Walmart Store Managers Can Make Up to $400k | Hacker News Reader

Walmart Store Managers Can Make Up to $400k

bloomberg.com

21 pointskarma_daemon38 comments

Huh. We got the story about how Walmart truck drivers make six figures, then this. What a coincidence! Did they call in a PR firm to try to convince people that Walmart isn't a terrible company?

https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Yes, that's the sort of thing that I was suspecting.

As to the submarine essay itself, I was amused by this line

> A good flatterer doesn't lie, but tells his victim selective truths

I found that amusing because telling selective truths is a form of lying.

Happens a lot around here where one thread leads to another. I assume people see the headline about truck drivers, do some research, and find this interesting as well.

Recently I made the decision to go to wal mart for something instead of amazon. Lesser of two evils type situation you know, which I never could have imagined twenty years ago. What's grimly hilarious is that wal mart didn't get better over that time though, we just made the world so much worse that it no longer seems egregious.

Maybe someone went on a link binge (caused by the first one).

The rank and file making good money and managers making good money are narratives that might appeal to different groups of people.

maybe related to this: "Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands" https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-inve...

walmart pays $400k, unless you're below management level. then it's prison labor or you can go on food stamps because walmart doesn't pay a living wage.

Maybe it varies by area but currently in my area Walmart wages and benefits are pretty good, especially compared to other similar jobs.

There was discussion under the truck post about the very same topic, so perhaps somebody looked it up and made a post? Not uncommon to happen here.

Is this astroturfing by Walmart? Why are there two stories on the front page about how much Walmart pays people?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176877

What would Walmart possibly gain by astroturfing HN? Do you think they are recruiting software engineers as assistant managers?

They could be paying a firm for generic astroturfing / publicity campaign. That PR firm could have HN as one of many communities they target by default. Walmart could be unaware and uncaring as to which communities, precisely, are targeted by the firm they hired for this. The PR firm might not put much effort into specifically tailoring their target communities for each and every campaign, but generally just follow a standard playbook, which might happen to include HN.

HN literally does not register for PR firms.

Categorical statements are generally easily disproven:

BMV is a PR company which won prdaily.com's 2023 award for "Best Use of Research/Surveys"[0] Their website[1] says:

> You also want to distribute and share the news on your announcement into popular communities for engineering talent, such as HackerNews.

Salient PR also targets HN[2]:

> Choose a team that can speak the same language as your audiences and create content that resonates. Look for demonstrated experience engaging developers across communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, HackerNews, and relevant podcasts.

Vidico's "Optimized Video Marketing Campaigns" also target HN:[3]

> Q: Which publishers do you reach out to? A: Our publishers are higher tier tech publications that include Techcrunch, Hackernews and FastCompany. We write your press release, and include high-quality media media assets such as the video we’ve produced for you and still photo assets.

Bizibl Marketing's "Content Distribution Playbook"[4] says:

> And embrace communities. Platforms such as Inbound, Reddit, HackerNews and niche-specific communities allow you to put your message amongst your audience. But be aware that whilst these communities may applaud and amplify a relevant and compelling message, they are likely to pull apart one that is irrelevant, unfavourable or unwelcome.

Relevance also offers PR services targeting HN[5]:

> Take a careful look at whatever had worked in the past and leverage different platforms like Reddit, Slashdot, HackerNews, BuzzSumo, GrowthHackers, Twitter, and Zest.

0: https://www.prdaily.com/awards/content-marketing-awards/2023...

1: https://beantownmv.com/how-to-get-press-coverage-for-your-st...

2: https://salientpr.com/developer

3: https://vidico.com/video-marketing/

4: https://bizibl.com/marketing/download/content-distribution-p...

5: https://www.relevance.com/captivate-your-target-audience-by-...

I hope they are recruiting software engineers! Then maybe they will get someone who can fix their purchase history search. I'm talking about the search near the top of this page when you are logged in: https://www.walmart.com/orders

A long time ago that partly broke. It stopped showing purchases made in-person. It would still show items purchased online for home delivery. I think it also showed items purchased online for parking lot pick up, but don't remember for sure.

I think it might now be completely broken, because I can't get it to show me purchases even when I search for something I'm pretty sure I had delivered.

I've reported this via their feedback page several times and they have not done anything. It's quite annoying.

I don't know if is broken for everyone or if for some reason something is fucked up with my account. I know it is not something to do with my computer because it fails the same way in the Walmart app on my phone and tablet. On the other hand surely if it was broken for everyone someone in whatever department maintains it would have noticed...surely some of them actually shop at Walmart and occasionally want to look up a past purchase.

I very literally accidentally clicked upvote when this article was first on the home page. I can't undo upvotes for some reason. Hopefully my little vote didn't help visibility.

There was a story on the front page yesterday about many software engineers considering career switch

Walmart has a huge digital team; who do you think operates walmart.com ?

