My Salary History | Hacker News Reader

My Salary History

jvt.me

93 pointspopcalc159 comments

I would never want my friends to know how much I make, only 3 of my closest family members know that.

It's a terrible idea. Couldn't care less of strangers, but irl people are envious, toxic and potentially dangerous.

It's not just irl people. In fact, strangers can be even more potentially dangerous.

That's what would stop me from sharing my salary openly. Actually thinking about it more I wouldn't be worried about friends/family knowing at all.

Why do you think strangers would be dangerous? I thought about sharing this info, too.

Everyone knows doctors in the US earn a few hundred thousand per year, since I was a kid. They seem to be surviving just fine. I don’t think anyone’s pay is very secret anyway. Based on employer, house location, cost of house, job title, it is pretty deducible to the ranges that indicate quality of life and potential savings.

I literally don't see why. All my friends and family know what I make(and I know what they make) - what's the big deal?

envy is a big deal. some people manage it better than others, but it exists in and affects all relationships. sometimes its best avoided.

It's also not always even envy. There's a whole range of possible reactions.

It can be just as bad if people discover you earn less than them.

If you earn really a lot, ppl who may want to hurt you or ypur family might pop up.

Ransome, asking for money etc.

Nobody care if you make 50k but if you make 500k suddenly things change.

It's sad that you are being downvoted, because I think you may be shedding light on an experience that comfortable Americans can't relate to, where landing into a pile of money is not just "awkward" for your friend/family relationships, but can become a serious problem when people in your circle feel entitled to a cut.

I'm Italian and that's the same.

It's just never a good idea to tell people you make good money.

I don't buy expensive things, i don't show off. I quietly invest and will retire asap and enjoy a quiet relaxed life.

I don't want a target on my back or people asking me money or treating me differently.

Being asked for money is awkward and uncomfortable and real, but are the risks of hurting/kidnapping for ransom very realistic in the real world?

Yes they are non-zero, but so is the chance of a plane crashing into your residence...

According to a friend, in Mexico the risk is very real.

They are higher if people know you have money. That's enough of a reason to not make it known.

It's not what you make, it's what you save/invest. I know plenty of guys who made good money, but blew it all on bad decisions. One guy had a half million in stock from an exit where he was an early employee. The company was acquired by a public company, one that we would all recognize.

He decided he should become an angel investor (with almost no experience), blew through at least a couple hundred K there, started his own company, blew through the rest. He lived a high maintenance life style: expensive cars, expensive house, spouse that didn't work. If he had done nothing, kept the stock, stayed at his original job, it would be worth at least several million today. That public company did very well.

Making a Bay Area tech salary is making a lot of money compared to people who don't--kind of like winning the lottery. Here's a fun(?) read about how winning the lottery is really bad for you, mostly because public information that you have a lot of money leads to other people trying to get your money and making your life miserable:

https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/-/5-1485089/?page=1#i404...

The problem with the lottery stories is the winnings are most likely to go to someone who doesn't know how to manage it and likely has friends and family who aren't the highest quality either.

If you actually earned that amount you are much more likely to properly handle your finances.

The prime example in the post is someone who already had $15 million.

You really can't see how people could resent you for making so much money? Look at how much people resent MPs for making £85k, which is a totally reasonable salary. Probably too low actually.

Lucky you that you're haven't had problems. My own experience: non-tech midwest family got weird and treats me differently just suspecting I have silicon-valley-money (and they don't even know the actual extent of it).

But they're going to anyways. A non-tech midwest friend who drives truck treated me differently on that same suspicion. We basically fell out over it. The kicker: he was unionized; I found out years later he wasn't making that much less than me (and was making quite a bit more after adjusting for cost of living)

People get really weird about money. Sometimes it sets a social pecking order. Sometimes it has a large effect on their opinion of you. If they discover there's a large differential with you either way, it can make life unpleasant.

some people have shitty friends and family that's really the only reason why.

I'll usually check in with people if they're comfortable with talking about money, but otherwise I've never had trouble with anyone knowing how much (or how little) I make.

I kind of see it as a trap, I guess - if knowing how much I make prejudices you against me, than I'd rather you show yourself for who you are sooner, so I can keep you at an appropriate distance. I've got no time for people like that.

