Experience = Full Time Work Experience.<p>That's the only measure that they accept (and this is a <i>formula</i> dammit! We cannot go against that!).<p>This seems to me to be a complete lack of understanding about what makes a good programmer (Assumption: We pay people according to merit.). I have a friend who was in another industry for several years. She taught herself Ruby and Rails and became very, very good at doing so. It was all done as a personal project. She never was fully employed as a "Full Time Developer" until last year. At the point of her being hired last year, she could write web applications better than most seasoned programmers.<p>Yes, yes. Anecdote does not make data. But they are proposing that they have come up with The Algorithm with How to Pay Programmers. If that was true, then they could handle this situation. Instead, they would have to come up with a 'special exception' for this particular person and compensate them correctly.<p>If you get down to every little hole I could poke in this algorithm, you'd find out that almost everyone has a special circumstance and that throwing them into an inhuman algorithmic compensation experiment is Wrong(tm). Instead, you need people that can understand the nuances of Jim, Joe and Sally's situation and can do their best to serve their interests as well as the company's interests.<p>I'm not saying that the status quo is great, but this 'perfect solution' is anything but.
Title is kind of linkbait. The article talks about how to pay equitably and transparently compared to co-workers, but doesn't actually say how _much_ you should pay. No real dollar numbers are discussed other than a range that "top-notch" C# developers are paid $30k to $200k (and with bonuses and other compensation, I think the top end is actually low on this).
Damn! I better start brushing up on my modem whistling skills! I used to whistle Hayes 300bps and AppleCat 1200bps handshakes in order to lock open lines when speed dialing. If you timed it right you could 99% of the time secure the dialup line with the real modem when the remote modem cycled the line connection.
tl;dr<p>"We have a system for evaluating devs, and pay people more for living in NY."<p>The article has a bunch of words, but doesn't actually say anything about how much you should pay developers. Not sure why there are upvotes.
Is a top notch C# salary $30,000 in some parts of the world?<p>Well, frankly after reading it I still have no idea how much pay it is for someone that's all B or all AAA+++. Do they use the checklist or an algorithm?<p>What is SE's starting salary at least?
What's the algorithm? You list the factors you use to decide, but I'm confused as to how those combine. How much do you weight Modem Whistling Skills versus Blog Posts versus years of experience?
Interesting comment by Tim:<p><i>Every employees salaries are completely public. In addition to this, employees set their own salary.
This has been shown to have three effects:
1. People tend to actually value themselves lower than they might otherwise outside.
2. General happiness is higher.
3. People who are earning too much feel guilty, and either work harder or don’t raise their salaries. They’re also expected to perform at that level. If someone sets their salary 5k higher than the guy next to them who churns out the same amount of code but has 1/3rd the defects (and that were the only difference), then questions would be asked.</i><p>--- <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pay-developers/#comment-59962" rel="nofollow">http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pa...</a><p>Does anybody have some references for this?
This is like GM's vision of how much you should pay for a Saturn vehicle: everyone ends up paying the same amount for the same model and options. That's a good, fair system if the amount is competetive but I wonder if others adopting this salary model don't end up like Saturn's pricing -- the biggest beneficiary of menu pricing is the company.
San Francisco, USA (from home and office-based work; split)<p>We are looking for a lead developer that has 3-5 years of experience creating mobile/tablet applications for the following three platforms: Android (mobile), iOS (iPhone), and iOS (iPad). Knowledge of recently upgraded “versioning” requirements is essential to this position. Coding/programming experience on Android (tablet) and Blackberry is a plus (but not required).<p>This position will be compensated for generously and the chosen candidate will have the opportunity to lead a team of developers as we continue to scale; this is a salary plus residual-commission paying position. We have a global footprint in the market of custom app development and accordingly the position may grow to encompass development of mobile & tablet apps for customers on several continents.<p><a href="http://www.thecreativeappco.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thecreativeappco.com/</a><p>For consideration, please send three (or more) examples (preferably names of apps already published in the marketplace; apps available for us to download and preview), a resume (or school/work history), and any other relevant anecdotes to:<p>Jacob@thecreativeappco.com
This all sounds good in theory, I wonder though it someone who is pretty key to what they are doing had an offer from a competitor they would stick rigidly to what they say here or would be willing to make exceptions.
>Creates public artifacts<p>>Blog posts, open source tools, books<p>So if I worked at SO and I didn't have a blog, hence presumably scoring a 'F', they'd be having a "stern talk with me"?
Enough that they are happy to work for you.<p>And not the way frog creek does. You architec should be paid less than the programmers since they contribute the value, no programmer should have to be promoted to a role of writing less code.<p>Oh and I had side jobs in college. Yes, they count as years of experience, since that is a bullshit measure.