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Comment by ratsbane | Hacker News Reader

I read Spolsky's essay again to see if he mentioned making public the employee ratings. For all his talk of openness in salaries, does he really publish salary information or just the salaries at each tier of the rating system? Are employees allowed to know their co-workers' scores in the tier system? As helwr mentioned below, a lot like Soviet Russia... or the US Government.

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Joel said in a stackoverflow podcast that he publishes the formula for the pay scales and profit sharing amounts so if an employee really wanted to know someone else's salary they could figure it out based on their position and how long they have been with the company.

I like the idea of transparency with salaries as long as the company pays well. If an employee decides he/she wants a higher salary than is afforded by a system like that they can look for another job or start their own company.

I just spent 36 minutes searching the transcripts, but I can't find the episode where he talked about this.

https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/?W4

However, I distinctly remember, and later confirmed, that Fog Creek only publishes the salaries at each scale, and not the profit sharing.

You may be right about the profit sharing. I thought I remember him saying that it was divided according to how long you have been with the company, but maybe it's not apart of the same "formula".

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