
Ask HN: Why are compensation tiers secret? - gigatexal
Having them so gives the employer all the power as the employee negotiating an increase is left in the dark and with few tools.  Not everyone has three offers in their pocket.<p>It’s annoying that things like Glassdoor have to exist. The economic principle at play is asymmetric information and it sucks.
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arjunvpaul
Why does it annoy you? Are you concerned that you may not get a fair deal?
Less happy that colleagues at the same job level may be getting paid more or
less?

To get a balanced perspective it would useful to read up on both sides of the
approach. For example, on one end you have Google's Laszlo Bock arguing in his
book Work Rules, that its good that Google "pays unfairly"
([https://goo.gl/3hWbQw](https://goo.gl/3hWbQw)). On the other end, are the
Scandinavian countries like Norway where you can walk into a tax office and
see anyone's tax return ([https://goo.gl/P5WqW1](https://goo.gl/P5WqW1))

Ricardo Perez-Truglia ([https://goo.gl/4DemkS](https://goo.gl/4DemkS)) is
someone whose research touches this topic. His findings are briefly mentioned
in this video ([https://goo.gl/m7ECXM](https://goo.gl/m7ECXM))

~~~
gambiting
I find it annoying at the company where I work at because it's impossible for
me to determine where I can be financially if I stay with the company for
another 2/3/4/5/10 years. I have no idea what the pay grades are for seniors,
experts, leads, managers - and HR refuses to answer even a simple question of
"if, in 5 years, I am a team lead, how much money could I be making,
plus/minus 5k".

~~~
arjunvpaul
One thing I personally looked for is the tenure of senior folks at the
companies I used to work at. It is a better indicator of whether it is worth
your while staying at a company. As corny as it sounds, money isn't
everything. And tenure is a great indicator of "everything considered, is this
a good place to invest my working years?"

But I see that you have an immediate need. philosophical and theoretical
answers won't help you :-) .

\- One useful source I found was
[http://h1bdata.info/index.php](http://h1bdata.info/index.php) . If your
company hires H1B's then this source is gold. \- Look at job postings your
company does and have a friend who would fit the profile call them and ask for
a salary range for that position. \- One thing I have found effective is
actually asking the "seniors, experts, leads, managers" the question you want
answered.

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Bucephalus355
Most jobs, at least at big employers, are split up into 4 quartile ranges. So
bottom 25, lower middle 25, upper middle 25, and upper 25. Obviously super
simple, but it helps to realize this framework going in.

You can actually buy textbooks on how to construct payroll guidelines...do
this and you can backwards engineer what you should be getting.

~~~
sasaf5
Interesting answer. Can you recommend one of those textbooks?

~~~
sjg007
Payroll for Dummies

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brad0
This kind of attitude frustrates me. It takes the stance that the world should
change to make it best for your own personal situation.

Take charge of your own decisions and work out what actions you can do to make
your situation better.

[https://simpleprogrammer.com/2016/10/10/salary-
negotiation-s...](https://simpleprogrammer.com/2016/10/10/salary-negotiation-
software-developers/)

~~~
perfmode
You assume its in the best interest of labor to be "every man for himself".
Collective bargaining is a thing, you know?

~~~
dsacco
I think the commenter is aware of collective bargaining, but probably prefers
individual bargaining.

It's not really about the "best interest of labor"; personally, I wouldn't
work in an industry with collective bargaining.

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MiddleEndian
>Having them so gives the employer all the power

That's why they are secret; nothing more to it.

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PhilWright
Making all salaries public will almost certainly mean your wage costs go up.
There are bound to be a range of different salaries given to people doing the
same job. So all the ones at the bottom end will be turning up to the annual
review demanding to be uplifted to match their peers. If they are turned down
then they are likely to leave or just be less productive because they are not
happy. Any need people recruited can see the public salaries and therefore
negotiate a better pay deal than they might have otherwise.

It is hard to find a case where making the salaries public does not lead to
higher wage costs.

~~~
meric
I think government and military have standardised pay grades.

~~~
futhey
This is correct. Everyone knows what everyone else is making. Part of why rank
and the "pecking order" are so much more pronounced and obsessed over.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Everyone knows what everyone else is making.

How wide are the grades? I know a few corporate places that have "standard pay
grades" except they're normally wide enough to grant managers almost laughable
latitude in what they pay people on the same grade. There's at least one place
I know which has a single grade covering £40k to £80k.

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bsvalley
I think it's just common sense. Employers leave it up to you to share your
income or not. Feel free to share your numbers with your colleagues... you'll
quickly realize that nobody wants to share this kind of information. Which is
the real answer to your question ;)

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ingmarheinrich
In Germany, it's impossible for employers to tell their employees not to talk
about their salaries. It collides with §2 of the German constitution.

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alain94040
Not completely secret. You can find recent data with very specific salary
ranges:
[http://thestartupconference.com/2017/03/25/the-350k-google-s...](http://thestartupconference.com/2017/03/25/the-350k-google-
salary-is-hurting-startups/)

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gigatexal
Well then let’s fix this. Post below with your title, years of exp, and salary
in USD (sans bonuses or stock etc.).

SW Dev Lvl 1 : 0 years : 76k

~~~
mattzito
But your post highlights the inherent problems with just listing people's
experience and salary:

\- location matters - two people in the same industry, same experience, same
title , different locations may have very different salaries

\- equity and bonus matters - some people want to structure their comp for
more upside in an exit, others want more base, some people like bonuses. A
sales person at an enterprise software company might make 165k base and then
make another 165k in commission and bonus

\- "experience" is variable - if i spent four years as an engineer, before
spending 1 year as a product manager, do I have 5 years of experience or 1?

Simply listing numbers makes it difficult to assess whether you really are
over-or-under-paid relative to your peers.

~~~
brad0
Don't forget selection bias as well. People who may earn outside the already
reported range are more likely to not report IMO.