Did you know that 90%+ of house robberies and stealing happens by acquittances? It's people that know you that rob and steal, not randoms.

I make much more than my friends.

That stirs envy, jealousy, people asking for money and poses a danger to me and my family.

I don't want someone to come rob me in the night because a long tongued friend told other.

There's literally not one good reason to tell others you make good money. It brings NOTHING good.

Similarly, I think it's usually a good idea to share this information with coworkers, as ignorance only benefits the employer in negotiations. But friends? That's different.

My coworkers are all in roughly the same socio-economic bracket, give or take, but I have friends and family who very much are not, and there's no need to ruffle feathers, no upside at all.

If you're young and nerdy and making not too much more than the average American household, it's probably fine! Once you're quite a bit more than six years out of school and making multiple times the average family, it's a bit more dicey.

Not if you’re making more than others in your role.

Right. Unless you and your co-worker are at the same level and making the exact same, or you're making different amounts but aligned with your difference in levels, or unless you and your co-worker are both 100%-envy-free people... exactly one of you is going to be pissed off!

Which is a problem for the company choosing to pay us different amounts, right? Keeping employees in the dark is what companies want, so they can underpay as often as possible.

Probably true.

But would you be ok taking a pay cut in order for you and your equivalent peers to make the exact same amount?

Cuts both ways.

A properly united rank of employees will ensure the salaries are appropriate - who says they have to be cut? That’s just a scare tactic - why not scare the employer?

Cuts both ways.

Because not all companies have incredible profits. They have to manage their money, and a big part of that is salary.

I know it's convenient to believe that all employers are greedy Scrooge McMusks taking advantage of their employees, but most businesses are actually small and run by normal people just trying to keep the lights on without losing their shirt.

I’m not speaking about a five person bakery, I am speaking about corporations run by a class of owner far and beyond that of the “mom and pop.”

Walmart/Starbucks know if emps talk they unionize…

There's a lot of room between Walmart and "mom and pop". And I would guess that the majority of employees work for a company in that middle area.

Try running a job search on any big job board and you'll see what I mean.

I dont disagree. Except that I think at all levels employees discussing wage and benefit helps the employees and provides more look into what is being kept from them.

Stronger employees will make stronger product. Even if that means stake/shareholders, who do not make the product, will receive less return on investment.

So: what is the purpose of business? Provide jobs? Provide ROI? And at what ratio? Once that is decided, it’s easy to figure out what’s “allowed.”

Agree to disagree.

Even for a company that advertises and publishes their pay scales, an employee at level x will look at another employee at level x (with the same experience, same tenure, same everything) and think: "this isn't fair, I'm way more valuable to the company than they are". And maybe they're right, or maybe not. But the employee believes they are being treated unfairly all the same.

Fair enough on the agree to disagree. Enjoyed the thread! Go enjoy your day, my friend.

Same to you!

The problem with salarys is, that they rise and fall as the market does. If at your company labor is in demand there might be a bunch of people who are getting paid more because people are needed. Some years later the labor market relaxes and now labor is cheaper. People still get hired but with smaller salarys. Economically this makes sense. Now we have a bunch of people who are earning too much for the same work. Wouldn't it be fair for them to cut their salary?

Where should the employer take the money to pay above market rates? He would have to charge the customers extra and maybe lose some of them. This could lead to job loss for the newer hired.

You’re describing the concept that owning a business is difficult. That’s not the problem of the employee to figure out. They’re exploited in exchange for wage at the lowest possible cost to the employer.

Owning a business is hard. Being a human is harder. Leave some of the challenge up to the business. ;)

But what if I own a business and facing the challenge? Is my hope to exploit as hard as I can?

You’re applying small business romanticism to corporate behavior. A trope designed to ensure this idea that benefits corporations the most remains in place.

Even for a mom and pop - yes. They work on the concept of exploitation if the workers do not also own the business…

I really enjoy this conversation. Is there a way to reach out to you? I guess we will hit the thread limit soon.

There is a problem with worker's owning the business. They almost never do and aren't interested in owning it. This would also include owning the debts and possible failures

> They’re exploited

This is an unproductive view, imo. On the whole, business owners stick their necks out to start a business and provide their employees with a job that they can sustain their life with.

