Bulldozer00's Blog

Joel Spolsky is the CEO of Fog Creek Software. In this Inc. magazine article, “Why I Never Let Employees Negotiate a Raise”, Joel spews hearsay on the topic of salaries:

The trouble with keeping salaries a secret is that it’s usually used as a way to avoid paying people fairly. And that’s not good for employees — or the company. – Joel Spolsky

I wanted Fog Creek to have a salary scale that was as objective as possible. A manager would have absolutely no leeway when it came to setting a salary. And there would be only one salary per level. – Joel Spolsky

In this blog post, Joel lays out the details of his compensation system:  “Fog Creek Professional Ladder“.

Your career level at Fog Creek is determined as a function of three things: experience (number of years), the scope of your job (what your current job entails), and your skills (your skill level, regardless of actual responsibility). – Joel Spolsky

In the post, Joel further defines what experience, scope (there are 7 levels), and skills (there are 7 levels) mean. Of course, the criteria are not 100% objective, but at least Mr. Spolsky valiantly tries to remove as much subjectivity and insert as much objective fairness as he can.

How about your org? Is its compensation system still based on the 1920’s FOSTMA, employee-in-a-box, carrot-and-stick mindset? You know, the one where your salary is totally based on how much your anointed “supervisor” likes you?