Ask HN: What is market rate salary?

7 points by ltcoleman 14y ago ↗ HN

I am a senior developer. I work with Mule, java, web-services, objective-C, javascript, HTML, jQuery, javascript MVC, SQL, blah, blah, blah. Needless to say, I am a generalist who works in many different technologies. The company I work for is trying to learn how to hire good talent. We are based in Arkansas so cost of living is low, but it is also harder to get talent to come here. My main question is around salary. What is market rate salary? Every job listing on here says they pay market rate? I am just wondering what that is, to find out if I am being compensated correctly. Also, at the company I work for, there are no project bonuses or equity allocations. My salary is all that I get. I will appreciate any useful comments or advice.

7 comments

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megamark16 14y ago ↗

I don't know how accurate or relevant it is, but Indeed.com's salary comparison tool can sometimes be helpful. Here's an example:

http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=senior+java+developer&l1...

ltcoleman 14y ago ↗

This tool is very nice but it is still hard to gauge since salary is my only form of compensation.

pavel_lishin 14y ago ↗

I think glassdoor.com has a pretty nice salary comparison tool as well.

steverb 14y ago ↗

To be frank, market rate is however little your employer thinks they can get away with paying you, or someone comparable to you.

Look at indeed.com and salary.com and aim for 75th percentile and higher. Unfortunately the only way to really know is to put yourself out there and see what offers you get.

[deleted] 14y ago ↗

(comment deleted)

wavephorm 14y ago ↗

"Market rate" literally means "average salary". So you can use the salary sites and take the 50th percentile, and compare that against cost of living values.

parasitius 14y ago ↗

woah cant believe little rock is more than DOUBLE what we get in ohio, must be a bigger town than i knew!