> for wage at the lowest possible cost to the employer.

Yes of course. Why shouldn't the business owners be rewarded for building a profitable business and giving their employees a living? That's what capitalism is all about.

Your fault here, and it’s not really anything more than marketing taking its toll: is that you apply the gamble and stress that exists to small business as if it also exists to places like walmart.

Walmart has ZERO real human “neck stuck out” stress when you get to the top and have billions racked up.

Yet Walmart still dislikes it when employees discuss wage.

Why?

You don't get to be a big business without being a small business first.

I agree with you that it's in Walmart's interest to not want employees to discuss wage. If I was in their position I wouldn't want my employees talking about it either, even if I'm doing my best to be "fair". That's just because there's no such thing as "fair", especially at Walmart's scale.

And we have arrived at where I am with my opinion: that unless we al talk, some business will get to use “don't talk or else” as a spooky tool to enable more of the “less fair for some.”

I need to admit: I am a leftist, an iww member, and far too underfed in the last few days so my replies probably seem punchy.

I’m really just pissed that I have an opportunity for a cool tool at my shop but have to write the script in bash because if I wrote it in say Rust, it’d be just as cool but not supportable after I left. :p

Here’s the deal though: the “pissed off” ire should be directed at the employer.

Making employees both pissed at each other and at the same time too scared to talk about salary means the employer gets it all the more easier to pay employees less.

Employees are of the same class - and therefore should be open and honest about salary and benefits in an effort to ensure all members of the employee class are compensated appropriately and the employer is aware they need to compensate accordingly.

Same class, but no employee is the same.

Class is important and the more people become conscious of how important class is - the better aligned they can all be.

Scaring them with a spooking about salary talk being taboo just further divides people and only benefits the corporation’s desire to pay people as little as possible, ensuring they pay shareholders as much as possible.

If the company is worker owned will they start to exploit themselves? Like e.g. über drivers and gig workers?

Uber drivers do not own the means of production - the profit still goes to uber and its shareholders.

Well, they own their car. They don't own the platform. Is the platform the mean of production or the car or maybe the driver is? Well what is it?

The platform provides the service to the customer. Without it there is no uber. Without gig drivers, there is still an uber it’s just more expensive because the corporation can’t pawn off cost on the gig drivers.

The workers do not own uber. They do not see profit. ROI or anything like that.

And before someone mentions: yes, it is the corp’s duty to provide ROI to shareholders. Investment comes with risk.

*Why are people more “ok” with hedging investor risk by trading it for a lower worker quality of life?*

When workers discuss more open, they become more class conscious, they realize they can be paid more, and they fight for it.

With no workers there is no product.

With no investors, there is product, when the workers are the owners - they become the investors. ;)

Yup, nobody discusses their salary. I made the mistake of complaining about giving 50% of a bonus to the taxman and now people think I'm rich. I'm far from it.

Aren't you? What's the threshold for rich? Top 20%? 10%? 5%? You might be closer than you think.

Rich does not necessary mean independently wealthy.

Very few of the wealthy people I've known have considered themselves rich.

Downvotes on this comment are evidence of the toxic envious nature of people. Prove me wrong.

> my friends ... irl people are envious, toxic and potentially dangerous.

bro, i don't want to tell you how to live your life, but if you are describing people as envious, toxic, and potentially dangerous than either these are not your friends, or you have a horribly low opinion of people.

We don't have evidence if the problem is you or them, but I would say a fundamental baseline expectation from a "friend" is that they should be HAPPY not envious of your successes.

A friend of a friend of a friend may seek some easy money (“six handshake rule”).

Friends talk about friends.

Guarding your family from various criminal activities may be hard.

This all may add up not in your favor eventually.

I still remember when a company I worked for had a spreadsheet where people were anonymously sharing their salary information along w/ title, demography, notes, etc. Most of the people who posted their info with some self-perception that their salary was "low" for the role added notes to the spreadsheet suggesting they think it's "low" because of racism or sexism.

To you, that might be good, positive, and normal. IMO it was toxic and fueled by envy with no actual information to support their position (and, admittedly, no information to deny it either). They only wanted my salary information to help progress their position in life, which to me is not so different from Google or Facebook wanting such private information for their own monetary gain.

