That dev's salary is higher than mine

The takeaways seem to be disconnected to the article. Do we have evidence that the phone calls mattered a hill of beans? That sounds like a post-hoc justification to cover an employee's sudden unexpected possession of reliable market data.<p>I love tradition as much as the next guy, but I think there is virtually no advantage to employees from our cultural norm that comp information is as sensitive as health information. The advantage to employers is, ahem, fairly straightforward: they get to pay systematically lower salaries to people who don't realize that e.g. failing to say one sentence when you're 22 costs you almost a hundred thousand dollars by the time you are thirty. (The contents of that sentence is essentially "Your offer plus $5k.")

Quick poll: Has anybody here <i>ever</i> received a year-end salary increase on the same order of magnitude as what they'd get from simply switching jobs?<p>I didn't think so.<p>Early in your career, your market value increases so fast that there's simply no way a percentage raise can keep up.<p>I remember a situation at my 2nd job after college, where I knew that I was worth almost double what they were paying me. I told them as much and laid out the case as to why. They bent over backward and scraped together something like a 20% raise, which they probably thought was pretty good.<p>Of course, on top of a junior dev salary it was still way out of line with what I should have been at. I polished up the resume and within a couple weeks I accepted an offer for roughly <i>double</i> my pre-raise salary. At my exit interview I told them how much I loved working there (it really was the best job I ever had), but I just couldn't afford to leave that much on the table.<p>It was probably the smartest career move I could have made, and it really drove home the point: You don't adjust your salary through raises in this industry. If you want to be paid what you deserve, you need to switch jobs.

As a manager, it's been a personally eye-opening experience seeing how companies pay staff and how the constraints a manager has to work under affects their pay rise decisions. People wishfully hope that they get paid based on their contribution/skill level, but there are so many additional factors that come into play.<p>In all the technical teams (sysadmins, dbas etc) that I've managed, I've consistently seen variations of between $50k-100k between the lowest and highest paid person <i>of the same skill</i> (ie I'm not comparing junior to senior staff).<p>The things I learned as a manager:<p>* Always know what the market is paying for your skills. Even if you are not looking for another job, remain subscribed to job websites so you understand what the market is after and what it is paying<p>* Sharing salary information with people you trust is incredibly valuable - you need to know where you stand. It's in the companies best interests to keep everyone in the dark - it means you won't know your true worth.<p>* If you love your job, by all means stay - but make sure you aren't using that as an excuse to cover up the fact that you are scared to make a jump, or that your ego is wrapped up in your job title. There are no medals for long service - and as companies (in my experience) generally only pay market rates to external hires, you are better jumping jobs every few years than staying in the one place. You'll develop more skills, earn more money, and I believe in the long term more employable.

INAL.<p>Disclosing/discussing your salary, while often forbidden in your employment contract, isn't enforceable in many countries.<p>In the US, some states have specific laws that make such clauses unenforceable (yes, even if you sign the contract). Beyond this, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act says that you have the "right to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid and protection." The section has more pretty clear wording on just how well-protected you are.<p>In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 also protects such discussion/disclosure for the purpose of ensuring you aren't being discriminated against (how can women know that they are being paid less than men if they get fired for talking about salary).<p>I have to believe that other countries have similar laws, but you should obviously double check.<p>Of course, if you piss people off, they can generally get rid of you for some other infraction (or none at all). This is easier in some places (like the US with At-will employment) than others (like the UK where I'm told it's considerably harder).

I think the last point about your best chance for getting a good salary being during the interview is a pretty good one.<p>Salary increases tend to be considered in relation to your current salary, not in relation to your value to the company, unless you do something mind-blowing. Better to get in at $120k and never get a raise than to get in at $80k and get small raises every 6 months.

I often get the feeling that I'm significantly less well paid than others in the company. I've seen pro formas for certain management positions and some ideas on wages in a company we just acquired, and I'm sure I'm pretty low on the list.<p>Part of the disparity is likely negotiating tactics (I know one employee who got a nice raise after getting a competing offer), and the desire of the company to pay the least amount possible.<p>For me, another big part is that my job can't be directly attributed to a revenue stream (we're in the services industry). For those who's jobs are directly paid by contract with the client, they'll pay whatever the client will agree to. For those of us in "overhead", they'll pay as little as possible because it's difficult, if not impossible, to assign a dollar amount to the value that we bring to the company.<p>I would venture to guess that devs that work for software development business get paid more than those that are just in IT at a non-software company.

Subtitle: <i>the benefits of paying everybody the exact same base salary.</i><p>Managers, read up. Do you want to make your team members feel like this? Communicate clearly <i>beforehand</i> about what leads to incentive pay (good code) and disincentive pay (chatty phone calls). If you didn't communicate clearly, you don't get to skimp on labour costs.

