Is your salary a reflection of your worth?

[u/listerstorm220]

I know I am being paid well below market rate. Some colleagues have also brought up low salary complaints, although not a direct number. Does the salary you get offered reflect on what you are worth and the level of your abilities or its just company policy?

People here saying If you'd be as good as you thought you'd get offered double what you currently get.

[u/StrobeWafel_404]

Absolutely not, salary is a reflection of your negotiation tactics and willingness to interview and switch jobs for better salaries. It's very rare that a salary is actually reflecting your worth because someone wants to pay what you're worth

[u/28spawn → u/StrobeWafel_404]

This is the right answer, as long you can put up with the endless stages and go over and over eventually you will land a higher paying job, the question is if you want

[u/Budget-Length2666]

Not necessarily. But to be fair, you can be worth 200k at a big tech company and at the same time only be worth 70k at a startup. It mostly depends on the company, but high compensation companies are more competitive as more people want to get in and therefore you have to be on top of your game to get in and earn that high salary.

[u/m4573rj → u/[deleted]]

Try interviewing with other companies. If they offer you more money, then you know you are worth more. Then you switch and you are not underpaid anymore.

[u/camilatricolor → u/[deleted]]

The start looking, tons of start ups will fail and you will not get any raise

[u/Safe-Tree-7041 → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't work at a startup if I wasn't getting compensated for the high risk of failure, either with equity or high salary.

[u/m4573rj]

If you want higher salary, you have to start interviewing with other companies. If they offer bigger salary, you switch the job.

[u/cs_korea]

Does the salary you get offered reflect on what you are worth

No. The company will pay you as little as they can get away with. It is a matter of supply and demand + government policy + skills + luck.

In short, I would say that your salary reflects how much you are worth to the company.

You can be worth €50,000 to one company and €200,000 to another.

[u/Beneficial_Nose1331]

No I'm underpaid and actively interviewing but the market is shit and recruiters know it.

[u/ImaginationAware5761]

Does the salary you get offered reflect on what you are worth and the level of your abilities or its just company policy?

Only company policy.

[u/unknowinm]

is this a psychological thing? you're worth nothing if you die by old age or natural causes. You're worth something if someone hits you with the car and you have insurance. You're worth something else if an employer is willing to pay for you. You're worth something to some women and nothing to other women.

So what's the point of this question? if you die tomorrow (like my friend who had a heart attack at age 28) will you regret spending time on this question?

In reality, you need to give yourself your own worth not somebody else

[u/SolidDeveloper]

No. While I do get a hefty income, I am paid below market rate for my mix of role, type of company and city. I tried changing jobs, but couldn’t be arsed to prepare for interviews so I didn’t get any good offers.

That said, I am staying put for now, as I am going through family events that require my focus.

[u/Neuromante]

Salary is a function of your technical knowledge, negotiation skills, luck, willingness to play again to find a job and how much responsibility you want to deal with versus the amount of people that can do your work and their specific values.

So I would say that maybe a little fraction of your salary reflects "your worth", but then we should define what is someone's "worth."

[u/MantisTobogganSr]

It’s never the case, even for a FAANG engineer, that the life input-to-outcome ratio is compensated at the concrete labour value in the market.
You are paid to build a feature or product that brings in licensing revenue or clients; even if you calculate 20% of that outcome, it will never match your compensation.
Our team made back-to-back software sales that brought in millions a year, and none of us is getting near that or even a slight percentage of it.

People who say otherwise are delusional bootlickers
, life is not a classroom that compensates the students who did their homework.

[u/CynicalProle]

Your salary can never reflect your worth under capitalism because the source of profit for the company is the gap between the value you produce and the amount they can sell what you produce for.

The only real way to close that gap in any meaningful way is changing companies, the longer you stay at any company the wider that gap grows. You have to find the point at which that gap is no longer tolerable and switch.

[u/xpingu69]

how would you know how good you are? Based on what metric? There is a range 

[u/Standgrounding]

How do you define your worth? Is it pure technical skill or rather ability to navigate the stormy job market? Or a combination thereof?

[u/carnivorousdrew]

No. I know a lot of brilliant people that are just afraid to apply for better jobs, others that are so socially inadequate that even though they could easily get hired at any FAANG they would not he bearable by anyone for more than 20 minutes. Also, what is worth? Market is governed by supply and demand. Do you value your worth through that function? I surely don't. I prefer valuing people by their morals and what they do to themselves and others.

[u/SirJo24]

Absolutely not

[u/TableNo8939]

Ma quando mai! Lo stipendio è solo il riflesso del valore per cui ti fai vendere !

[u/limpleaf]

No, productivity is a measure of how much value is produced by your work. Not a measure of your worth per say. Similar work can produce very different values depending on company, country, field, etc.

[u/canxkoz]

Absolutely no. A lot of people feel the same. It’s not just you, more people feel this way because the hiring process has become a humiliation ritual.

[u/Tough_Percentage_707]

No, and I know it. But my average work hours are always less than 30h per week, and wouldn't work 40h+ for +30% higher salary. It's high enough to have everything I need, want, and invest 40% of it.

I've never received a double-salary offer, and the highest offers were +30% every year. I guess I'm not that behind, and I never did job hopping.

[u/Kapri111]

It's mostly a reflection of you location lol

[u/Intrepid-Copy-5919]

i like to think that theres 3 main skills in working
1. how easy is for u to study/learn new stuff
2. how well u do your job, both in dedication and skill
3. how good u are at selling yourself, so corporate politics/interviews,etc

all affect how much u get paid, some more than others(looking at number 3 here)

[u/fpeterHUN]

Salary is a number you have negotiated with your boss. Nothing less nothing more. Every living creature has inestimable value. A single bird, a spider, a bear. The thing about salary is, companies try to keep them as low as possible.