> bro, i don't want to tell you how to live your life, but if you are describing people as envious, toxic, and potentially dangerous than either these are not your friends, or you have a horribly low opinion of people.

I found this interview eye-opening of how serious (and dangerous) money can be, when the people around you don't have any: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKutkXy1Eeo&t=1178s

Even when it's not a situation of danger, though, money can still drive a wedge. The friends you made growing up, you were then equals (and neither of you had anything). Your financial success can become a mirror into their financial struggles, and not everyone does ok in that situation.

I don't know, maybe it's an American thing, but here in Europe we boast much less about our success. It's considered rude.

Anyway, boasting of financial success is something I find sad, unnecessary and potentially dangerous.

Tomorrow some friend of a friend junkie may need money and may think I'm collecting rolexes or idk.

Better people don't know shit.

Are all these people in danger? https://www.seethroughny.net/payrolls/

I wish I never even told my family about anything.

Before I finally made the decision to just not talk to my parents anymore my dad would constantly shame and belittle me about what my earnings were; he's at a partner level in finance and is under the impression that my lack of income - while still being in college - is representative of his 'failure to raise me correctly', as...unhinged as that sounds.

I don't have any other family because my parents have basically had this attitude for the last 20 years and their siblings understandably do not like to be anywhere near them - as a byproduct I've never met my extended family.

Never too late, by the way. It could be a lot of fun to travel around and meet your relatives. Or not :) But only way to find out.

I wouldn't describe people as envious, toxic, etc... but even well meaning people who know how much you make can create issues that you simply would prefer not to have.

For example, if you make a lot people may expect you to pay for dinner more, or worry less about inconveniencing you financially. Not in a mean malicious way, but in a "Tommy's not gonna sweat this $20". Or the opposite, they may question why you have that new car, when your finances don't really justify it. They may be looking out for you, but really that decision should be yours and your spouse.

I'm not sure what upside there is to letting anyone know.

lol - this seems like a great way to keep a class divide. “I can’t let the poors know I make so much. They might try to take my money!”

Way to not work on class unity.

I’ve told my friends, family, peers, and anyone else how much I made all the way from delivering newspapers for criminally low wages, to doing random IT work in my local town of 4,000 people as a high schooler, to working as a cashier at a department store making minimum wage, and all the way up to my 7 figure TCs.

You know why? I want people to know what’s possible and what’s available out there. I want them to advocate for more money. When I tell them what I make - they think, “fuck, I should ask for more. You’re right!” They become more incentivized to advocate for unity among the working class as well because they realize without good bargaining - they will lose out.

Terrible idea for everyone. If people get jealous - tell them how you made it happen. If it was luck - fucking acknowledge it. If it was back breaking work - acknowledge it too. Acknowledge all the parts good and bad that got you to where you are. That’s what I do and everyone has no substantial resentment at the end.

Btw - I work as a typical engineer in SV. Nothing special.

People treat you differently, generally worse when they know you make many times what they do.

It's also dangerous and unnecessary and comes as posturing.

I live a modest life and no one has to know how much I make.

It's a terrible idea to share it, if you want that's your business.

Yeah, I won't share mine with anyone unless there's a need for them to know. It's literally nobody's business. But "need" isn't a terribly high bar. For instance, I recently shared that information with my best friend, in an attempt to get him to come work where I work.

Are these normal for UK? Even for startups in SF bay area, senior engineers are making 50-100+% above that number. I've been at startups that pay these rates to EU remote workers.

Salaries will be slightly higher in London. A mid-level engineer at a non-tech company will earn 50-55k.

Depends where he is. £90K for a remote gig is a pretty damn good dev salary by national standards. If you live somewhere cheap (outside of London and the London commuter belt, the South East, and perhaps away from a few other major city centers), you can live well on that salary.

In London? You probably won't be buying a property anytime soon, unless you have a partner with a similar salary. Single and renting? You're leading a pretty comfy bachelor life

For perspective though, £90K is almost 3x the national median full-time wage . Total taxation at this level is 32%.

Double fucked then. Lower salaries and higher taxes.

But free healthcare and education. Plus retirement benefits included

In the us you put the money you save from lower taxes into a better healthcare plan, and get some nice quality care.

