salaries? You could interview at other companies, but then you'd only find other employers' opinions on what they could pay specifically you, not what they could pay someone else like you.

There are lots of ways to do this. Interviews with other companies are certainly a high-effort but valid strategy.

The easier route:

* Lots of web sites report aggregate salary information by profession and location. Often these are not to be trusted because {algorithms and marketing} but can still be a useful data point.

* Look for job listings with compensation information in them.

* In-person networking with your peers in other companies. Every decent-size city has meetups for developers and other tech professionals. Not everyone is going to be willing to share what they make with a near-complete stranger (especially if friends are nearby) but some might. This is pretty much the only time I would voluntarily share my earnings with another person besides my wife. There's no reason for me to fib, and unless I'm being profiled for identity theft or something, there are no downsides.

* Virtual networking, a.k.a. join a Slack, Discord, or other kind of forum with people like you and just ask what someone with your experience and skills should make. Since you (probably) don't know any of these people, there is little consequence.

These are all data points to gather and consider in combination in order to arrive at some kind of ballpark figure. You don't have to show any of your research to your employer, but trust me when I say that it's a crucial step because your employer absolutely does already have a very good idea of what you are worth to them. This is data for you to make sure your number is accurate.

> The _right_ way to ask for a raise is to do your own research on market rates,

This only works until some point. I showed my employer that they pay me around 15% less than median for software engineers in general (there’s public data here on this from taxes). The result was that they told me that 15% is too much offered me “even” an inflation-adjustment and in the end didn’t give me anything. All while also telling me they want to keep me and how I’m one of their best developers.

Often getting a proper raise only works through jumping the ship.

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