The Programmer Salary Taboo

421 points by andrewmunn 15 years ago | 319 comments

MrFoof 15 years ago |

Salaries never stay secrets forever. Hiding them only delays the inevitable.

Last year we were having a discussion at lunch. Coworker was building a new house, and when it came to the numbers it was let loose that it was going to cost about $700K. This didn't seem like much, except to a young guy that joined the previous year and had done nothing but kick ass and take names. The new guy was arguably the most talented guy in the company by a considerable margin, so he thought someone building a $700K home might've been overextending themselves. The person buying the home retorted that it was reasonable and asked the new guy why he wouldn't buy the Porsche Boxster he considered his dream car. The new guy responded that would never be prudent. That didn't seem right, as several of us at the table could've nearly swung a Boxster with just our bonus.

The conversation ended up in numbers. Coworker building the house pulled about $140K base (median for a programmer was probably $125K), and his bonus nearly matched the new guy's salary, which was an insulting $60K -- and got cut out of the bonus and raise in January for not being there a full year, only 11 months.

Turns out he was a doormat in negotiating, though his salary history was cringeworthy. It pained everyone to hear it, considering how nice of a guy he was. In all honestly, $60K was a big step up for him. Worst of all, this wasn't a cheap market (Boston). The guy probably shortchanged himself well over a half-million dollars in the past decade. This was someone who voluntarily put in long hours and went out of his way to teach others, and did everything he could to help other departments like operations and other teams. On top, he was beyond frugal. Supposedly he saved something around 40% of his take home pay, despite living alone in Boston. He grew up in a trailer park.

He spent the next day in non-stop meetings with HR, his manager and the CTO. That Friday he simply handed in his badge without a word, walked out and never came back.

Until 3 months later. As a consultant. At $175/hour.

patio11 15 years ago | |

That guy could have been me. Modest upbringing, lean living, doormat at negotiations, accepting absurdly low compensation because it seemed like the thing to do at the time, check check check. I'm glad he is doing better now.

That said, mission effing accomplished for the company: they're well north of a million dollars richer because good little kids don't drop their drawers or talk salary numbers. This topic makes me feel positively Marxist: we're willingly participating in a system designed and perpetuated to exploit us because to do otherwise would be impolite.

roc 15 years ago | | |

Ah yes. The old bit where social/moral obligations and judgments are only applied to normal citizens and never corporate citizens.

When a private individual walks away from an underwater mortgage because the deal suddenly sucks, they're seen as a scum-bag leech whose word isn't worth dirt. Get the economic-justice crowd in on the discussion and they start bandying about "debtor's prisons" and erecting straw-men for the dead-beat bonfire.

But when a bank walks away from an underwater property because the deal suddenly sucks, they're seen as smart. Shrewd. Walking might even be a bonus-worthy decision.

Not that private individuals are incapable of screwing one another over and somehow dodging social judgment [1]. It's just far, far less common. And the best treatment they get is a polite look in the other direction. No-one's printing an Op-Ed celebrating those decisions and castigating any attempts at socio-moral critique.

[1] For some reason we all look the other way when it comes to immigrant au-pairs. And that's horrible.

daemin 15 years ago | | |

Loved your tweets on salary negotiations from last night, pity I haven't properly followed through on them in recent times.

ChuckMcM 15 years ago | |

Sounds like a Google story.

But regardless, some people define 'winning' as getting more out of you than you get out of them. Sometimes those people get into management positions, and when they do their groups seem to develop really wide pay ranges for the same amount of work. If you're a senior manager and one of your managers is trying to get points because "I can convince him to join for half what the last guy cost." then you need to jump on that problem right away.

Managers have the challenge when they pay someone $X but they aren't doing the same level or quality of work of someone making $X - $Y. As a manager you have three choices: 1) Bring the lower paid person up to an equivalent level 2) Fire the guy making "too much" and replace with someone who is more calibrated to your organization. 3) Engage in a potentially unsuccessful campaign to bring the contribution up of the under performer.

Of the three #1 is the "easy" one (giving people raises is always pretty easy), #2 is the "quick" one (especially if you're in a place where turn over is expected) and #3 is perhaps the biggest gamble (both the opportunity cost of not having the guy perform and the possibility he may never get there). It's one of those things that is different about being a manager vs being an individual contributor.

Things are weirder in pre-IPO + post-IPO worlds where people assume that if they are throwing around a bunch of money its because they got it from stock or something. It can be psychologically difficult on someone who has a lot of money due to an IPO but is doing the same "level" of work as someone who joined later and got post IPO stock. Harder to manage and harder to deal with morale issues if they start 'resting and vesting'.

Google was famous for having a 'personal multiplier' which would adjust your bonus and a 'median salary' for your pay grade but they wouldn't tell you either of those numbers (they made it a policy not too) so it was impossible to back check to see whether or not your bonus reflected your work or was just a beauty contest. When the company won't tell you what the median salary is for your pay grade that should be a red flag. But not sharing individual points across the spectrum I can see the argument for that.

wging 15 years ago | |

$175/hour * 40 hours/week * 50 weeks/year = $350,000/year, for anyone else (like me) who can't immediately estimate equivalent yearly rates.

techiferous 15 years ago | | |

But remember that there is non-billable work (accounting, etc.) and a 15.3% self-employment tax. And also remember that there are probably not 50 weeks of 40 hours/week at this company but rather short-term or part-time work. And you are paying for your own benefits.

