

Fog Creek Compensation (2000) - baha_man
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html

======
jleyank
This sounds like the ladder used in the pharmaceutical business which is fine
except for the "value" attached to having a PhD and acting like a "scientist".
If you don't want to manage, or do project leadership or do the give-
seminar/publish/give talks bit, you top out just where PhD's walk in the door.
It's a base requirement to do all those things as a starting-up PhD and then
the management/fellow/whatever questions start hitting them after 4-8 years.

So you have to deal with people in a positive way that just aren't going to
make it to the upper rungs of the ladder. Some, maybe those who read the Peter
Principle, won't give you a hard time, but I fear most will resent knowing
that they've hit 30 and are basically maxed out.

They're SUPPOSED to accept the challenge and move upwards, and some do, but
that'll leave a bunch of dissatisfied people I fear. And these are the set of
people at most risk of underemployment and job-loss from outsourcing.

------
russell
At the other end of the formality scale was a company I read about a long time
ago. They posted everyone's salary on the bulletin board. If you wanted a
raise, you went to the bulletin board and wrote in a new one. I dont remember
the company's name. It wasnt in software development. More likely it was some
snowshoe manufacturer in Vermont.

