No salary wastes everyone's time | Hacker News Reader

No salary wastes everyone's time

169 pointsmichaelteter61 comments

It's the first of the month, so that means "Who's Hiring".

Roles which do not list a salary (or reasonable salary range) will have worse signal-to-noise applications the more senior the roles.

Missed opportunity: company and candidate may never meet because candidate assumes low salary.

Wasted company and candidate time: candidate is enthusiastic and goes through some effort/process before discovering the salary is too low.

The days of hiding salary numbers need to end. Imagine shopping at some stores where the cost of items were not displayed until checkout. Shoppers would favor the stores which listed prices up front; they would only visit the hidden-price stores for unique or specialty items which were not available at stores which listed prices.

If a company cannot compete on salary, and they know it, they should explain why they are still worth considering. And if they have no value to offer to make up for the comparatively low salary, then they should make clear that they accept more junior developers (or are willing to train).

(reposted with title change based on previous comment recommendation)

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Eloquently put. The last time I was on the market I didn’t apply to a single company that didn’t list salary - every time I’ve done that their pitch was underwhelming.

To those saying “there’s more than salary” - that’s a privileged take. I hate to use that word but it’s appropriate here. Salary ONLY MEANS being able to put a roof over your family’s head and feed them.

There _is_ more than salary, but most of it would be classified as "nice-to-haves". Would I take an offer that wasn't the highest one I got if I thought the WLB or culture was better? Probably, but there's a limit. $10k less for a better WLB, sure. $50k less? Probably not.

With this line of thoughts one should've joined a blockchain/ICO/NFT/web3 scam. They were used to be 50-100% above the market.

It's not the worst idea. I build web UIs, I don't really care what product they support as long as it's not explicitly harming anyone.

But it's also missing the point. I apply for the jobs I want, I just don't want to apply for the ones that make below my bottom line.

The junior version of myself would agree: when you are a junior you have little power of negotiation and you accept whatever the company offers to you at the end of the interview cycle (besides, if you manage to get to the end of the cycle, then you're probably thinking "I cannot let this opportunity pass"). So, if salaries are public, then you know what you are going for.

The senior version of myself wouldn't mind having no salaries advertised in job offerings. I know that now I have more power of negotiation and I know how much I should ask for in an interview. In order to not lose time in interviews, sometimes I tell upfront "BTW, I'm expecting at least X per year. Is that alright? Otherwise, goodbye and thank you for your time". Sometimes I don't say that and wait until the end because my guts (and the internet) tells me that the company can pay really well, so I want to make a good impression in the interview and ask for a 10% more of whatever salary they offer me first.

It is quite the opposite.

As a junior, you are more desperate for work to get experience, have less liabilities and would accept anything anyway, so the salary won't make much difference.

As a senior, your time worth more and you should not waste it on companies you are out of their league, you are less likely to accept a low salary as your liabilites need to be covered.

Yes, you can negotiate but your prespective assumes most companies would give you what you want eventually, which isn't true.

This is probably going to be controversial.

I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process.

It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind of like coming to a car website and seeing cars sold at a fixed price, no bargaining. Or kind of like searching for loan refinancing and seeing a bank website show you the standard menu of rates they offer. You just pick from the menu.

However, the issue is that you're probably overpaying for the car, and getting a bad refinance rate every time. And your blanket "salary tier" is probably some safe hedge for the worth you may or may not be bringing. An estimation of vague plans they might have on where you may help.

Shouldn't this be reversed? Shouldn't it be you to tell them what you can do, the plans, explain how much you're worth? How can they know your salary if you haven't told them this stuff yet? Aren't you supposed to be an expert at something? That's just one of a few weirdnesses about salary.

Maybe it depends on a job, and some jobs are really _that_ predictable, but feels like in software dev industry it doesn't add up, except maybe for junior positions.

I used to be in the opposite camp, but nowadays every time I see a concrete salary range listed, it makes me feel silly. We all know that humans running the place can probably decide to pay whatever they want based on how they feel. I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops".

Your mindset doesn't count for the wasted time on being lowballed by companies. Say you have your 20 years of experience, you go through several rounds of interviews and they offer you a junior level salary with their big fat smile. Now what? They wasted your time from the very beginning hoping to charm you into wanting to work there. The people interviewing you are all getting paid, yet you are the one who have time loss and no gain. Now imagine if multiple companies did that to you throughout your job search, wouldn't you rather the company start with honesty from the very beginning?

I see your point, but not sure if a number up front would be honesty, seems more of a gamble. They need to find a number that's not too low, not too high, for an abstract average human. I've managed to detect a lowball danger fairly early on in my past negotiations, but can't claim that it's easy. That said, maybe knowing their "hedge rate" is a useful tell, even if you don't entirely trust it.

