The incentive against posting a huge range like $50-500k is that it anchors the range a candidate expects. If you post that range and then offer $100k to a qualified candidate, they will probably balk, so if that’s closer to the desired salary band you have an incentive just to say so.

Posting a large, unreal range will also cause headaches internally with your existing employees. Skip all the hassle and just use a valid range.

Because of the laws getting passed in other states, many postings already have ranges and they have looked reasonable to me.

I think the largest range I've seen that wasn't very obviously from some resume harvester or z-tier recruiting firm was $30-40k between the lowest and highest, and it didn't seem to grow all that much as the upper band number increased (e.g. I distinctly remember one that said $180-200k). These $50-500k ranges simply don't happen in reality.

I've seen plenty that go $100-350k, especially when it looks like a company is hiring a few people... Useless to a candidate, but not dodgy or malicious.

Not useless at all. Every candidate will start with the expectation that it will be explained why they did not hit the maximum of the range. They also know the minimum.

Not useless to a candidate, since they know they will earn at least $100k. This is a very useful signal to the labor market as a whole.

Take a look at Netflix, here's one at random but I believe they're all like this:

https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/294103648

"The overall market range for roles in this area of Netflix is typically $180,000 - $900,000."

It's even easier than that. Just post multiple ads. Give them different titles if you want.

Eh, NYS DoL is codifying regulation on top of the law.

https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/09/text-salar...

They specifically declare the terminology "good faith" and that posted ranges must be made in good faith and accurate to reality. Any individual that feels they are harmed by said range not being in good faith can file a department of labor complaint. The NYS DoL is actually quite aggressive once you give them ammo (complaints, tips, etc) to go after companies.

IMO a much better idea that circumvents all these problems is requiring companies to disclose how much they're already paying their employees, the Scandinavian way.

This wouldn't even necessarily need to be broken down by individual employees, per position would work too, with statistics like number of employees covered, min, max, average and median.

> the Scandinavian way

They… do no such thing?

Apparently you can get anyone's declared income with just a phone call, maybe that's what they're referring to: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-salaries-freely-avail...

If that's possible, you can at least in theory try to find a representative sample of current employees and get an idea of how much you could realistically get paid.

I believe Finland and Norway each publish the income of all citizens.

Except at least in Norway it's total taxable income, so it's after various adjustments.

However for most people it should be representative and you should be able to get a good estimate of how much they're paid.

I think you're right. Edited for clarity.

That's brilliant.

Some blue states (I would be shocked to see Republicans support this, despite the fact more information is very pro-market) institute this and maybe someday at the federal level as voters warm up to the idea.

Taxeringskalender

Sounds great. Why don't you start. How much do you make?

I know many people in this database, including myself. I'm not sure what the big deal is.

https://transparentcalifornia.com

I'm not a fan of the government mandating the disclosure of how much money I make.

While some engineers definitely get compensated in stock more, is it really the majority of engineers? I feel like it’s over represented because we’re in HN but the vast majority of software engineers in this world don’t get stock at all, it’s just mostly base salary

Absolutely not, it's a VC ecosystem oddity just like people saying they make $400k when most of that is stock and sometimes there isn't even a liquid market for it.

The median software engineer salary in the US is something like $110k. Still about twice the average individual income in the US[0], but the vast majority are going to be making 99% of their income in cash compensation including bonuses. I've worked for about a dozen companies based across the US in a variety of industries, and never have I or any of my coworkers had access to stock as part of compensation.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

I believe that a lot of companies offer stock options for two reasons:

1. Software engineers have come to expect it

2. It provides a very cheap incentive for the engineer to remain at the company for the N number of years required to vest

And in the end, they may still end up being worthless

If you want to use "software engineers" to describe everyone in the US who writes code, I don't think #1 is accurate at all. Half of the developers in the US make less than $100k/yr. Most of these people work for banks, small mom-and-pop companies that have 1-3 developers. Public companies with bigger teams who don't give stock to anyone below the VP level.

If your entire exposure to software development has been startup fantasy land where profitability doesn't matter yeah most of those companies are giving everyone stock down to the person at the front desk answering phones. That's the minority by every metric - number of companies, number of developers, total revenue, everything. I don't think anyone expects stock compensation unless they're artificially limiting their search to that type of company.

I can't speak for all engineers, but I've worked at mid-size companies, huge companies, and startups. At each one, I was granted stock options that I had no faith in the value of (and most of which actually declined in value). Many of my coworkers talked about their stock options as part of their TC though. My experience is probably not the norm though

There's also lots of engineers who get paid in worthless stock. Companies which have no plan to ever IPO or who lose money every year. Taking a job at a startup based on potential future valuation and stock options is essentially gambling with hours of your own life

Or they can simply plan to let you go long before the options vest. Now, you may or may not have a legal case, but the difficulty in that is extreme.

In your original comment

> Also, it only forces companies to list the base salary, but especially in tech, that's just a portion of one's total comp.

"Total compensation" is, to me, a way to inflate one's own value.

1. In companies with no market for stock options (privately owned, startups, companies that are just absolutely worthless), equity is hypothetical money which may never be worth anything. I worked for a company which gave me 250,000 options but the company lost 18mil a year and they ended up cancelling all stock options. Some people worked there for 15 years hoping the options would be worth something and eventually saw them cancelled outright. Unless I'm working for a publicly traded company, I don't put much value in stock options. With a startup, you're basically asking to be paid in poker chips.

2. Health insurance is something I expect to be there, regardless of the monetary value.

3. I've worked for plenty of companies that include a 10% performance-based bonus as part of the compensation only to never get that bonus (or get nowhere near 10%) regardless of my own performance because the company itself didn't profit last quarter, or they did profit and just chose not to pay out bonuses.

4. The perks that you get (free breakfast burritos, free barrista, gym membership) are tokens that can (and will) be taken away as soon as the federal reserve decides to jack up rates on your company lays off 25% of the workforce in order to pay their CEO his 300mil compensation package

"Total compensation" means "base salary plus hypothetical money in a perfect universe"

> 2. Health insurance is something I expect to be there, regardless of the monetary value.

I hear what you're saying, but man, I really wish employers would be banned from offering healthcare benefits. They have zero business offering healthcare benefits.

Why? Isn't someone paying 70%+ and me paying 30% of my healthcare premiums better than me paying 100%?

Because we'll never get healthcare reform as long as corporations have their hands in it. It is yet another way for them to have more control over us than they should.

In that link

> Hire a TC negotiation consultant with access to comp data. They can get you 20-40% more.

What does TC mean here?

Total Compensation.