In the US, we pay more than any other developed nation for health care, and get worse results than most other developed nations in return. Individual healthcare plans are grossly inefficient.

Yeah, that doesn't really work out as well as you might think.

What's the % of total employee taxation at the 3x median salary level in say, SF or NYC?

not only that. you've a bunch of smart people here - who're blind. looking at absolute numbers as if they mean something.

I worked in a mid-tier us city i.e Austin, Nashville and my take home pay is comparable to what I earn in london for the same role level. and same level of company profile. never worked at a mega tech - but have worked for well known ones.

and better yet my standard of living is higher.

I wonder how much of the lower pay is tax based. Like you make less, but the company pays more in taxes for the healthcare and such that the UK provides.

Not saying this is good or bad. Just curious about the reason for the pay discrepancy.

The reason for the pay discrepancy is less that the UK is an outlier, and more that the US is an outlier. Salaries in the US for software engineers are the highest anywhere in the world: salaries in the UK are very good nowadays relative to most countries, but the US is leagues ahead of everyone.

Could be, but I don't think it's health care. Check out the OECD stats:

https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

The US in total pays $12318 dollars per capita in health care. In the UK, it's $5387 per per capita. The US's supposedly more efficient market-based system turns out to be wildly more expensive than any other country.

Unfortunately no; it's on the high side for the sector. In my circle only I only see 6 figures for people working in the finance sector.

The deliveroo job is on the high side but £69k for a senior software engineer in London is definitely not! It's the government though so that's not exactly surprising. I wonder if he is not mentioning an amazing pension or something.

The caveat is that he was located in Nottingham for most of the history covered in the post, so this isn't necessarily comparable to SF -- more like, say, Colorado. That said, the most recent London (edit: sorry, Remote) salary is what I'd ballpark as average in London at the moment for that sort of position. There's been significant inflation in developer salary in London over the last few years, £100k is a reasonable total compensation for someone senior today. The salaries here are absolutely lower than in the US in raw numbers but in terms of overall position relative to other earners and quality of life, it's not much different.

The biggest gulf between the UK and US is at the top end, i.e: people earning TC of 500k+ is not uncommon in SF whereas that would be quite rare here outside of the upper echelons of the big tech companies. Part of this is because stock grants are much lower here in general, but salaries are lower too.

If you were an experienced software engineer in London today looking to maximise your salary, you'd have an easy time reaching £100k and you could probably touch £150k but it would take some effort.

Hmm, I don't think you know Colorado too well. Senior level dev makes about 2-3x of OP.

I think you've missed the point. He was comparing cost of living rather than salaries.

That would make the difference bigger, though.

Sounds like the company is paying HCOL salary in a LCOL state then.

Colorado isn’t even comparable to California in terms of cost, it’s also a state that most companies pay a national salary band for since it’s not considered a high cost state.

> LCOL state

Aspen is more comparable to SF costs than Sacramento is.

Those startup salaries largely apply to remote from LCOL too though.

I (occasionally) get ads up to £600k. YMMV

Yes this is normal for UK. It's high compared to other parts of EU where senior dev jobs earn like 50K EUR per year. I don't know why people even bother to become developers over there... And yes, there are really talented developers there; often more talented than in the US or other places based on my experience. You can probably earn more money and have better career prospects by being a janitor in the EU.

Surprise! There is no free market. We live in a global crony-communist system which decides how much money people get paid from the top down starting with US shareholders and executives at the top of the social pyramid. All based on military coercion, wars and foreign debt traps. You can thank your military-industrial complex.

I live in Denmark, an entry level wage for a junior developer averages around 65K-75K EUR per year here depending on which part of the country you are in.

Cost of living is crazy high in Denmark though right? How does that €65-75k compare with the actual cost of living out of curiosity? ( Eg. rent, groceries, leisure activities etc..)

From my own experience being single with that wage range I would say it was enough that i didn't have to think about how much money I used on everyday activities while still having something left over to add to my savings. Not enough to like travel all the time or buying crazy luxury items, but enough that money wasn't something I had to think about.