Another better alternative is for these companies who can't afford the top talent, to train new talent (new grads, new juniors or people with less then 3 years experience) and upgrade them into where they need to be for the companies long term benefit. Also if you are going to say next that these people will just eventually leave, the number one reason people leqve a job is because of a shitty boss/manager. A company who invests in their employees will hopefully not develop bad managers, who can keep good individual contributors. Hell that's in my situation, i'm underpaid, but I also am working for the best manager i've had so far in my career, so I trade off stress and money for a relaxed and longer life.

Training new talent requires a lot of time and resources, and, of course, some "old" talent with those time and resources on hands, except if you plan to outsource the training part.

> However, the issue is that you're probably overpaying for the car

On the contrary. People have options for cars. You don't have to buy a specific brand or a specific model. If every car's price is listed publicly, then consumers can easily shop around for the best price, and it would be difficult for a dealer to get away with overcharging everyone with a publicly listed price. People just won't buy from a dealer with inflated prices.

When there's price negotiation, dealers mostly win at that game, because they usually have far more information than the consumer.

That's probably more true for simple products like toasters. For products where each one is almost always unique (has tons of optional choices, details) you can't easily shop around and compare apples to apples. You end up narrowing down to a few _mostly acceptable_ products in your vicinity, and then negotiating among those few.

To add: it's already difficult for a dealer to overcharge because even for complex/unique products we do have stats.

I just don't like the circular dependency of it. Companies follow an industry-wide stat to push all the people into preset salary tiers. The industry-wide stat is based on these same companies. The only way out is when some "rogue" companies allow some "rogue" employees to negotiate, and push the industry upwards.

I like the rogue idea.

>>I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops".

But that happens often. Maybe not as much for very senior (10+ years) but I’ve been there myself.

I do highly agree with your points and analogies about negotiation however

What I saw happen is “we can’t afford you”, not “we can’t go over the number we posted”. I think that’s fine.

> I think it necessarily must be negotiated

it cant be negotiated fairly. negotiating works for people who are "in the know" and have been in the industry for years such as yourself. everyone else gets shit end of the stick, because the company is negotiation from position of power with much more knowledge.

thats why some governments mandate minimum salary based on collective agreement or make it a law to provide salary range (for example Austria)

I agree that senior experience is probably important, but also it’s knowing how to negotiate.

What does it mean to be negotiated “fairly”? If you don’t like the rate, you come with a counter proposal, for which ideally you have leverage. The leverage is another job offer you found. If you don’t have leverage, you could negotiate a few other ways but they’re less effective. In the end, if you feel you can’t get a competing offer and you can’t wait, essentially you have to accept the terms, but also you can continue the search, and quit when you find something better. This is why companies don’t like to lowball you - they don’t want you to come in with one foot out the door. So one of those “less effective” ways is to explain honestly how their offer might not be sufficient for you to be able to focus on your work without worrying about rent and food. It’s in the best interest of both of you for you to focus on work.

I believe this "dance" to be quite ineffective for both employers and employees, as the best strategy is standard 2 years somewhere then monkey branch for 20% bump in another company.

I guess this is a debate as old as time "invisible hand" vs "socialism". I understand both sides of the argument, but think it makes sense to have a bit of government oversight or workers initiatives here to make sure people are not getting shafted.

In the beginning of your career, I do think well-timed jumps are very effective. But overall yes, in capitalism (whether you like it or not, this is what we got) the most important skill is getting people to agree/compromise with you. And for people who (for perfectly valid reasons) can't develop this skill, we have institutions such as unions and recruiters that help delegate it somewhat. I don't think standardized non-negotiable tiers of deals are as helpful to us as we seem to think.

And that is actually a problem for Austria. Ever heard about Austrian unicorn tech companies? Me neither.

Upd: I actually checked, there are 6 (six) unicorns in Austria. But no one ever heard of them and you never figure out what are they doing.

I will bite and play the what-about-ism game.

And I dont mean this as an insult but factually you wont see crap smeared on sidewalks and armies of dope fiends walking around in the cities of Austria.

It seems like profit at the expense of everything else, morals included and sustainable growth are two different concepts.

So yes, Austria (country of 10 million) does not have many unicorn companies, but the quality of life for an average person is miles removed from that of an average person in the US, the country with most unicorns in the world?

You are right about the quality of life in Austria. It is not a paradise; most Austrian cities have better and worse parts, but generally, Austrians are well off. At the same time, life in Austria is quite expensive too. It's not easy to move to Austria as a self-supporting wealthy individual; getting a working permit is also not easy. Austrian demographics currently are balancing on the edge of self-sustainability thanks to migrants, but the average age is growing fast. In 20 years, about 55% of the population will be 60+. Who will pay for their healthcare and social security? Who will care for and treat them? AI-powered robots? I don't think so.

