My wife works for a charitable foundation, and continuously complains about the quality of their software. Once she asked her IT director why they can't get someone like me in to just fix it, and her IT director was like "We can't afford someone like your husband."

They are also (AFAIK) based to a large degree on self reporting which you have to imagine would skew high. If I had an amazing salary I’d want to self report it and tell levels and HN all about it. If I have a normal salary, maybe I keep that to myself.

Anecdotally I’ve worked at two companies featured on levels.FYI and my total comp was nowhere near what they were reporting for similar roles... like 50-66%—they were waaaay off. Either I am consistently grossly underpaid or levels biases high.

Whenever possible, we collect verified offers / pay stubs / W-2s to anchor the data on the site. While our self reported data is definitely the more popular choice for submission, we are able to determine general bands and find blatant outliers for certain companies and remove them. I think we might be the only consumer facing salary site to do this afaik.

Some more info: https://levels.fyi/verified

We also do provide a community reporting feature much like the flag feature here on HN, which we actively monitor.

Even after all we do, we are after all only as good as the data we collect. The more contributions we receive the more we can color in the whole picture. Feel free to email us any suggestions at hello[at]levels.fyi

A lot of people seem to make this mistake, so hopefully your data cleaners have solved that.

We had this issue earlier on in our first 2 years since our form was much more rudimentary – could it be that the data points you're visiting are from 2019 or earlier? Also in any case, feel free to report those entries, and we'll make sure to take a look.

If anything, I would say Levels.fyi underrepresents average total comp for many of the listed companies, because: 1) they don't take into account refreshers, where given, and 2) they don't take into account stock growth (which, yes, is not guaranteed, but it wouldn't be _unreasonable_ from a perspective of estimating Expected Value to assume whatever RSUs you get will track overall market growth, just with more volatility)

Since you always enter a company with 0 YOE at that company (or at least, a clean slate of RSU tranches), the data points of employees who 'got in' early aren't relevant to an offer you might receive.

https://levels.fyi/comp.html?showFilters

This is also available on our level specific pages, for example for Google L3: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

Though I do agree it would be really nice to have this reflected in our visuals or aggregates where possible.

Love the new reporting feature, way less friction than sending an email.

I don't know why people get confused by this; most people working SWE in the bay area will never see a vaunted Levels.fyi equivalent salary (although most of them will exceed national averages for software).

Basing your understanding of software salaries across the industry on levels.fyi is a bit like basing an understanding of national lawyer salaries on a sampling from top NYC corporate law firms.

(NB there is some sprinkling of other useful salary info on levels.fyi, but people focus on the FAANG and similar companies, and the data is much better there)

Your plumbers should move to Vancouver

There are some non-monetary inconveniences associated with this. In aggregate, they are probably less significant than the monetary and non-monetary inconveniences of having the chance to catch COVID-19 inside the grocery.

People with savings or wealth can afford not to work.

Edit: Remote working is also easier when you have an office job

Edit 2: I hope more research like this will come out so we can prepare and protect the ones who are more at risk when the next pandemic comes. Uderstanding the risk factors and how a disease spreads is the first step of debugging it. Sadly it is the first pandemic where we have the necessary tools to track all the information and analyse it. We have been lucky the death rate was not much higher

I wonder how much of it I'd grasp if I hadn't used maths since high school.

Still, barring the political stuff (supposing that's possible)—your comment implies that people who wear masks do so because they are educated. I'd suggest that it is far more likely that they do so because they are deferential to authority by default.

EDIT: s/smart/educated

Authorities in the US initially said don't wear masks as private citizens. There was a groundswell of people saying "it's not a panacea, but it's quite probably worth doing for everybody" to get them to change their position and admit the original one was based more on trying to avoid a shortage than on anything about efficacy. That pushback seemed to come from an educated populace.

Case in point, republican lawmakers refusing to wear masks while sheltering during the far right insurrection last week:

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/democrats-have-c...