I've found a good (albeit a bit conservative) rule-of-thumb is to convert the hourly wage into the yearly salary. Working as a consultant for $175/hour is similar to being employed at $175K/year.

EDIT: The U.S. federal self-employment tax for 2011 is 13.3% (15.3% was for 2010).

slashcom 15 years ago | | |

$x/hour * 40 hr/wk * 50 wk/yr = 2n1000

The general rule is always "times 2, add 3 zeros" to do it in your head.

schintan 15 years ago | | |

Much shorter, just double the hourly rate for yearly salary in K's.

rmc 15 years ago | | |

Eeek, only 2 weeks holidays per year? :(

JabavuAdams 15 years ago | | |

Yearly revenue = hourly rate * 2 (in thousands)

$40/hr => 80k/y $120/hr => 240k/y

billpaetzke 15 years ago | |

and his bonus nearly matched the new guy's salary, which was an insulting $60K

Is it common to get ~$60k yearly bonus as a programmer? Was this for a finance-industry job? All I've seen (either myself or others) so far is a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.

pkteison 15 years ago | | |

Large firms will do 'bonus targets' as some % of your base salary. Goals are established based on measurable metrics that you probably won't feel like you can directly do much about, such as average revenue per customer. If the company hits the goals, bonuses pay at some multiple of target. E.g., 10% bonus target, it's a good year so bonuses pay double = you get 20% of your base as a bonus. Managers will be given both a higher base salary and a higher bonus target.

Small firms are all over the map, from nothing to "finance industry".

Glassdoor suggests that no, this amount is not normal. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see ~$10k be normal from a ~10-15% target. And it is certainly possible at a big company that does this sort of thing to get classified as a manager and have a 15% target payout double on a good year for 30% of base = a free car.

danssig 15 years ago | | |

Avoid bonus systems. Bonus systems do not work out well for non-executives. Look at the story again: the kid made out better than anyone because his $175/hr is his for as many hours as he works no matter how the company performs that year. He gets his "bonus" every hour he works. The senior dev has a whopping 30% of his yearly comp tied up in a nebulous bonus that probably gets paid out far enough into the next year that he's already earned about half of his next bonus by the time he actually gets it (i.e. makes leaving expensive).

The bonus system was originally set up for high up executives to tie their comp more exactly to company performance since they are responsible for it. As a dev you are not responsible for company performance. Are you able to sack the sales team if you feel that they're not competent? Are you able to change company direction? You can't be responsible for something you have no ability to change. People saying you do are just manipulating you to their own advantage.

brooksbp 15 years ago | |

Can someone please shed some light on what would be a good strategy to follow if you were in his position talking to HR, manager, CTO?

What's the best way to save yourself once you've realized you're worth nearly double, triple, or quad your current comp pkg?

ajg1977 15 years ago | | |

Honestly, the best way to obtain your newly-discovered market worth is to leave and find another job. In almost every job your only chance of negotiating a competitive salary is before you start.

Sure, you can talk to HR and your manager and perhaps see some form of bump in salary, but if you're significantly underpaid then a) it's likely other people are too and they won't want to rock the boat, b) there's a decent chance you wouldn't leave anyway, and c) even if you do chances are they can fill your position for what they're paying you now.

GavinB 15 years ago | | |

The easiest way is to just find another offer from another company. You're not "worth" double your current comp if you can't find it somewhere. Then you let them know that you have another offer but would prefer to stay if they can match the other offer.

Keep in mind that this happens all the time and is standard procedure in most American and European companies. As long as you act honestly, your boss will probably not hate your forever or start looking for your replacement. If your employer can't deal with negotiating over salary, you should probably just take that other offer . . .

The other option is to say that you're going to leave to go consulting. This is a harder sell because they'll think you're bluffing. You have to be ready to actually do it.

rmc 15 years ago | | |

Apply for other jobs while at your current job. When you have an offer that you would like, go to your current employer and say "I have been offered a job for X". That's all.

They'll either decide they want to keep you on at Xish or not.

technotony 15 years ago | | |

Visit www.paynegotiation.com (disclosure this is my friends site!)

yason 15 years ago | |

I've learned an interesting relation regarding salaries myself. It's not about the amount that you can live with, or what you think you need but about appreciation. I was such an idiot earlier: this whole angle was anything but clear to me.

Early in my career I never asked much and I was quite happy with what I got because I didn't spend that much. All my salaries were big enough compared to the previous salary that I didn't even think much about the fairness of it all. Given also that as a programmer I was still enjoying better than the average national salary and still better than my dad.

But eventually I realized that the only tangible way a company can truly appreciate a good employee is biting the bullet and by paying him a bigger compensation.

Even if he doesn't need it.

In the previous job I stayed for five years. Year by year I started to wonder when will they give me a raise: I still liked the job and I was considered a good programmer. I was already approaching the senior status earlier, but they reworked their career plan and bumped seniority forward into the future. Of course, seniority would have meant some standard increase in the salary. It took me those five years to determine my own value and at the end of it, I left at the brink of my five-year review that turned into an exit interview in promptu.

It wasn't about me physically needing more money: it was about me deserving being paid more money for my skills and experience, about my employer actually acknowledging their appreciation towards my contributions.

