I feel like a lot of companies already do this: interview candidates, then grade them at a specific level based on their performance.
It sounds like you need to figure out what X is worth to you.
i think that’s the point. X takes an engineer who’s worth $100k. if an engineer worth more than that comes along, you want to let them do X for $100k, but since they’ll get it done easier/faster either you’re only letting them work part time (silly restriction to force on them), or you let them help out around the org in general for extra money. hence, you advertise the role as $100k (for doing X) - $150k (a rough judgment of how much extra capacity the company could easily absorb from a candidate that tackles X quickly).
that seems… pretty reasonable to me.
> The General Schedule (GS) payscale is the federal government payscale used to determine the salaries of over 70% of federal civilian employees. An employee's base pay depends on two factors - the GS Paygrade of their job, and the Paygrade Step they have achieved (depending on seniority or performance).
— https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2022
The job's pay grade range (from step 1 lowest to step 10 highest) is what would be published to comply with Washington's laws. What's missing in the private sector is, at most employers, any communication whatsoever on which 'step' one is at; while HR often has this data, it is almost universally withheld except upon request, and often gated behind an HR conversation and verbal-only replies.
The fact is, if X can be done by a $100k candidate, and you're hiring a $150k candidate, you probably expect more than X of them, and those extra expectations need to be communicated.
Because the world isn't black and white. There could be soooo many different reasons why you're willing to pay one person a lot more than someone else to do a job.
Surely if they are worth 50% more, you can give them a better title to go along with it.
Forcing them to be upfront about the requirements for more money results in candidates better aligned with the requirements I would think. And leaving that to some negotiation without those requirements seems like it just opens the door for bias. I want to hire engineers and keep them based on their qualifications, and negotiating abilities is usually not one of them.
Interestingly, the architects of these laws would agree with this point.
The fact is, if there are reasons you're paying one candidate more than another, those reasons don't need to be secrets.
It's not hard to post 2 positions, and it prevents issues like many people have been bringing up with candidates having the wrong expectations.
And I'll reiterate: $50k is a lot to pay for a "nice to have".
I'd say you need to really think about whether you need Y and Z. If you don't, just post a "$100k for X" position. If you do, post a "$150k for X, Y, and Z" position". If you must, post both--at least that's honest. But it would be better to come to a firmer conclusion about what you need before hiring.