It's obviously difficult to try to compare actual numbers, but I think I had 5-10K DKK (670-1340 EUR) in surplus at the end of every month at that time. Obviously things are different when you have a partner and/or kids - or you might just get less lucky with how cheap you can rent or buy an apartment.

That's only in elite circles for certain connected individuals. You can also make that or higher in London in finance sector but you need special credentials (IR35) to get that and it's very hard to get for certain people.

In the real market, in the local job boards, it's hard to find anything above $50K USD. There is a dual class system in EU. The upper class get certain salaries and everybody else (which includes immigrants and unconnected individuals) get totally different salaries for the exact same work.

What a load of BS. My numbers are from the wage statistics my union (IDA) publishes. This isn't some elite circle, these are real numbers collected from their 10's of thousands of members. For example (note numbers are monthly wage in DKK): https://imgur.com/a/7obnU8p

Senior devs can do a lot better than 50k in Europe (I'm at 150k myself). But you have to push harder, and it helps if you're in Norway or Switzerland.

Ah yes Switzerland salaries are much higher... But costs of living are too. I remember everything in grocery stores cost almost twice as much as they did in Germany.

It's actually quite typical, when you move to places where costs of living are higher, salaries are higher too. You may still struggle to save anything. What you do manage to save can represent a lot of value, but only if you end up selling everything and relocating to a different, cheaper country/city later. I wish I had seen the global scheme sooner.

Same here. I would've stayed in northern California and emigrated _after_ saving a good chunk of change, especially since I grew up there. Oh well.

At a FAANG you can get ~£200k per year in London at a Senior level. Deliveroo doesn't pay particularly well (even though it's meant to be a competitor to Doordash which afaik does pay well). The Cabinet Office is a governmental agency and I would say it pays pretty poorly for London, but you'd probably find the same in the US.

You can get a better sense of the salaries in the UK via https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/london-...

Salaries in London != Salaries in the UK.

Deliveroo doesn't pay well in London either.

Pretty normal yep. If you work in things fintech and / or are super senior then salary could be much higher. Overall this looks about right.

Remember that in the UK we have access to more public services and benefits etc. Americans pay more here for better or worse eg healthcare. Many Americans also seem to have to overwork from a European point of view, so you earn more but at a cost most of us wouldn't tolerate. Lack of holidays, long hours etc.

Not a judgement, just contextualising the differences and explaining why focusing solely on pay as a metric is a bit misleading.

I don’t think American engineers pay more for healthcare at all. It’s almost all covered.

We pay zero is the point.

I mean by that standard we pay basically zero—employer covers the premiums.

You could argue that's still paying for it and the premium will be high compared to equivalent national insurance payments here.

Just to give you an example, I work for a tiny software firm of 40 people and my cost for the Cadillac of health insurance is 3$ a month. Each doctor's visit is 40$ but besides that everything is covered. I make 155k USD a year.

Damn, I want your health plan. Mine is more expensive, and it sounds like not as good.

Yeah, it was one of the main reasons I signed up with my company. They don't pay the most but they care for us more than any comapny I've worked for in my life.

The point is that the average American dev takes home a lot more cash than European devs.

Whether e.g. healthcare premiums comes out of my paycheck separately or is paid via higher taxes is just accounting.

My original point was about avoiding the reductive view of comparing one country against another solely by how much cash one takes home for a given job.

Just on healthcare, did you know your per capita spending is 2 to 3 times higher?

https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

Once you add public services into the equation, you should also account for the lower taxes in the us.

Sure. Overall you probably end up with more money in your pocket. I don't think many would dispute that this is an upside to living in America for an engineer. My point is that money as the sole metric is a bit pointless and reductive.

90% of devs who like to talk about their salary online are in SF, and they forget that they are outliers. Even though the salary was probably a big part of why they moved there.

Europe has atrocious pay in general.

You realize not every one of the 2.5 million developers in the US work in SF don’t you? Most work at banks, insurance companies, government across the US.

Sure, but getting a SV job living in a LCOL is easier than ever with the prevalence of remote work. The numbers I have seen are for series B startups, not FAANG companies.

Also, I've worked at a bank before as a software developer and made basically the same range.

Keep in mind the exchange rate fluctuation makes the comparison between US and UK salaries harder to reason about. The british pound recently dropped as low as $1.07, but was $1.40 less than 2 years ago, was $1.70 in 2014 and was above $2.00 in 2007.