These days, I enjoy about the double of the average salary in my country. Quite a considerable increase! I still don't need all that money which has allowed me both to voluntarily work part-time and to also invest part of my earnings monthly. But now I feel like finally receiving each month the appreciation I never got in the previous job. Given my skills and experience, I'm being paid much closer to my market value now and that is what matters, eventhough I still live a small life and could easily live on my old salary.

Job markets are like any other markets: the correct price is not the cost of production plus some profit (or employee's cost of living + some more) but an arbitrary agreement between the smallest amount an employee will accept and the highest amount the employer will pay, an agreement that makes both equally happy.

The next time I'll negotiate a salary, I will have a request ready for an amount that is high enough that I won't be in a hurry to get a raise, but which is hopefully within reasonable limits depending on the job. In the case it's too high for the company, I'm willing to scale back the salary along with my monthly hours, linearly.

But my value per hour remains the same. I know my worth now.

gaius 15 years ago | | |

the only tangible way a company can truly appreciate a good employee is biting the bullet and by paying him a bigger compensation

Exactly! A lot of people say what they really want at work is to be appreciated by their boss. Well he will appreciate you a hell of a lot if the money that should be in YOUR salary is in his instead!

nostromo 15 years ago |

Here's a trick I once heard to share salary with your coworkers without the uncomfortableness of finding out you are over or under-paid.

Over beers with several of your coworkers, each write down your salary on a piece of paper and then mix them up. Randomly draw them out of a hat and then read them to each other.

If you're all roughly peers, then you get all the benefit of knowing the salary range of the group, with none of the downside of feeling embarrassed about making much more or less than your peers.

harryh 15 years ago |

Consider a hypothetical scenario for the person on the other side of the table:

You are hiring up an engineering team and hope to hire up a team of 10 engineers paying 100k/yr each. So far you've hired 9 people at 100k and are working on filling that last slot. You find someone perfect but he has a competing job offer and is asking for 110k/yr instead of just 100. He's no better than the other 9 people you have already hired.

In a situation with relatively secret salaries it might make sense to go ahead and pay the 110k. It's only a 1% increase in your yearly budget which probably isn't a deal breaker.

But in a situation with relatively public salaries you're in a bad spot. You can either not hire him thus prolonging your search, or you can hire him and face potential moral/teamwork problems. Maybe you can hire him and bump everyone else's salaries up to 110k but a 10% budget increase might not be feasible. So the company is a bit screwed in this situation. And to the extent that the companies success is also the success of individual employees the individual employees might be a little screwed too.

I've made this scenario simpler than what reality would generally look like but the same principal holds.

In nearly every situation in which I've had insight into engineer's compensation I know for a fact that fairness has always been a top priority. But it's worthwhile to see that it sometimes can't be the only priority and to understand how the salary taboo fits into this.

lukev 15 years ago |

As a developer who, admittedly, has never had trouble finding a salary I'm satisfied with, and who is comfortable negotiating, I'm not a fan of transparency. It seems like it would cause more problems than it solves.

If salaries are private, then salary is purely a function of negotiation between employer and employee. Presumably both are happy, or at least happy enough not to terminate the relationship.

If salaries are public, however, then a ton of other variables get thrown into the mix. For example, it's possible to end up in a situation where I'd be happy to stay for a certain salary, and my employer would be happy to give me that salary to keep me, but because they can't offer all my peers the same salary, it doesn't work out, and nobody is happy.

And that doesn't even take into account all the extra interpersonal conflict and rivalry that transparent salaries could cause.

The mitigation for both of these issues is, of course, is to base compensation on objective performance rankings. But that's a nontrivial problem. How do you compare a sales guy to a developer to a DBA? Even if you did come up with a mostly fair solution, it would still invite endless discussion and dissatisfaction from people who feel the system wasn't evaluating them properly.

jrockway 15 years ago |

I've always wanted to write exactly this blog post. Keeping your salary confidential is great for big companies, but it benefits you in no way. You should be making what your coworkers make. If you make less, you're being fucked, plain and simple. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can remedy the situation. Sadly, some people go their whole careers without doing so.

FWIW, my first programming job only paid $45,000 a year. What a ripoff.

obiefernandez 15 years ago |

One of my earliest memories of the Salary Taboo was at the first Java One I attended as a freshly-minted Silverstream "Field Application Engineer" (must have been '99)

Four of us in equivalent positions, including one woman got together in my room and started pounding down screwdrivers. After the fourth of fifth, we started talking salaries. All of the guys were making around $120k and the girl... (wait for it...)

$80k !!! Despite having more education and arguably better qualifications.

We had a big problem on our hands. I'll never forget we were in a room near the top of the tall St. Francis hotel tower and she was angrily threatening to jump out the window.

shamrock 15 years ago | |

So did she ever end up making 120k?

joezydeco 15 years ago |

My teeth always grind when I read articles like this.

Yes, you can make $100K at Google. In Mountain View, California. How does that correlate to someone doing the same job in Austin, Seattle, Chicago, or Cleveland? The cost of living swings greatly when you depart the west coast.