People with few or no resources are interdependent with or dependent on others.

I'd think the biggest would be more freedom with respect to making work more compliant to social distancing.

The behaviors they studied cost nothing and are equally available and beneficial to the rich and poor alike so it's odd that it has any correlation to income at all.

If instead you're working 10+ hours a day somewhere near people, you're probably tired of wearing the damn mask, the mask might be wet with condensation in cold climates, etc.

There are several buckets of people in those groups and they're pretty sizable. Crosses several races and several age groups.

EDIT: got some downvotes on this. Probably mentioning words like "race" and "age" which is a no-no for some people.

To clarify the intent of my comment - I think in order to provide a better response to a pandemic I think it is important to understand those groups which would be better served with different communications.

If you don't care about the risk of STDs or an unplanned pregnancy or your faith in God is the primary driver of your health and well-being response, you probably aren't going to care as much as others about wearing a mask.

I had one young pregnant acquaintance of ours, who lives with her grandmother, tell my wife that she knows she will be ok because of her faith in God. This young woman had at least one large family gathering. She didn't quarantine or test before seeing people. Her fiance was actually going to the gym regularly. Her grandmother got covid and luckily she made it.

Repeating all the same directives (social distance, mask, wash hands) has clearly NOT worked. Even saying the hospitals are overwhelmed hasn't seemed to matter.

I don't think you can prepare a good response without difficult conversations and an understanding of why people might do what they do and how that perspective developed.

And politicians would rather speak vaguely and not make tough calls lest they inflame some of their supporters.

>If you don't care about the risk of STDs or an unplanned pregnancy or your faith in God is the primary driver of your health and well-being response, you probably aren't going to care as much as others about wearing a mask.

So people in committed relationships, homosexuals and people above the age where pregnancy is possible?

Because those are the groups of people who use condoms the least and at least one of them is certainly not letting religion inform their sexual habits.

I wasn't speaking in an absolute, because almost nothing is absolute.

I probably should have said "I also have a theory that those that don't wear condoms or use protection are significantly less likely to wear masks over the general public. And that a large percentage of the more religious are less likely to wear masks."

Since you went there, I'll try to be more concrete.

Committed relationships across any sub-group you'd like to slice = no. Homosexuals that aren't in committed relationships = yes as they would be in the general non-committed bucket. No risk of pregnancy of course but obviously STD. Above the age of pregnancy? If not committed relationship = yes. Again, still risk of STDs, in fact quite high for the age group most younger people don't want to think of as having sex.

Above the age of pregnancy would have the kicker bonus of less likely to care due to being older and cynical. Once you've seen a lot of crazy things maybe this doesn't phase you? Can't tell you how many that have been fortunate to escape cancers or other more challenging problems only to go carefree on coronavirus which they have more control over. It's an odd thing. Especially because those are higher risk and the ones that still have parents alive are in the highest risk category.

> at least one of them is certainly not letting religion inform their sexual habits.

The condoms and religion in my theory need not crossover. Although I would guess the center of that Venn diagram would skew even less likely to wear a mask.

Where I live, we have more or less universal mask wearing in stores, but the only reason people wear masks outside is that they are about to head into a business or are just leaving one. What's the point of wearing a mask outside?

Yes. In my area it's required by law.

What's the point of wearing a mask outside?

Basically nothing other than signalling, with possible exceptions for crowded environments. Overall I expect outdoor mask mandates to be harmful on balance, by causing people to shift from outdoor to indoor gatherings.

I'd have no issue walking around unmasked if you were out in the middle of the night and you were the only one around, though. But the days are so crowded it's pretty much an indoor environment.

> • Sitting or standing outside alone or with people you live with (such as picnicking outside) and you are more than 6 feet from others; • When eating or drinking alone or with people you live with, and nobody else is within 6 feet; • Exercising outdoors alone or with people who live with you (walking, hiking, bicycling, or running) and no one else is within 6 feet

Realistically though, there is no enforcement anywhere outside. If you want to go walking or running around outside on the sidewalk without a mask, nobody is going to stop you. You might get a funny look. If you crowd someone's personal space without a mask they might be uncomfortable.