Understand the following restrictions from the manager's point of view;<p>a) everyone thinks they're smarter / better / faster etc than the folk around them.<p>b) everyone thinks they deserve "above average" pay.<p>c) there is always someone else at the company making more. There's always some company down the road paying more.<p>given these constraints there are always going to be people who think they deserve, or indeed want, more. No matter what he does a bunch of people are gonna be upset.<p>Reminds me of the time I was managing 3 developers, and all 3 independently came to see me to complain they weren't being paid more than the other 2, when in fact they worked harder than the other 2 and were more valuable. Of course they measured "worth" differently to me, but whichever way it turned out 2 were gonna be unhappy.

I recently interviewed for a job at a web agency that I was perfect for; literally, the job listing described my resume. Consequently, I nailed the interview. He asked me what my salary requirements were and I told him; he said he'd run it by the powers that be. It was clear they would offer me the job, the only question was the salary offer.<p>So he gets back to me and says they want me but my salary requirement is a bit high. Hmm, okay, what do you have in mind? He throws out a number that is $30-40k lower than my salary requirement. I laughed out loud and said good luck finding the right candidate.<p>I found the same job listing on Craigslist the other day. They lowered the years of experience from 5-7 to TWO, and made a bunch of required experience optional. Good luck with that!

The fact is that while you have the right to negotiate what you're paid, that negotiation works both ways. The truth is that the company will pay you the absolute minimum required to get the work they need. So, it's up to you to know the market rate, and negotiate accordingly. If you aren't paid what you think you're worth, there's no one to blame but you.

Any sympathy I had for the author was lost when he said that he would have been happy had he not seen the list. I'm aware of the cognitive biases in effect here but, really, if he was happy with his salary it shouldn't matter if someone else was getting paid more, and if he wasn't happy the list shouldn't have had anything to do with that.

I sort of feel mixed on this one. I myself took a very low starting wage because the company I work at does gaming technology, and it's in a fairly small town, so my costs are very low. This wouldn't be a problem except that the technology the company uses is so specialized that it can't be applied anywhere else in the world (they have their own programming language and game engine technology which is used exclusively internally).<p>Now, 2 years in, I have the experience out of uni to be able to move to other jobs, but i'm still on a pathetic salary, with no additional benefits or anything, even during crunch times.<p>Since coming to this realization, I have made a plan to do something about it, so I have started learning new programming languages and tools, generating a portfolio of project euler problems, brushing up my CV, etc. Articles like this serve as good motivation/reminder that I need to keep doing this and aim for something better.

&#62; 5) A developer’s best chance at achieving a maximum salary increase is to negotiate during the hiring process. Once you are on board, you are at the company’s mercy unless you bail.<p>This is true indeed for a worse than average developer: after a year or so the employer learns that they are not really worth the money; at this point it will be hard for employer to cut back the salary.<p>Any developer (good or bad) stands a better chance to get hired by agreeing to lower compensation. Best developers have a good chance of successfully negotiating a significant salary raise after a year or so once they've proven their worth. At this stage they have much more leverage over the employer because it's quite costly to let a good developer go.<p>Overall I feel the author could have negotiated a much better deal.

<i>you are at the company’s mercy</i><p>Only if you have no better options. This guy was building a house and probably had limited savings. His manager knew it. If you want a higher salary, improve your negotiating position—for example, by having enough savings to live for a year at your current lifestyle. Focus on accumulating that cash reserve before building a house or otherwise overextending your finances and you'll suddenly find yourself less of a pushover when performance review time comes along.

The author seems to feel a bit envious/jealous of the other peoples salaries and thinks it's the boss' fault (and by the way the boss is just making up stuff to tell him). My advise would have been to get over it! Salary is not black and white. Was he "happy" with his salary before he learned what others earned? If so who cares what the others make. When starting out "many" years ago I knew with certainty that I was almost paid the lowest of everyone, funnily enough it made me think intellectually about what makes the salary beyond just skill and contribution; your context, past history, current market demand (dot com hire vs post do com hire) etc. I never felt bad for even a second.. Never used it in a netotiation. Chase the passion and strive for excellence and solid dedicated work in a "good" organisation working for great people and the money will usually follow I think (or at least you will feel good and happy).<p>(sent from phone)

Since a lot of the comments here are about strategy when negotiating salaries - everyone really should buy a book about negotiation and then find opportunities to practice. (You might not be hopping jobs at the moment, but you can negotiate a lot more than your salary.)<p>I like Roger Dawson's 'Secrets of Power Negotiating' myself.

Me and my co-workers always share how much we make. It's not a big deal. We understand that some make more, some make a lot less. Most often it's how well you negotiate. It rarely has to do with how great your skills are.<p>If that spreadsheet happened to be in my hands, I wouldn't know how to exploit it. What the author did is ruined the relationship with his manager over a crappy 2% raise.<p>I would just return it, make a joke, and started interviewing. If you're at the bottom while they tell you that you're great, it's a long way up.

While salary is certainly important, I can't help but think that it's wiser to work harder on yourself than on your job. In the end, the stress/time that you spend worrying about salary increases and getting underpaid should be spent improving yourself and finding alternative ways of income besides making a living