Decent wage databases will add another variable to the position and experience axes: the geographic area where the job is offered. (Example: http://www.erieri.com/)

kwantam 15 years ago |

http://www.glassdoor.com can be a helpful resource in this regard. It needs a bunch more critical mass before it's truly useful, but some information is usually better than no information.

cpeterso 15 years ago | |

I've found glassdoor.com to have pretty accurate (though anonymous) reports of employers' salary ranges and employee satisfaction.

chrislomax 15 years ago |

I'm at a company as a senior developer. I know the other senior developer is on more money than me but it doesn't bother me. He is more experienced than me and brings a lot to the table. I have been at the company longer and got the development team going, I even hired the guy. I will continue to be "above" him in a respect as I am part of the decision making team about which routes to go down.

I value the development work more than the decision making though so I stand by the fact that it doesn't bother me he is on more.

You wouldn't accept a job if you were not happy with the conditions, its a two way street. If they offer you a job then you decide whether you want to take it or not, they don't force your hand.

I know I could get 10k more than I am on now if I moved to another company but I'm not in my MD's office telling him I'm leaving because I know this fact. I believe in company values, I am helping a company grow. We are relatively small and I have a chance to make a big difference.

When your work is your life (If you are a dev then your work IS your life), then it's more about the experience than the cash.

But if someone came along and offered me £100k to do my job, I would take it. I'm loyal enough to stay but I'm not stupid enough not to go.

I once worked for a company where I bragged about a massive pay rise, I was young and stupid. It led to a lot of hard feelings. I had been promoted to manager and given some great responsibilities. I ended up losing a lot of friends short term (they got over it) but I learnt a valuable lesson, even if they money you were offered comes from a position above you, you are condemed for taking it.

A lot of people hate to see other people do well for themselves, all the people who say that they should openly discuss their wages are either on a decent package or they genuinely do not care what other people are on. All the people that want to keep it private understand that it only leads to upset and arguments.

If you can be close enough to a work colleague for them not to take it personally then go for it, I would not say an open forum of discussing wages is a good idea though.

anon-e-moose 15 years ago |

I graduated with a CS degree and am making about $32k a year, before paying for insurance, at an IT job.

Where can I sign up for one of these horribly low paying $45-75k/year programming jobs?

varikin 15 years ago | |

Also note that all these numbers really depend on location. 80-100K out of college in Minnesota (where I am) would be insane. I know people with 15 years experience making 100-120k.

Now if you are in the Bay area making 32K, that sounds weird, otherwise, start investigating salaries in your area.

Tangaroa 15 years ago | |

You need to buy insurance for your IT job? Please describe. I've never heard of this before. Are there different standards for employee fault in different states? Are there any notable court cases?

I did once work at a place where employees were financially liable for the cost to the company of any mistakes they made, but I assumed that was legally along the same lines as the company's policy of not sending employees 1099s until we threatened to report them to the IRS. We were all hourly, scheduled "independent contractors" too.

(And I hear you on the salaries since I'm making $0 a year and looking for one of those $32k a year jobs. I can understand kick-ass coders with experience making $80k and up, but to imply that I should expect that amount with my degree but no talent or experience? I'm not seeing it in the market.)

krakensden 15 years ago | | |

He probably means health insurance.

ig1 15 years ago |

Or you can look at actual data:

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151031.htm

Average salary for a software engineer is $90k, for California $103k (this excludes "programmers" who just implement fully spec'd code).

kenjackson 15 years ago | |

who just implement fully spec'd code

Fully spec'd code? I hope the PMs are getting a raise, as I've yet to see such a thing!

Shamiq 15 years ago | | |

Ouch...

edit maybe if you implemented to spec...

jcdreads 15 years ago | |

> who just implement fully spec'd code

If the spec is really complete then why don't they just compile and run that? Put another way: Is there such a thing anymore as a programmer who just implements fully specced code?

danenania 15 years ago | | |

Has there ever been?

tzs 15 years ago |

Wait...Google starts at $100k/year for people fresh out of college with an undergraduate degree? So what do they go up to for people with experience?

jhamburger 15 years ago | |

A lot.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/google-said-to-have-high-le...

nvarsj 15 years ago | |

I think the best, non-hearsay source for this is anonymous data at glassdoor.com. Google has quite a lot of data there as well (over 500 reports from San Jose/Mountain View).

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-San...

533 Salaries - Mean is 107,174, with a range of [70, 133]. Median is about 100K.

Bonuses are underreported in comparison. But of 24 reports, the bonus is 18K on average.

This includes experienced engineers as well. So I think the original link's claim of 100K starting salary is probably an over-estimate.

gnosis 15 years ago | | |

"non-hearsay source"?

What do they do, let you see people's W-2's?

Remember, people can lie.

And many people feel it's in their interests to lie regarding salaries. How can you even be sure the people who are reporting some salary figure on glassdoor.com even ever had the job they claimed to have had, never mind reported an accurate salary?

gibybo 15 years ago | | |

Their reporting is a little weird, for example:

Google Software Engineer, 1-3 years of experience: Salary: 90k Cash bonus: 16.7k Stock bonus: 8.5k

Together it comes to 115k, but the average total pay is listed as 102.6k.

hack_edu 15 years ago | |

Bear in mind they're not hiring just any old graduate. Google loves to claim they are only interested in candidates from the Top Schools.

wh-uws 15 years ago | | |

Its not just about "Top Schools"(TM)

Have you ever even read the gamut of knowledge they send you to prepare for one of those interviews?

