HN Explorer

Tell HN: Levels.fyi is selling your salary data to companies for $1200/month

20 points by rsanek ↗ HN
https://www.levels.fyi/offerings/

https://i.imgur.com/eC3slkQ.png

This was surprising to me as I always thought of levels.fyi being oriented towards job seekers. I question how they can both sell salary data to companies and also offer salary negotiation coaching. Seems to me like these two customer groups want the exact opposite of the other.

12 comments

[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 40.8 ms ] thread
emteycz
> Seems to me like these two customer groups want the exact opposite of the other.

I disagree. Both sides want to [obtain/provide] work that is priced fairly. Companies of the kind you see on levels.fyi are not trying to find the cheapest programmer around. They spend big bucks to get - and retain - the best.

rsanek
While I'd agree that few companies are simply looking for the "cheapest," I think we've seen ample evidence that businesses will go to great lengths (even to the point of breaking the law [1]) to reduce salaries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

emteycz
2010 was a very different market compared to 2022.

But of course, there is pressure. I'm confident the advantage is now in the hands of engineers, though.

Today I had a job interview. The grinning face that a bunch of business people make when they finally find an engineer who would work for them is almost comical. I'm sure they started dancing as soon as the call ended. I did too, the money is out of this universe (not really for US people, but certainly from EU perspective).

BTW: The whole scheme IMHO is a big fuck-you to the listed corporations, anyways (I'm not saying it's intended as such). The big companies used to demand (around 2010) that you never discuss your salary with your colleagues. There used to be weird machinations going on with salary negotiation. Surveying and then publicizing it and then taking money from the big corps for some of the data is like showing a middle finger.

lhorie
I'm confused at the outrage seeking attempt. Anyone can see the data points for every company/level by just clicking around the website. Do you honestly think employers don't already look at it? The offering, as far as I can tell, is to give access to a live data stream version of the same dataset which is slightly fresher and in google sheet format.
wclausen
I don’t see this as an outrage seeking attempt. Seems like mostly a PSA. I’m much less likely to be open about this info with a company that is planning to turn around and sell it to corporations. Feels like misaligned incentives and I’m glad I know about it upfront.
lhorie
Corporations have access to the data either way because the dataset is public. Think of this as levels.fyi selling Google docs sorting/filtering features to companies that would've just scraped the website anyways.

By not sharing your data point, all you're really doing is saying you don't want to participate in pay transparency. (Nothing wrong with that, of course)

Zaheer
Hey All, Zaheer from Levels.fyi here. We've had this offering for a while. What does this mean for jobseekers? Nothing. We answer this in fact in the FAQ on the page.

> Our data offerings provide employers with the same data you see on our site but in the format they need to make compensation decisions. All data points remain anonymous. Our paid offerings allow us to invest in maintaining Levels.fyi and further our mission: Helping people make better career decisions.

The main difference is that we provide data in a spreadsheet type format for employers with additional filtering criteria like metro codes, etc. It's a win-win-win all around. We get some revenue to help maintain the site. Companies get realtime compensation data to pay people fairly. Professionals continue to benefit from the site to get paid more and have data to negotiate better against companies.

We've have dozens of calls with companies this past year. The #1 reason why they purchase our data is because existing salary surveys (ex. Radford, Mercer, etc.) are stale and are too broad. Top tier tech talent which our site mainly attracts often get paid more than rest of the market. This is the bi/tri-modal nature of pay that others have written about. HR / Eng Managers / Comp analysts often buy our data to justify internally that they should be paying more.

b20000
what exactly are you giving those companies that you are not giving the potential candidate using your site? you should not hide information or knowhow from candidates and not give employers an edge.
wclausen
The strange thing about the offering is that it seems to be at odds with the original justification of Levels existing, at least for the folks who freely contributed the data being sold. The entire problem before was that employers had access to information about comp that employees did not. This put the employees at a significant disadvantage in negotiations, and was certainly not a win for everyone involved. The concern is that Levels is heading towards a repeat of that situation.

I’d also add that it seems a little hard to square the circle here around how this feature is aligned with the stated mission. Does this product help people make better career decisions? It’s also fine if this particular move is about making money. We all need to make money.

Levels has done a lot of great work, and I hope there’s a way for y’all to be compensated for all the effort you’ve put in. Have the costs of the site gone up significantly? I remember reading an Indiehackers post about how you were able to provide the site to users for something like the cost of a cup of coffee a month. If the cost structure has changed, it would be awesome to explore alternative funding approaches. I’d gladly pay y’all $10/month to maintain the site.

Zaheer
I think another commentator already addressed this above. Employers already have access to this information via the main site. They're paying us to get the data in a spreadsheet they can plug into their internal compensation tools. They have access to the same data you have.

It's an easy revenue opportunity for us and costs have certainly gone up as we've hired more folks. Our focus remains on serving professionals and majority of our revenue comes from professionals directly. Happy to discuss all this over a call as well if you're interested. Feel free to email me at: my HN username at levels.fyi.

I'd also reiterate that HR / Eng Managers / Comp analysts often buy our data to justify internally that they should be paying more. An official way to provide the data allows us to be a data source to justify internal change. Otherwise employers are left to use stale data and remain unknowingly uncompetitive.

danamit
I just hope the simple size is good and balanced, and not like when potential employers suggest giving me the "highest possible salary in my country according to glassdoor".

It feels a bit rude to mention compensation early on when I get an offer. But sadly I have to do it.

emteycz
I don't understand the problem. Why don't you just state your requirements upfront and they will simply decline if it's over budget? I don't think that's rude at all. I think it's basic open business communication.