Thank you for outlining the dumpster fire that is the British Pound.

Bay area engineers tend to make much more money than in most places. The cost of living is also much higher, so it all kinda evens out. You can't really judge the value of a salary based on just the number.

I appreciate the person's intention behind sharing this data but as someone with some meaningful context in compensation (heavily involved in recruiting, managing, and several personal job searches in recent years) I just don't find this remotely meaningful.

Companies, teams, locations, and people are all fairly non-fungible and it's very hard to compare across. Even the idea of "level" that companies use is super coarse. An L5 is not comparable to another L5 even at the same firm.

What is the value of me knowing that someone makes more or less than me in "the same" role. Is it really the same role or does he work on high impact, all-eyes-on-you stuff while I am doing sleepy back-office work? Or maybe I barely squeaked by the interview while he was considered for the next level already. Maybe he's bringing some domain specific skills that I just don't have. Etc.

What I am saying is there's almost never enough context that helps you understand why the person makes what they make and to compare that to your situation. If all this does is make you think you should be earning more but you keep getting rejected without understanding why, you are just more frustrated than where you started.

I'm in 100% agreeance with you. Salaries are very individual specific and depend on a ton of factors. I will say that openness when it comes to salaries is beneficial in an order-of-magnitude kind of way. If you're making half of what someone is making in the same role at a similar company, you're either not as good as you think you are or you're horrible at negotiating.

But they don't need to be. Thats why why there's a push for clear salary ranges and deterministic pay scale

It's not your problem when you're being paid well, until you aren't.

I strongly believe that if you "aren't being paid well" just some raw data isn't going to make the difference for you.

What you make is a function of how much I want you and how much it takes to get you to move over there. If you're making $100, it doesn't matter that you decide you're worth $150 because you saw that number somewhere - what matters is whether I can easily get another "you" for $100 or not.

If you were $150 material, you'd already know it from all the recruiters banging on your door offering you $150 jobs.

you're individualizing it. it's not about the individual, even though to you professionally it is.

individuals can't by definition engage in collective bargaining. but building awareness of the disparity, especially in domains like tech, is where this process starts.

Jobs aren't fungible, but compensation is. That's the point of denominating it in dollars and not cows or sheep. It may be hard to compare, but it is okay to compare things that are hard to compare, and that's what values are.

Some people value different jobs differently. Some people would be happy with far less compensation for the same job, while some people wouldn't accept a fair offer for personal reasons. These are good things about monetary and professional fungibility; people can compare on the jobs merits. Monetary compensation is not the only one, but it is a large one.

I think you mainly missed the point. I see you're an SRE, let's say I am also one. If I see that you make 200% of what I make, what does that tell me?

It definitely doesn't necessarily mean I am underpaid. And I have no way to figure that out. So what does comparing your comp to mine enable me to do?

Thanks for sharing this - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33173450 may be worth a read too around what I've learned since it's been public

That was... insanely quick. Do you have a regex set up for your blog on HN? Or track incoming referrers?

I've got tracking on my blog, and as I spotted quite a few HN hits, I assumed that something had been posted, as a handful of hits to the same page so quickly doesn't look like a previously posted post getting hits again

I have made a lot more than this probably 4x TOC of this and I would never share it with friends because to anyone not in tech my salary is shocking and troublesome. I have friends who are in fields that rarely top 100K and in the Bay Area it can be a challenge to live on that. It makes them sad! I didn't go into tech to make this much money but of course I am happy I've been able to take care of my family, own a house, educate my kid without debt, etc. The young ones around here all gravitate to tech in some capacity. It's hard to have a decent life with making a good income.

The salary data is interesting. But I found the clear example of title inflation quite shocking.

Promoted to "Senior" after only 1 years and 4 months. (Not counting their placement year here) and the "principal" in just under 4 years.

I have close to 20 years of experience this year so it kind of makes me chuckle when people with only a couple of years experience get refered to as senior. Admittedly, my title is equally laughably inflated, it seems to be a growing trend.

(This isn't intended to be personally disparaging to jvt. My comment is more on the state of the industries naming conventions)

Honest question -- does anyone really pay attention to titles anyway? We've known they were largely BS for decades.

