That's not true. There is a market for labor that is constantly in flux based on supply and demand. Let's say that you were hired when there was excess supply and limited demand, you might have settled for a reasonably middle-of-the-curve salary. Fast forward to today where it's much harder to hire and all of a sudden, fresh grads can command salaries that might be equal to what someone with 2-3 years of experience was previously offered.

In addition, if you are hurting for someone in order to hit a deadline, it might just make sense to pay unreasonably as long as the numbers still work out.

>Fast forward to today where it's much harder to hire and all of a sudden, fresh grads can command salaries that might be equal to what someone with 2-3 years of experience was previously offered.

Perhaps -- and existing salaries should be adjusted to reflect that.

Exactly. If companies don't adjust existing salaries to reflect that, then they are basically telling their employees to quit because the best way to get a "raise" is to switch companies.

But of course they won't, because salary information isn't available, so it is difficult for employees to make these decisions.

In other words, companies can systematically distort the free market in labour by withholding information about the true salaries it offers from its employees.

The door doesn't swing both ways though - people don't get a salary cut when supply later exceeds demand. If you wanted a salary system that did respond to job market fluctuations, you'd have to open up to the possibility of getting cut pay.

Getting fired has always existed as a correction mechanism for companies.

If your performance:pay ratio is off and the supply of developers is high, there's nothing stopping them from letting you go.

> there's nothing stopping them from letting you go.

Not everywhere allows employers to just fire-and-replace an employee on a whim.

Risk of doing business in those locations.

Inertia can often set in especially if you're someone who is not very vocal about asking for a raise or keeping track of how in-demand your skills are.

Other than merit and qualifications, you still have capability. You can graduate from Stanford with honors and not know how to program well.

Well, then how about this: People with similar qualifications and capability should have similar salaries for similar roles and responsibilities.

How about: People with similar performance should have similar salaries. I've seen qualified and capable people add no value, and less qualified people hustle to perform well.

That's a good point. Results are what matter.

Results are hard to quantify. You can jump on a successful project and skew your contribution factor. But what if you are working on important tooling that requires difficult problem solving. This important tooling might not be quantifiable directly like, say, an advertisement framework. It may, however, be more valuable in the long term.

I agree. I also agree that using a spreadsheet to determine this is quite difficult. I'm not saying that Google is in the right here. I'm just saying that Google's own metric for software engineer levels is not a statement of ability.

>People with similar qualifications should have similar salaries.

People with similar capabilities should have similar salaries. The qualifications are meaningless once you actually land the job.