These are some of the best coders alive. And the people are Google are not stupid so they know they need to defray people from poaching as best they can.

dbjacobs 15 years ago |

When working for the federal government everyone knows everyone else's salary. So it can be done, and is generally less corrosive than hidden salaries.

hugh3 15 years ago | |

Would you say that the Federal Government is a hotbed of competence and hard work, though?

danssig 15 years ago | | |

Would you say that the private sector is free of labor exploitation, though?

ig1 15 years ago | |

Are government salaries merit based or tenure based?

kenjackson 15 years ago | | |

Both. Often times in places like the military merit is only achievable as a function of seniority. So after x number of years after getting a grade you qualify to be promoted to the next. Whether or not the promotion happens at that point in time is a function of merit (and social skills).

megamark16 15 years ago | | |

They're grade based, and moving up a grade can depend on both merit and tenure, although I think it's mostly about tenure.

michaelochurch 15 years ago | |

When working for the federal government everyone knows everyone else's salary. So it can be done, and is generally less corrosive than hidden salaries.

As long as people are happy with their own pay, they really don't care what anyone else is making. In a large company, an incompetent making $5k/year more (because he's been there longer, or does some task no one else wants to learn how to do) isn't going to turn a happy employee into someone who wants to get out immediately.

olalonde 15 years ago |

You know what would really solve the problem? If employers publicly announced the salary they are aiming for in job ads. That way, you wouldn't feel like you got ripped off because of bad negotiation skills.

droz 15 years ago |

Not sure how much value this gives existing employees. If you go up and see that you are making less than your coworkers, then it's a moral destroyer. If you are making average but feel like you are doing more work than everyone else, again moral destroyer. If you are making bank, all the sudden you are now in everyone's cross-hairs- boom! moral destroyer (depending on the kind of person you are).

trustfundbaby 15 years ago | |

It hurts your morale in the short term, but it should give you the impetus you need to a. work harder b. negotiate harder when it comes to that yearly performance review and/or possibly c. leave if you feel you're being underpaid and the company isn't willing to pay you what you think you're worth.

I don't think full salary disclosure will ever happen, but I'm just saying, it wouldn't be bad if it did. I for one would just like to know, for example, what a iphone/ipad developer makes on average (then a high and low end) in ... say ... Austin Tx vs New York or something like that.

olalonde 15 years ago |

I used to be very good at salary negotiation and being confident in my skills... until I discovered HN.

impendia 15 years ago |

In academia, it is common for professors' salaries to be listed in public databases that are searchable by anyone.

I don't particularly draw any conclusion from this; indeed, there is some debate as to whether this is a good thing overall. My impression is that it doesn't make much difference one way or another. In any case, it may be interesting to HN readers to know that this is the norm in the public sector.

ender7 15 years ago | |

Incentives in academia can get pretty complex, however. In terms of bragging rights, salary tends to factor in way below publications, tenure, chaired position, etc. Plenty of academics are still lured away to other institutions with the promise of a better salary, but it's less socially acceptable to admit that that's the reason you're switching jobs (instead of, say "I would get to be head of a program/department"). Also, unlike most tech jobs, most academic jobs are not located in the most exciting places to live, which adds yet another confounding factor.

RK 15 years ago | |

I was recently came across a list of the salaries of everyone employed by my university, including students. It was an interesting read. I seems I make just about the average for graduate research assistants in science/engineering, though I'm still trying to extract the data to make nice plots.

More interesting was to see the relative salaries of professors and administrators. Some professors are clearly able to demand much higher than average salaries, but nothing like head sports coaches...

krosaen 15 years ago |

Interesting that all of the examples provided, google, amazon, facebook, MSFT all apparently provide units of stock with a predictable initial value; with stock options, all you can do is guess whether the company will grow and by how much, but if the company didn't grow at all they would be worthless. In fact, are we sure facebook doesn't grant options? Seems like they are still in the growth phase to the point where they could offer options instead, whereas MSFT would have a hard time keeping a straight face offering options at this point.

dezwald 15 years ago |

I find that in canada (toronto, ontario) programmers are not paid near the amounts of programmers in the US.

5 years ago i started at 40K (working in Hamilton). Now living in toronto, and i find that newly graduate programmers start around 50K-60K, and senior programmers make anywhere between 80K-100K.

I feel that living toronto/ontario, programmers are utilized as tradesmen, where they service the industry (corporations, banks, publications, marketing firms etc...)

I just wish there was more of a tech/startup industry in toronto, like there is in California, Boston, New York, etc..

iqster 15 years ago | |

Absolutely correct. I ended up leaving Toronto after I realized this. I'm not sure if it was a good decision or bad. I ended up getting fantastic work experience and a higher number salary. However, my quality of life wasn't the same (because I left behind family and friends, and miss Canada in general). Also, I realized that the salary number doesn't mean much when you live in ridiculously expensive places.

nchlswu 15 years ago | |

You're not considering regional standards and cost of living, though. Even if you consider that, I think what you described is hardly specific to the Toronto Area. Any company without their own "dev shop" or tech culture, regardless of area will consider programmers as tradesmen.