So Austria will be forced to open floodgates to gastarbaiters from all over the world. And with the aforementioned cost of life, they will have their portion of slums with junkies and crap-smeared sidewalks.

The salary in the ad is always a jumping off point for negotiations. They can go always lower than that if they feel like you don't meet the criteria given in ad, or higher if you're particularly attractive. But, at least, it gives the ballpark.

Personal anecdote - for the past couple of years, I've complelety stopped applying to offers which don't advertise salary. My salary expectations are at the top end of the market and, I've found, if the companies are willing to pay as much, they usually put it in the job ad, as it draws more candidates. And conversely, if the company doesn't advertise their salary, it's usually because it's "market level" or below, i.e. nothing to brag about. There are of course exceptions such as FAANGs, where they don't have to advertise their high salaries because they're practically public information anyway.

> I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops"

Lots of big companies have very well-defined salary bands, and you can only negotiate up to the top of that band. There are other things you can negotiate for, hiring bonus, time off, WFH, equipment budget, etc, but you don't get higher salary unless you get a higher title too.

> I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc

Flex your imagination muscles a little harder. Companies already know how much they want to pay you, but are hoping you'll accidentally lowball yourself by quoting them a lower number. That's what the negotiation is. The average working dev only has so much power in a situation like this.

The problem comes from the non-standardization of titles and salaries across the industry. Two "senior engineers" can have widely varying salaries and sets of responsibilities. So if a dev can't or won't take any job that pays under $125k, it might helpful find out that the maximum salary for the role is $95k before going through the application process and speaking to a recruiter.

> Lots of big companies have very well-defined salary bands

It's true, but I'm not sure that it's good. That's going back to salary being weird. They are making themselves deliberately inflexible, locking themselves out of potentially good agreements (probably in response to public pressure). Perhaps big names can get away with it. Worth noting that the same "bands" probably don't apply to hiring consulting businesses. Ask yourself why, and how's that different from striking a deal with an individual.

> Companies already know how much they want to pay you

That's not true. They don't know how much they want to pay _you_. They know how much they want to pay an average abstract employee doing the job they vaguely envision in a satisfactory manner. Then when the actual _you_ come in, that abstract employee becomes a concrete advocate for themselves. They'll have to think about you specifically now, and it changes the whole calculus.

Manager here. I've been on both side of the table.

From HM perspective showing salary is bad idea. I can pay whatever I want inside budget assigned and build a smaller team of seniors or larger swarm of juniors depending on many factors. But first and foremost I want to have people with certain culture and mindset.

If I put low range I might loose opportunity to talk to people above the range.

But if I show high salary I am overwhelmed with conartists and tricksters trying to find their way to high compensation by finding company with poor vetting process. No exceptions for 10 years. I have yet to see a case where it brought a talent into pipeline.

Thus unless obliged by the law I am not showing any ranges and determine expectations through conversation with candidates compose a team from them and see if I can sweet the deal by beating their expectations.

From candidate perspective I see no issue, if you have few years of experience already you know potential employer salary tier just by looking on what they are doing.

I would try to avoid providing salary expectations, but if forced to just make current+30% stake.

And if it in a right league it's no issue for going through interview process.

I learn a lot on interviews by turning tables and trying to deep dive on what they doing and challenges facing and frequently get above the market offers.

> If I put low range I might loose opportunity to talk to people above the range.

> I can pay whatever I want inside budget assigned and build a smaller team of seniors or larger swarm of juniors depending on many factors.

You could also announce two positions (one senior, one junior), with two different ranges.

There's more to a job than the salary, and it can be reasonable for a company to leave salary ambiguous in order to make that sales pitch. Sometimes it's half the company; sometimes it's a set of steak knives. And it's reasonable for an applicant to decide that they're all about the salary and don't want to waste time on the sales pitch, and move on.

For the working class (most applicants), we're here just for the salary. We're not here for prestige, or asslicking, or passion. We're here to put food on the table and to potentially build for our children a future where they don't have to sell their time for money.

idk what you're talking about, I'm here to get paid.

Are you the person on the dating site that refuses to post a photo as well?

Exactly. Some of us are ugly but still have a hope when face to face. That ambiguity gives us a chance at being a contender, to make the case that there's more to us. Is that unreasonable for an ugly person?

I think its not, and its also not unreasonable for someone else to think "no picture, they're probably ugly and I'm all about the looks, so I'll pass."

I think it might be a mistake to conflate business ethics with personal ethics. I have sympathy for individuals who through no fault of their own struggle in the dating scene; I have no sympathy for corporate entities in any regard.

