Nobody trying to keep their salary a secret is holding onto good developers, or even mediocre ones.
Combine that with fear of the unknown, plus the cargo culting of hiring practices that ask for skills that dont actually get used on the job and are thus completely atrophied by actual experienced devs all encourage inertia in current role. Especially if they are getting okayish equity refreshers and are in a stable company.
For me at least, there’s also the barrier of actually liking working there.
I don’t take jobs at companies where I can’t see myself “drinking the Koolaid”. I want to be engaged in the product, the company, and the work culture. If I’m working somewhere that checks those boxes, it’s going to take a fairly substantial increase in compensation for it to be worthwhile for me to start over in that process.
Also social networks where you are afraid of up rooting your life to go to new city that pays way more but you dont know anybody and would be starting your life over on at least one level completely over. Your primary social network might even already be at work.....
I suspect most companies aren’t sharing because of institutional inertia. Their HR folks would probably have to propose the change internally, and from their perspective it’s just not worth the time to do so.
Some companies don’t present salary bands because they know they are paying under market, and doing so would shrink their funnel. At least from the perspective of the people posting the jobs, that’s a rational decision - they likely don’t have influence over the salary, but they can decide not to post it up front.
On the other side of the issue, I expect that companies that pay very well have many fewer problems getting candidates into their candidate pools. If they know they’re paying more than their competitors, posting it would only increase the number of inbound candidates when they’re not having issues in that area. More candidates means that their evaluation process would need to scale further, which means more work for them with no immediately demonstrable benefit.
From the candidate’s perspective, salary information would give me one more (powerful) tool to assist me in choosing where to focus when I’m job hunting. I would discard very low salaries and spend a bit of additional time focusing on very high salaries. I’d follow up more thoroughly and aggressively with the highest paying employers. I wouldn’t immediately disregard the middle of the distribution, though, for several reasons.
What’s included in the posted salary? Is it actually “salary”, or is it total comp? Are healthcare and other benefits costs accounted for? If not, what does the benefits structure for the company look like? Is equity included? How should I quantify the inherently unpredictable future value of equity? What about their vesting schedule? Is the salary offered for the specific job that’s available, or might it be possible to end up being hired into a similar position with a different title/compensation? Is there room for negotiation? Can salary itself be negotiated directly, or might I need to use more creative methods, like asking for additional PTO, stipends, etc?
It’s a very hard problem, and I honestly don’t think trying to boil it down to a number (or range) offers much value to either side.