Toronto may be on the low end, but I'm pretty sure the "true" tech companies in the area are much closer to the higher end than you think.

danssig 15 years ago | |

Your health care is a lot cheaper. You have to consider these kinds of issues. The market rates must be as they are for a reason.

glhaynes 15 years ago |

Are there parts of the world where it's customary for salaries to be known?

patio11 15 years ago | |

At many Japanese megacorps, the company's salary schedule is widely distributed in the company. At my company, the engineering track so closely followed the monopsony engineering employer in this region (cough I wonder what large automobile manufacturer that could be cough) that there is literally no middle class adult within 400 miles who could not guess my salary within 2% for each of the last seven years.

rweba 15 years ago | |

In Norway all tax returns are public: http://skattelister.no/

In fact I just looked up an old high school classmate and was initially surprised at how much she was making - until I realized 280,000 Kronor is only about 50,000 USD.

michael_dorfman 15 years ago | | |

FYI: 280.000 is a pretty poor salary in Norway. Gasoline here just topped $10/gal, if that gives you an idea of the cost-of-living-adjustment necessary. In other words, your friend is not living the life that a $50k salary in the US would buy (in terms of disposible income.) On the other hand, she gets 5 weeks of paid vacation a year, full health care, and a year's paid maternity leave with each child.

tonfa 15 years ago | |

There are parts of the world (Scandinavia) where the tax filling is public, from that you can have a good guess.

zenocon 15 years ago |

many years ago, i was a fresh grad with an ms in comp sci working at a bay area startup. i sucked at negotiations too, and my starting salary was 75k, which actually wasn't too shabby (or so i thought). long story short: the company imploded, but i was one of the few people kept around until they turned off the lights. most of my friends had been laid off, and we had all revealed our salaries. they made closer to 95-125k, and i was the guy in the OP's story: they guy that worked tirelessly, did the work of 2.5 of my co-workers, was well liked, and had a grad degree. i was pretty annoyed, so i went into the ceo's office and said i was due a salary bump. it was the least he could do seeing as how the company would be gone in a month, and i could use that as leverage in negotiations for next time. he complied, and bumped my salary to 90k. i got a new job about a month later and i negotiated 98k.

usually, you will get some incremental improvement when you move to a new position.

rick888 15 years ago |

I believe this is exactly what happens in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Salaries aren't public directly, but tax returns are...so you can easily see what everyone makes.

jamaicahest 15 years ago | |

Just fyi. this is not the case in Denmark, tax returns are private here.

hugh3 15 years ago |

As an academic, this thread makes me feel bad.

gaius 15 years ago | |

Why? It's a matter of the total package. What's the value of your job-for-life and your final salary pension and your summers off? Now are you really worse off?

nathanb 15 years ago |

It would be extremely interesting to see whether or not having these data publicly available (especially in such a context-free fashion as in this article) is truly helpful or not. It reminds me of another HN story which saw the front page today: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3930466/...

Full transparency could lead to a more equitable distribution of salary, or it could mean that companies are less able to pay top dollar for great talent because they know that there will then be a hundred wannabes who are demanding the same salary.

abeppu 15 years ago | |

The state of California releases salary info for all kinds of state employees (which has shown up on HN before : http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/). When I first found out, I spent 30 minutes looking up the salaries of all my old UC Berkeley professors, and comparing them to prison doctors and state troopers. I was saddened to see that salaries and talent/research output/prestige are often very unrelated, even in the presence of total transparency. George Smoot, who's a Nobel laureate only around 150k!

I also wondered whether (for example) Martin Wainwright and Michael I. Jordan, who've collaborated on papers, classes and a book on my to-read list, ever experience friction as a consequence of salary, given that Jordan appears to earn roughly 85% more than Wainwright.

I know that state employees and academic salaries are subject to a lot of forces that aren't present in tech companies -- but this makes me doubt that transparency is enough to bring about reasonable, equitable salaries.

joerobot 15 years ago |

Wow, this article comes in perfect timing for me. Hopefully, you, the HN community could help me.

I am currently being offered a software engineering job at Apple through a recruiting company. What I want to know is, how much should I be asking for? I am 4 months out of college (no Ivy league, just a state college) with little professional experience. So far, I have said $50k, but is that low-balling it? Should I be asking for more? From what I gather, Apple won't be paying me directly; it will be the recruiting company that will be issuing my checks.

edit: Forgot to mention that I would be moving from Louisiana to California if I get the job.

patr1ck 15 years ago | |

I'm confused – Why wouldn't Apple pay you directly?

You shouldn't have to ask for anything, they should present you with an offer.

Meanwhile, you should do appropriate due diligence and interview with other companies that interest you and see what other offers you get. If Apple is interested in hiring you, no doubt other companies will be too.

Also: keep in mind that relocating will incur at least a few thousand dollars in expenses (which your future employer should cover as part of the comp package) and that living in the bay area is very expensive. 50k is do-able, but won't take you very far.

joerobot 15 years ago | | |

Thanks, I'll be talking to the recruiter about an offer. Part of the problem is that when I was asked about it, I was basing the salary off of what someone in South Louisiana would make as a junior developer. At the time, I did not have any knowledge of what the salary of someone similar in the Bay Area would be.

I was told that the recruiting company (TekSystems) would be paying me. However, I will ask the recruiter for further clarification.