Out of interest I plotted my salary history from when I immigrated to the US from the UK in 1980 to 2018 when I retired. Data is from the SSA website (click the link for the chart). While I knew the numbers all along seeing it in graph form I am shocked how much of a roller coaster ride it was. The chart has several interesting features. Initially there is slow steady salary growth as a contract employee at a large tech in the midwest. In 1990 I moved to Silicon Valley and salary growth sped up, partly as I switched jobs more and partly this was the gogo 1990s with a banner spike year in 1998 when I got a large performance bonus that essentially doubled my salary. This was also the time in the valley when your house made more than you did so times were good, money was plentiful and I could afford to lose a little attempting to day trade the dot com stocks. Then the dot com bust hit in 2000-2001 and the startup I worked for failed to IPO and I started a lean patch where I was self-employed trying to run my own business and create my own startup. I tried to do it purely with credit cards and did not try for any venture capital. It didn't work out although I do have some small passive income to show for some websites I created. I went back to full time employment in 2007 and stayed with that albeit plateaued in my career until retirement in 2018 when I was laid off. The final salary spike is a termination bonus.

https://ibb.co/TDXBgS8

This data is so granular for covering nearly a decade. I can probably dig up all of my former offer letters with initial salaries and approximate (read: entirely inaccurate) equity values, but I doubt I can dig up records on every cash or stock bonus I've received.

If someone wanted to construct a page like this for themselves, where would they get the data to do it? Maybe something related to tax records? Or do you just need to have had the foresight to record/save all of this from the get-go?

Does your employer know? HR would probably have a fit if they found out it was publicly posted.

Where are you based that HR can object to you sharing basic details of your working conditions like how much you're paid?

Where are you that HR is incapable of disliking that people share their salary?

If HR's role is to protect the company, then they would be sensible to know that people have a right to share their salary information.

I'm in the US, where they're welcome to dislike it but their "throwing a fit" would be illegal and risky for the company.

HR is not capable of “liking” or “disliking” - those are human emotions.

They are only capable of following policy and law - which, in my country (US) means it’s perfectly fine to discuss salary.

Note: “HR” (Human Resources) describes the resource pool in relation to the corporation, not a collection of “resources” available to a human. As a department, HR only ever exists to serve the corporation. Even if you walk into the dept to fix a pay stub (a legal concern) or get a mental health referral (it’s expensive to hire new emps after burning them out…)

What does it matter if they dislike it?

In many countries, including the UK (where the author is from), it's not illegal to talk openly and publicly about your salary. Contracts can have 'do not disclose your salary' but, in places like the UK, this is legally unenforceable[0]. It gets pretty grey though, in the UK it's allowed to protect you from underpayment and from bargaining etc. I reckon disclosing it publicly can be seen as a form of a basis for collective knowledge at the organisations, though.

0: https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/09/can-your-boss-stop-you-talkin...

Nor is it illegal in the US. Whether or not it's illegal has no bearing on of the employer will be upset.

https://news.sky.com/story/deliveroo-to-cut-350-jobs-9-of-it...

The transparency is nice. I feel for people in the UK. I made 20% more than OPs latest position in a LCOL area in the US. Before I finished my degree.

What is lcol?

Low Cost Of Living

Low cost of living

The quality of life in the UK for someone on £100k is very high. There’s no sympathy needed for people on £100k in the UK!

I'm sure it is. But how does having the option to retire in your 30s sound?

It’s sounds like an unrealistic pipe dream from someone in their 20s. Even on American salaries all it takes is one good accident (or even burnout) to derail the best laid FIRE plans.

Almost no one is retiring in their 30s regardless of circumstances.

Im the only one who never had a joining bonus?

I've only joined 2 companies, however I interviewed and turned down maybe 6 other job offers. The company I work for now is the only one that offered a signing bonus so I don't think signing bonuses are that common in Europe?

You're far from the only one. Most people don't get them.

I wish I could move to somewhere that pays the big money but I'm stuck here in Australia.

But remember, what counts as "big money" is very situationally dependent. There are parts of the US where you'd be living poor on an income that you could live rich on in other parts.

What matters isn't the absolute amount. What matters is what you can buy with it.

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