Very few people struggle with dating through no fault of their own. Most people have actionable things that they can do to get a date just like most can find a job. But not everyone can get to the level of dating models or working at FANG companies. That requires done combination hard work and natural gift.

If you don’t grind leetcode you won’t get that fang job, if you don’t grind social skills and status you won’t get that hot date.

The sometimes you can win on the face to face just like sometimes you can hire below market rates, but you are just wasting time on a site where other people do post photos and a high initial investment is required

I can agree that there's more to a job than the salary, and it's totally cool to negotiate.

When you make the salary ambiguous in order to make your sales pitch, you are being unreasonable.

"There's more to a job than the salary" is just rhetoric from those trying to justify bad salaries, often by implying intangibles are suitable substitutes for money.

Imagine a candidate being so coy regarding their skillset. Hi, I'd like a job. Yes I know some programming, a good amount, don't worry about that.. but let's talk about my sense of humour. Would your business benefit from daily jokes? No? Ok what about my haircut, surely having this haircut in the office all day would be appealing? How about monthly I bring in some muffins my wife made?

This is a real “drink the kool aid” take.

> There's more to a job than the salary

That only works for people who are earning a lot. I mean, for SV engineers there's probably a big difference between company A paying $350K/year with 10 days of vacation per year, and company B paying $300K/year with 30 days of vacation per year (I bet most would apply for company B, because the +$50K is not such a big difference).

For the rest of the engineers in the world (99% of us), a salary of $80K/year vs $130K/year is big difference and I don't know who would go for a job that pays $50K less no matter the other perks (which, at least in Europe are quite standard, so there's not much to be picky about)

never going to happen for a very simple reason. what every for profit company is trying to do is to extract as much value and labor from employee as possible.

dont get it twisted, this is a war and salary is strategic information. noone in their right mind is going to share this information unless they are forced to or believe there is tangible benefit (for them) behind it.

your boss is not your boss because they are nice and kind person, your boss is your boss because they figured out how to extract value from other people for their benefit.

I tend to focus on what I can control:

I cannot make the job market makers play fair(?) game, but I can reach to current and past employees on linkedin and get the salary range myself, and discard interviews where it is hard to negotiate to an acceptable salary.

Also, some keywords in job ads shows more probabilty of lower than market salary, no company is really looking for someone who is looking for new challenges or who can wear many hats, they are just looking for affordable candidates

No need to source info through side channels.

A company that doesn't post a salary AND doesn't even give you a range when asked is a write-off.

They are either grossly incompetent and/or planning to exploit you from the get go.

Too bad, this didn’t help either as it seems. Thanks for trying!

Edit: ha, it has made it to page 2 now. Good luck!

Why so rude?

There is no rudeness or malice in my comment. You can find the necessary context here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36157422

Thank you for the context

Not just salary, but TC range would be helpful. How do I interpret a listing that says $X salary + equity?

I want to be upfront. Here's the difficulty. (I say this as an employer.)

Let's say I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior.

Is posting 95-185k really that useful?

What happens when I offer someone 130k but they were expecting 185k?

And you can't just use years of experience alone to rank junior vs senior.

tl;dr If engineers were more fungible, I could post a precise number. But I don't think they are.

So post two openings to close the gap?

“Junior: pay$ Senior: pay$”

You say: "I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior."

The next question is "what does junior mean" and "what does senior mean".

There's always another question

If you're looking for a "junior" and you don't know what a "junior" means, then that's your problem, no? I mean, if you are willing to pay X for position Y, you (your company) should know exactly what you are looking for.

Otherwise you are just fishing and see what happens. Not bad, though, but I don't think that's an excuse for "can't list salaries in job ads"

The concern isn't knowing that "junior" mean. The concern is explaining it clearly enough in 150 words or less.

> Is posting 95-185k really that useful?

Yes. I immediately know that you are not looking for me (which is fine).

If your singular job listing can somehow match both a junior and senior you are just fishing for a good deal, not actually looking for what you need. People looking for senior engineers are usually pretty direct about it.

Like others said, > 1 job listings for what you actually need.

This.

I am looking for software developers. Could be junior or senior (or any of the infinite varieties in between), tho productivity differs for them.

Not complicated

Single digit employees can’t be really considered “junior” regardless of their experience since you are looking for people that would literally build your company from scratch.

Whilst experience is important it doesn’t not directly correlates with competence as you’ve also mentioned.

I really love negotiating. I also like knowing the budget a position has been assigned.

Obviously salary means you're getting paid less than the value you contribute so then it becomes a matter of squeezing more value out of the position or adding more value than advertised?

I've interviewed candidates. They come in every skill set. Some under value themselves while others. We've been given a max budget of $150k. What do you do when an amazing candidate who could replace a dozen current employees only wants $180k?

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