The job is a contract job and located at the Cupertino campus. So far, I have not had an interview with Apple and have only completed an assessment for the recruiting company. The recruiter has been the middle-man between anyone at Apple and I so far.

When I asked if relocation assistance would be provided, I was given an answer of no. Any suggestions as to negotiating a way to get assistance?

acgourley 15 years ago | |

That is very low for a junior software engineer. I would ask for 75k but be OK with taking less for a "trial" period of 3-6 months.

plus2 15 years ago |

We need to remember "you are not your salary". Comments like "an insulting $60,000" or "only $100,000" makes me shake my head. Your salary is not something you have to brag about.Your worth is not determined by your salary. A developer can create millions of dollars in value. Think how much value DHH created with Rails or Linus with Git and Linux. Or Damien with CouchDB. Remember Steve Jobs salary is $1 a year.

Our goal as hackers is to create value, millions of dollars worth of value. This salary talk makes us look like programmers not hackers.

Saavedro 15 years ago | |

Which is all well and good, but to say that salary doesn't matter is bupkis.

If you're creating significant value and getting little for it, you're getting the short end of the stick. If you notice you're getting the short end of the stick, you're probably going to feel like crap.

Mind that lots of developers, if working for a company, don't own what they create.

   "Our goal as hackers is to create value, millions of dollars worth of value."

Screw that. My goal is to enjoy life, have fun, work on interesting stuff and not feel like I'm getting screwed over in the process.

bcaulf 15 years ago | | |

Forgive me, but I think you meant that to say that salary doesn't matter is mishuggeneh. Bupkis is what you'll have in your bank account if you go on thinking this way.

I'm not even Jewish. This is just from years in New York.

danssig 15 years ago | |

DHH, Linus and Damien all got publicity from what they created. In marketing terminology, they did a "loss leader" and it worked. Jobs' salary is $1 a year but that's not what his stock options are. How do you think the man got to be worth billions?

>Our goal as hackers is to create value, millions of dollars worth of value.

I do want to create things and I don't care about how much money what I create is worth. Sadly, my landlord doesn't see it this way. I have to buy in a free market and work in a free market, why would I purposely avoid participating in one when it comes to my salary (i.e. my only hope to ever actually get to hack on what I care about hacking on)?

daemin 15 years ago | |

That is if you have some sort of interest in what you are doing. Either shares in or ownership of the company, enjoying the project you are working on (and hence it can be considered a hobby), or just doing the job for the money so that you can follow your passion outside of work.

Salary isn't everything but it may be key thing keeping you at your job.

sceaj 15 years ago |

So, I'm most certain that I'm being given the shaft by my employer.

A coworker recently quit, because he felt underpaid (his previous job paid him over 10% more). Negotiations with HR got him nowhere, so he left.

The coworker and I had identical jobs, and we did them in the same capacity, with very similar skill levels. When he left, he disclosed everything to me. Despite being underpaid, he was still being paid significantly higher than I am (almost 25% more).

Of course, I'm no longer happy with my pay, but don't really know what to do about it. I don't have the flexibility to just leave town, and I'm in a town that just isn't hiring developers right now ("metro"=200k). I've applied to places far away, but just without much luck. I thought if I got an offer, I'd have some arguing room. But I don't; I don't have anything. Besides, if my employer doesn't budge, I'm not prepared to take the leap. I can't leave town because my wife is in school here, now.

I started at a lower pay rate, because they hired me without a college degree. I've been working for them for three years now, and have been moving up in pay, but I started so low that it hasn't amounted to much.

I think a huge part of my problem is that I don't have a college degree. I think that I've obviously shown that I'm capable of doing the job, regardless, though. How much should the degree really matter? I've seriously been considering applying to a lower tier school (I mean low tier state school, not U of Phoenix, etc.) for a degree completion program, just so I can pad my resume up some. I don't know if that hurts more than it helps, though. I did already finish up the handful of courses I needed for the A.S. from the local community college.

danssig 15 years ago | |

If you have no other options then that decreases your market value. The good news is: you now know of the problem and you know what is standing in the way of fixing it.

I've always heard that a degree is worth 5 years experience.

teamonkey 15 years ago | |

You could try asking them. "What do I need to do to earn X?" If it's something reasonable, get them to give you a timescale and an action plan so it's in writing that if you hit these targets you'll get your salary raised to X.

pilib 15 years ago |

While not being a programmer, I did work as a sysadmin for a hosting company. Since I quit around 2 years ago, I was asked by my ex-colleagues on several occasions would I consider returning there. Now, these questions were raised by my coworkers and not my boss, but nevertheless, my answer was the same. Yeah, sure, if they double my salary from 2 years ago, assign me to a higher tier support level so I don't have to deal with customers in any way.

Simple reason for this was that knowing my peers salary, both those of lower, equal and higher position, I knew how much I was worth to them, and how much others were slacking.

So, with public salaries, you get that. With them being private, I would probably ask for a small raise based on economic situation. I'm not saying I wouldn't work for the same money as before, It's just that I'd feel like a jerk toward my self in that case.

marklabedz 15 years ago |

On one hand, being able to compare yourself to others is very valuable. The challenges arise though in how to square two different numbers. What is the value of each individual skill? If 2 people have differing abilities in 3 different skills, are all skills valued equally?

thmzlt 15 years ago |

How are startup salaries compared to the big companies?

gaustin 15 years ago |

I avoid all of the fuss.* I work for a State agency in a low population state. There's a published ceiling and floor on salaries (based on pay band). All salaries are public record.

