
Salary in tech should equal output - kurtinlane
https://medium.com/swlh/i-won-t-settle-for-equal-pay-in-tech-and-either-should-you-116de30854e8
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nness
I feel that the author has missed that a person's contributions to a company
varies with time — driven by both personal changes (like parenthood or health)
and environmental factors (new technology, changes to market demand,
automation etc). A person's worth to the company is also entirely independent
to a person's average worth to an industry.

I don't think you can fairly judge whether a person's salary is merited
without taking into account all the specifics of a person's role, their
present life conditions, and how the business is operating.

Also, this kind of model is destined to drive salaries down. I know I'd be
upset if my salary dropped at the whim of averages. I like that my salary
remains constant, even if the business is going through a slump, and I like
that I can make the case for an increase if I see it going through growth.

It also completely ignores that sometimes people salaries are set to attract
new talent. Particularly if that talent is being poached from a competitor.
Sure, may not seem fair, but all employment and remuneration is about
circumstance anyway.

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kurtinlane
I agree the author has missed some key points and the author's thought process
is not fully baked. However he does offer an interesting take on salary. The
idealist in me agrees that we should be compensated for the value we offer, it
then motivates us to provide more value. But the realist in me says the
implementation of this ideal will always be broken and end up screwing the
value providers.

I am interested in having salary information public. This kind of transparency
will force employers to have clear steps on how to get a pay raise, and have
valid reasons for why Developer X get paid more than developer Y.

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smt88
There is a massive body of research spanning the last 100 years that shows
that meritocracy is an impossible myth. Humans are too easily swayed by their
biases. There's no reasonable way for a human to accurately measure "outout".

What does that even mean for a developer? Sometimes I write 10 lines of code a
day, and they're unbelievably clever. Sometimes I write 2,000 lines of
terrible code. Sometimes the quality of that code matters eventually, and
sometimes it doesn't. Even I can't tell, on any given day, what my "output"
is.

This article is also essentially arguing against equal opportunity laws in the
US, which I think is obviously something that we needed and moved us forwarded
as a society.

Reading this felt like reading the thoughts of a naive 15-year-old who doesn't
understand how society works and why we've made the changes we've made.

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marssaxman
How do you measure output?

It has to be meaningful, it has to be fair, and the measurement process can't
cost more than you gain by super-rewarding your best people.

Every performance-review process I've ever seen or participated in has failed
to accomplish at least one of these, usually two.

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kurtinlane
This would be awesome if output could be measure fairly but the implementation
will always suck. There is no clear way to measure output for a developer.

