What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by sidlls on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @07:08PM (#12544128)

That really depends on very much more than your skill as an engineer, and the ability to "present a business case for being paid like it" simply does not apply to the majority of employment negotiation scenarios--even ones involving the very best of the best engineers. Most, in fact almost all employers have fixed salary schedules for their positions and they simply will not deviate from these as a rule, nor will they entertain negotiation around them.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by eropple on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @07:15PM (#12544160)

> Most, in fact almost all employers have fixed salary schedules for their positions and they simply will not deviate from these as a rule, nor will they entertain negotiation around them.

Most employers will happily tell you that this is the case. That does not mean that it is so. If you rate it, those doors will, at many companies, open. But you have to rate doing something that is Not Normal, and you have to be able to communicate why you rate having the people dealing with your hiring stick their neck out and do something that is Not Normal. This is hard. Few people (not just engineers) can do that. But it can be done.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by pc86 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:10AM (#12547798)

I've worked at 20k+ employee companies where these are split into entire separate decision-making structures. Salaries are set by HR and approved far up the chain, and hiring decisions are made by people who do not share supervisors until you're a level below the CEO.

When you're hiring a "Programmer II" in a company like that, the salary is not going to change. You might be able to negotiate work-from-home a day or two a week, or an extra week of vacation or something, but you're simply not going to make more than the upper bound of that schedule, and being at the upper bound of that schedule will negatively impact raises until you get promoted.

The CEO or COO or CIO is not going to approve a $100k salary for a Programmer II when the band is $60-75k. It just won't happen.

On an extremely related note, there is zero ambition and very little technical skill at that company. The vast majority of folks with skill and ambition leave after 2-3 years.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by sidlls on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @07:18PM (#12544184)

It means exactly that it is so for almost all cases. There are always going to be exceptions, but those are just that: exceptions. There's a reason they're called "exceptions." Edit: the people who set compensation are very rarely the people that decide whether to hire you. The latter may communicate the salary HR dictates to them, but they almost never have negotiation power within their own employers' structure.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by wpietri on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:11AM (#12545579)

It doesn't have to apply to the majority of employment negotiation scenarios. It just has to apply to enough of a particular class of worker to set the market price.

I would also suggest your understanding of how often exceptions are made is very unlikely to be based on good data. Employers have ways of hiding that they are paying somebody more than their traditional salary structure when they need to make an exception. And a very strong incentive to do that hiding.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by sidlls on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:52PM (#12550555)

Yes, and the same reasoning would apply to folks suggesting that employers routinely are open to negotiation. On the other hand we have a plethora of anecdotal data (e.g. through Glassdoor and other self reporting places) and BLS salary data by region and classification (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm). The means and medians in these data are quite close. It'd be nice to see upper and lower extremes, modes and other information to gauge the actual distribution, but it strikes me as an extraordinary to claim successfully negotiating higher-than-average wages is typical.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by wpietri on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @10:48PM (#12553972)

> Yes, and the same reasoning would apply to folks suggesting that employers routinely are open to negotiation.

No, it wouldn't, because employers have a strong incentive to hide salary band violations, while employees have a strong incentive to discover when negotiations are possible.

> it strikes me as an extraordinary to claim successfully negotiating higher-than-average wages is typical.

Then you should probably go talk to somebody who made that claim. But it's a nonsensical claim, so my guess is not many would be making it.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by eropple on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:59PM (#12550636)

Who's saying anything about typical?

I've never been a typical employee in my life. I have, however, been the highest-paid non-manager (or so I was told; this might have been an attempt to shame me into working more for free) in a hundred-person development group, well out of band, because I brought capabilities and skills to the table that they needed more than they needed to Maintain The Integrity Of The Salary Band.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by sidlls on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:16PM (#12551318)

So if your point wasn't that employers routinely deviate from their prescribed bands ("as a rule") why did you respond to my comment? What I see is an anonymous Internet Person bragging without context (for all I know your non-typical experience could have been with 99 developers who were seriously below average).

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by eropple on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:22PM (#12553634)

They won't routinely deviate from prescribed bands for your typical engineer. There are many, many engineers who are atypical, whether because of skill set or skill level; before I went into consulting I was able to command top-of-market salaries because I am pretty good--not the best, but pretty good--and actively went into areas of technology that others didn't. I was then able to communicate to potential employers why this mattered and how I would be able to help them, because I have enough of a business background to be able to make the case for myself. And while whatever "talent" is involved may be innate--I don't think it is, but whatever--the rest is eminently learnable.

And calling me "anonymous" is kind of funny.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by wpietri on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @10:45PM (#12553961)

If you see him as anonymous, you are definitely not trying very hard. Or at all.

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by eropple on Thursday September 22, 2016 @01:41AM (#12554659)

I'll be seeing you at the next Anonymous Anonymous meeting, right, Anonymous?

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Re:What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt by wpietri on Thursday September 22, 2016 @01:59AM (#12554737)

You know it, A.

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