* Tongue firmly in cheek.

jinushaun 15 years ago |

Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money for the sake of money just leads to accelerating inflation across the board. As far as I am concerned, salary is just a number and people can live just fine on $50,000 if they we weren't such a consumerist society.

wh-uws 15 years ago | |

And you must be in the class of "money isn't that important to me" programmer who will work 100 hours a week for $40,000 a year and years down the road wonder why you feel so slighted.

Its not about entitlement its about worth. If a company makes billions of dollars(or generates that much value for the pedantic) off of a fraction of that many people its stands to reason that at least some of those people are worth a substantial amount more than $50,000

danssig 15 years ago | |

I'm sorry but this is an utterly ridiculous, borderline offensive comment. Companies want to outsource because they want to keep more money themselves. Executive salaries have risen practically exponentially. Why is it that only the workers have to suck in their belt? If we should be happy living on $50k/yr then what the ever loving fuck do they need with MILLIONS per year?

If companies want to try and outsource then let them. They've tried and yet we're still all employed. Why? Because the market has spoken. This is what it costs to develop, full stop. People getting paid less than this are just an arbitrage situation in the company's favor.

It has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with those who have some understanding of how the market works and those who are utterly ignorant of it.

icedpulleys 15 years ago | |

There's a considerable difference between having a sense of entitlement and being rational.

masterzora 15 years ago | | |

Clearly. And this difference is exactly what we're seeing a lot of here.

Rational: "I am unhappy with $60,000 because it does not meet my needs."

Entitlement: "I was happy with $60,000 until I found out Fred was making $61,000."

gnosis 15 years ago | |

"Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money.."

Ah.. right. And the owners, board members, and CEO's of these companies are too enlightened to be concerned with mere trifles like money, nor would they ever dream of feeling entitled to anything.

fsipie 15 years ago |

How does this translate into UK salaries? I'm working at a medium sized company (approx £200 million turnover) and am a senior developer with 15 years experience in stuff like c++/c#/iphone/asp.net mostly MS stack and I'm getting paid £34k. I know I can go contracting for £40/hr but it's alot more hassle.

What are other people getting paid here in Blighty?

acodingdude19 15 years ago | |

Depends where you live, apparently that is normal if you are out in the sticks. I was 22 and contracting as a c# developer @ £40/hour in 2004/5. That grew over time so that i had 2 month holiday and still made 80k for the year.

I did have a dud job though with oracle where it was almost impossible to earn anymore. Left Oracle as I didnt believe in the technology. Now on 100k a year, no degree and foreign. Plus I recieve a bonus on top of that.

akronim 15 years ago | |

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/ is an excellent resource for the UK for this.

smiler 15 years ago | |

With 15 years experience, you are underpaid.

olalonde 15 years ago |

Anyone has figures for IBM?

bricestacey 15 years ago | |

See glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/IBM-Salaries-E354.htm

lukejduncan 15 years ago |

In Silicon Valley, is it expected that you'll negotiate an offer? If so, by how much? In general in Detroit, offers are final (clearly a generalization, but true of big co's).

danssig 15 years ago | |

This is a strange question. Of course most any company hopes you won't negotiate. What they expect is that you'll value yourself more than their initial offer and will negotiate.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you about Detroit. I believe that you believe that, I believe companies tell you that but I unless all big Detroit companies only have very junior people I don't believe for one second that this is actually the case.

lukejduncan 15 years ago | | |

Maybe I should rephrase the question: In Silicon Valley do most people negotiate? Is it just part of the culture?

rch 15 years ago |

I've found that talking about grossing a figure up to cover taxes can be a good way to get your feet wet with negotiating.

lukejduncan 15 years ago |

HN needs anon comments. I have specific questions, but not ones I want my name on =)

mhansen 15 years ago | |

Make a sockpuppet account.

yuhong 15 years ago | | |

Yea, people often make throwaways for Ask HN. I'd prefer people doing it less whatever possible, though I know sometimes they are needed (I am not expecting questions about acquisitions to be made non-anonymously at this point for example).

michaelochurch 15 years ago |

I actually think full transparency on salary could make this nasty issue go away. Post what everyone is making and let people negotiate a fair package. There would be some transitional pain in the first 2 months, and payroll costs might go up 10 percent, but people would be happier in the long run. Why use inaccurate gossip instead of full transparency?

What drove up compensation in banking in the 2000s was inaccurate compensation reporting. Pay in banking is one's status, so everyone would claim to have received top bonus when applying to private equity jobs or trying to make a lateral move. This meant that whatever bonus was paid to the top 5% of each year would be claimed by everyone in that year. That ratcheted up pay expectations over time. Banks actually liked this, because the high pay enabled them to make entry-level conditions and hours even worse, but most companies wouldn't be able to afford that process.

In the long run, I think that salary discovery by inaccurate gossip is more expensive and volatile than full transparency, and I can't think of a good reason why, in any company, everyone shouldn't have access to everyone else's base compensation (performance bonuses can be private; the range should be public but not the amount.)

yuhong 15 years ago |

As it happens, there was this Ask HN about salary. Guess why it had to be created using a anonymous throwaway: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2440956