Should the salary be transparent?
Editor’s note: Microsoft employees rank from level 59 to level 80. If you climb to level 62, you will get an annual salary of $150,000 a year, and other bonuses. The wages paid by employees are as low as $40,000 and up to $320,000. The higher the level, the more stock rewards. American employees are happier than Indian employees. This article is compiled from the original article entitled “Leak of Microsoft Salaries Shows Fight for Higher Compensation”.
Is the salary given by the company really fair? Nearly 400 Microsoft employees are paying their payrolls online, so that everyone can judge for themselves.
There is a group on Facebook called “Young Microsoft FTE”. The so-called FTE is the meaning of full-time employees, and the activities are initiated by them. They use Google Spreadsheets to share salary data, and the header says: Share your anonymous information so that we can all get better rewards.
From the payroll table, you can see how Microsoft’s salary is distributed. The form also includes some important information about the employee, such as how many years of work experience, working at Microsoft for several years, percentage of performance pay, basic salary, stock, cash rewards. Some employees also said that they might be able to get special stocks, sign up bonuses, or get a bonus after the job reached a certain “milestone.” The spreadsheet does not list the gender of the employee. Microsoft has 144,000 employees worldwide, and 400 are really not many.
Employees tell OneZero that at a certain time each year, Microsoft will adjust employee salaries, and many employees will be notified that they have raised their salary or are promoted.
A former Microsoft employee also provided a document to OneZero, and another employee told OneZero that the document was true.
In the technology industry, compensation has not been very transparent. When science and technology employees enter the company, they hope that they will climb to a well-paid position in the future, but how do the major companies evaluate their employees? We have a hard time knowing. Most technology companies rank by qualification. The higher the level, the more employees are in charge and the higher the salary. Microsoft’s employee ranks from 59 to 80, Amazon from L4 to L10, and Facebook from E3 to E9.
The data provided by Young Microsoft FTE does not represent the status of all Microsoft employees. E.g,One employee is quite representative. He is a Level 62 software engineer from Washington State. He has been working at Microsoft for 3 years and has been promoted to Level 62 for one year. He has 5 years of work experience and has not been promoted this year. The basic salary is 150,000. The US dollar has an additional $20,000 in cash bonuses and $15,000 in stocks. Among the salary data of employees, the minimum is 40,000 US dollars, and the highest is 320,000 US dollars.
From the data point of view, the main criterion for measuring employee compensation is grade, not work experience or the length of time at Microsoft. Some 62-level employees (lower than senior engineers) have higher salaries than the 65-level chief engineer, but such 62-level employees are rarely.
When the employee level is higher, the share of the stock in the salary will be higher. At the 66th level, about 40% of Microsoft employees’ compensation comes from cash and stock rewards. In the salary of Microsoft employees, the proportion of cash rewards is relatively stable, but in the hands of senior employees, the proportion of stock bonuses can account for 20% of annual income.
Employees also said that there is a skill to get a raise, first leave Microsoft, go to other companies in Seattle, such as Amazon, or go to a startup, then go back to Microsoft and jump to a higher level.
What is the income of Microsoft employees in India? There is not much data, but there are still some. The data shows that Indian employees are much less paid than Washington employees. In India, the average Microsoft coder has an annual income of less than $50,000, and employees with similar experience in the United States earn $150,000 a year. If you add a bonus, it may be 10 times that of an Indian employee.
In the end, Microsoft is judged by rank, or geographical location, and it is unclear in a few words.
Industry expert Levels.fyi pointed out: “Many people simply don’t know what the rating system of other companies is, and they don’t know which level they are suitable for. The impact of rating on compensation is very large.”
In the past 2 years, Levels.fyi has collected 13,000 technical compensation data, reflecting the difference in salary between employees of different levels.
In 2015, thousands of Google employees also paid salaries. Microsoft employees highly value CEO Satya Nadella. Under his leadership, Microsoft culture has improved, but sexual harassment and discrimination still exist. Microsoft employees speak freely in internal forums and try to change the company culture.
At the beginning of this year, an internal mail detonated Microsoft, blowing a storm in the company, NadellaOrders were issued to the Human Resources Department to address harassment and discrimination.
There is a political action committee within Microsoft. Microsoft employees have initiated activities to deprive them of the right to call funds. They said that the “investment” of the committee does not meet the company’s value.
It is clear that on the issue of discrimination and compensation, Microsoft employees hope that the company can be more transparent.
Translator: Xiaobing Hand