Please wear your mask if you plan to spend extended stretches of time near other people.

> The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.

> All of these burdens ensured those earning the least would have a harder time adopting social-distancing behaviors, which could have prolonged the pandemic, the team found. Social distancing was simply more practical, comfortable and feasible for people with more income.

Women social distanced more than men which is consistent with women generally being more careful about their health than men. They couldn't explain it with women telecommuting more or having bigger houses.

It's not hard to imagine that other lifelong lifestyle habits have a significant influence on people's behavior. Wealthiness isn't allocated randomly to people. It goes to people who already have different behaviors so of course they're going to behave differently in many contexts. I find it ridiculous that people consider high income to be a fundamental source of good things, rather than being interconnected causally in both directions with many other aspects of a person's life. High income people are also less likely to smoke which doesn't make sense from a wealth-enables-behavior standpoint because they can afford to spend more on cigarettes. Seatbelt use is also positively correlated with income which surely can't be explained by some greater convenience wealthy people have for putting on a seatbelt.

I don't know if this was explained. I'd like to see if this might correlate with gender disparities in employment.

Mayor adler of austin got extended family together, had a wedding, then took a private jet to cabo where he recorded a video encouraging austinites to stay home.

Most of my friends are liberals and many are eating in restaurants, taking trips, getting together without masks "with a select" group of friends that they are quarantining with etc. They say the right thing, but are doing something different.

Your confirmation bias and the media says it is the right. Here is an example of hollywood stars that got infected.

https://www.vulture.com/article/famous-people-celebrities-wi...

Here is an article about prominent dems not following guidance. https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-politicians-who-v...

Because they were the ones who outright rejected masks? It's not like this is a bias being cast on them unfairly, the right has rejected masks on a basis of personal freedom (whether you agree with that take or not) and have been extremely vocal about it.

That being said, Democrats and leftists are people too - they're fallible. This pandemic has taught me that humans are far more social than I think most people realize, that we get bored incredibly quickly, and that we will normalize anything and live around it. Masks have become commonplace, and pretty much all content & media produced in 2020 will be immediately recognizable by the masks everyone is wearing.

Interestingly enough, I have seen pretty much 100% mask adherence in teenagers. I live by a high school and see them walk by all wearing masks even after school.

> Mayor adler of austin got extended family together, had a wedding, then took a private jet to cabo where he recorded a video encouraging austinites to stay home.

Yeah, the rich don't give a shit about the rules and guidelines, but what's new? Not following extreme quarantine protocols is probably very low on my list of criticisms for that mayor.

> They say the right thing, but are doing something different.

I've noticed the same thing with my liberal friends, but I have to remember that they're at least trying. They wear masks when they're hanging out and not eating, they're more aware of hand-washing, they don't share drinks, etc... You can't just look at the one thing they're doing to cling to a sense of normalcy. I wouldn't hold a right wing person to any more stringent of a standard, either. My problem with it has been the right's general rejection of any type of public safety measures.

I've been in an extreme quarantine because I live with an immuno-compromised person, but I have to remember that different people have different risk tolerances, and that at this point it's hardly the fault of people going to restaurants and that it was mostly our governments complete lack of action that lead to us being on this path.

Honestly, I just wish that it had never been politicized in the first place so that we didn't have to have silly conversations about political leanings of people given only how they respond to a pandemic. I guess I can't even talk about that without recognizing that our President is the one who politicized it, so :shrug:

There's a small percentage of far-left and wealthy that also ignore social distancing (like SF Mayor).

Let's not point finger and further assign blame.

It got to the front pages not because of breaking quarantine per se, but because of their hypocrisy: they wanted quarantine for everyone except themselves.

GOP politicians were consistent: they criticised quarantine and violated quarantine.