Whenever I see someone bring up astroturfing I check their profile under the assumption that they have also shared links either not critical of or blatantly promotional of a corporation or any of their products.

I'm never wrong.

Hmm. That's significantly more than what I make, and I have a college degree and work in tech. I should be jealous, but I am not.

Good on Walmart for paying their store managers well. I hope the front line employees also get great pay and benefits too. if true, go Walmart.

> I have a college degree

The preferred qualifications are a Bachelors degree in Business. Take a look at the job postings.

> That's significantly more than what I make

The base salary is also in the $70-120k range for Store Managers, which is essentially the equivalent of becoming a Director at a public tech company.

The 400k number seems to have come out of an outlier who had a significant stock grant.

It's very good money of course, but you still end up earning more as a line level engineer with much less stress.

> The preferred qualifications are a Bachelors degree in Business. Take a look at the job postings.

I tried. Page would not load for me so I made some assumptions.

> It's very good money of course, but you still end up earning more as a line level engineer with much less stress.

Not going to lie - I have it too easy. Which is why I am happy that the hard working folks of Walmart made more.

Agreed, but salaries are just a product of margins and skillset, not effort expended.

In a specialized industry like software or biopharmaceuticals, companies are expected to have very high margins (think $500k-1m in revenue per employee).

Given that the pipeline for these industries is constricted due to skill requirements, that's why salaries tend to be much higher.

Walmart did ~$600B revenue across ~10k stores.

Which means each store generates ~$60M/store.

For someone responsible for $60M in revenue, is the GM of a store with hundreds-of-thousands of products, and manages dozens/hundreds of employees - having an OTE of $0.4M could be argued as being underpaid.

(Correct, I'm not factoring in eComm - but directionally the numbers are still rough order of magnitude accurate)

---

Contrast that with being a Chic-Fil-a GM/operator, which is a radically smaller business by an order of magnitude, effectively just has 1 product (chicken) ... who makes $0.2M per year.

https://corporate.walmart.com/about/location-facts

https://www.mashed.com/179233/how-much-chick-fil-a-franchise...

Revenue isn't a meaningful measure. Margin is.

If, as the article says, they are adjusting compensation to retain skilled employees, it makes complete sense. That is, unless you assume Walmart doesn't have any idea what it costs to keep a good manager, but I very much doubt that's the case.

$404K is the absolute maximum total compensation for that role. That's around the top end of a software engineering manager role at some companies. I don't want to be a software engineering manager at that (or any other) salary, but I'd much rather do that job than manage a Walmart. I mean in terms of the amount of stress and anxiety it would entail, the hours, the shit you'd have to shovel. I bet managing a high-volume Walmart is a more difficult job, and there are fewer people doing it.

That's awesome, good for them. Hopefully they improve comp for front-line staff too.

Looking at their career page, it looks like the general front end jobs pay $14-26/hr [1], is $29k-56k/yr if working full time. That’s around the median pay for 16-34, and 65+, year olds (according for Forbes [2]) in the US. Not amazing, but also not terrible, considering it doesn’t require any special skills or training. It also looks like they have some decent benefits (healthcare, 401k, education assistance, etc), considering it’s a retail job.

[1] https://careers.walmart.com/stores-clubs/walmart-store-jobs

[2] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/average-salary-by-ag...

> if working full time

That's where they get you. Staffing less than 30 hours means you don't need to provide health insurance as an employer. This is what most retailers do for line level staff.

Roles like Store Manager, Leader, or Coach are basically corporate management gigs that require or "highly recommend" a Bachelors degree

Doesn't sound so absurd when you compare them to a director or VP in tech. They manage 400-500 people at the high end and bring in over a billion dollars in revenue per year.

Why is this a surprise?

Edit: I’m in Walmart right now wearing a blue vest and stocking candy.

SM: not sure - they do get a bonus based on metrics

Store lead salary: see SM

Coach salary: c. $75k, a bonus too

TL: c. $21/hour, also a bonus

TA: c. $15/hour

20K in stock each year if you manage the super centers. That (according to the article I read about this on NYT) is oround $128K/yr max, and the equity vests over 3 years.

It's great for making sure folks feel a sense of ownership and you lock them in cheaply, which is good strategy. But not sure where the 400K number comes from.

"Can" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

I do know they pay tuition for a 4-year online degree to their employees because I teach these students. I thought that was a good thing.

Store Manager Article Published January 29, 2024 at 9:45 AM EST

Truck Driver Article Published Tuesday, January 23, 2024

LOL, where? Seriously is this an astroturf? Self-reported salaries on Glassdoor are on the order of $75-135K. The pharmacist in these stores is the top paid person usually.

The only explanation is "one time we accidentally set a stores goals way too low and a store manager got the bonus of a lifetime:

Non paywall: https://archive.is/xn4Ln

I "could" make "up to" $1M/year.

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