Same Position - Man makes more money
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I am a SQL Server developer now working as a data warehouse developer. I also have the skill of a development DBA and part of production DBA (refer to the article by Brian Knight
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bknight/dbaroles.asp)
I have 10 years experiences in database programming including Oracle and SQL server. I have 6 years experiences in data warehouse programming. Before that I was a COBOL programmer. Totally I have 22 years of programming experience. I got my BS degree in US.
I started to work for this company 8 months ago. They recently hired another data warehouse developer. He got his degree from India. He started working in this country as a contractor since 1989. His skill set is good but it is not better than mine as far as I can tell. Also so far I don't see his SQL skill is better than mine either. Most of the time when I proposed something to my boss and he proposed something to my boss to solve a problem, my boss often took my advise.
When I interviewed this company, I had one interview and got the job. He had 3-4 interviews before they hired him.
So I thought I am in a senior position but I just found out by accident his salary is higher than me (not much) but it still makes me not very happy. I felt I had a lot more experiences and better skill sets than him. Money is always a touchy subject.
Am I too competitive? Should I just forget about this because it is part of life? Is it because he is a man that is why they pay him higher ?
I posted this just because I wanted to let out some of my 'anger'. I did not lose sleep on this but it sure did not make me feel good. I have no intention to talk to my company or change job at this point.
Maybe it is me having the problem.
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Loner,
I think you have a right to be a little upset if the salary is higher. What you can do about it is another thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if his pay is higher because he's a man. That still happens to women and other minorities in the workplace.
However it's also possible that his starting salary was just higher. Maybe he negotiated more to start with. Often new hires make more than existing hires for that reason. Plus you've grown with the company and salary growth internally ofen is slower then externally.
It would help to know what the difference is. Is it $2k on $80k or $5k on $50k. The difference in percentage pay might make me more inclined to approach my boss about why. You'd have to explain how you found out, which may or may not be a problem. It also depends on your boss and if he/she's approachable about this.
This is why salaries are usually not disclosed. It makes for hard feelings, justified or not, people that work together don't want to feel they are valued differently.
It could be anything, and I'm not sure you should pursue it, but I know talking about it helps. If you want to do something, you should do it and not just be upset. If it's not worth confronting management about, then let it go and move on. Use it for motivation if anything to grow your skills.
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Steve,
I joined this company 5 months earlier than he did. I understand if someone works in a company for 20 years, his salary may be less than some new hire. But 5 months I don't think it would make much difference. I am not going to do anything and just liked I said before I just wanted to release my anger.
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When you took the position, how did you negotiate? It may simply be that the other person asked for more. Next time around, be ready to do so for yourself.
The upside is you know what your company is willing to pay for someone in your position, and you are hitting your one-year mark in four months.
By then, you should have researched the local job market, maybe even gone on an interview or two. You'll see what else is out there, and can compare positions, opportunities, environments, cultures, and salaries. Know what you want, know what you can get. If there is any opportunity before the annual review to do so (such as a self-eval ahead of the review), state what you want.
If your manager is the type that drags reviews out way past the expected deadline, your interviewing will let you know where you stand. Someone else may appreciate you better. However, if that review is timely, your research and interviewing will let you know if what you hear is generous, on par, or dismissive.
I'm not saying tear off and quit your job because of the salary discrepancy. Just gather a little info and be ready to act on it. Loyalty has a premium. You may actually be sitting in a great position for your area.
Eddie Wuerch
MCM: SQL -
Ok, he's not going to say it but I will:
If you are that upset about it, quit and get another job. Or chill out, relax, and give the other guy a mental 'attaboy! good for you!'.
Sheesh. I'm a white guy and when I was starving and starting out there were state jobs for which my resume would never get from HR to the hiring department to even see. I haven't met anyone else truly descriminated against in this field. And it was fully legal to descriminate against me back then. First couple years of my experience I worked for a little over minimum wage just to get experience.
I had it really hard, but it made me learn. Things like that made me better at everything. I knew more and achieved more than I ever did, because I had to. I had to be better at things to compete with others with "better" paper labels, nepotistic positions, or affirmative action fasttracks. I was furious at the start, but ten years later, I was making more money than any of my contemporaries, and was very respected in my areas of expertise. Only then did I look back and realize that that early unfairness was the best thing to happen to me in my career.
I never really understood that mentality of expectation anyway: If you think that your bosses are descriminatory or unfair against you, why do you want to continue working for them?
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"Quit and get another job" is really much easier said than done...you can be high-principled and quit, but the principles aren't going to pay the bills...
I have just been talking to a staffing company and they were complaining that they've been looking for a SQL DBA for the past 4 months and they've had no luck at all...you really have to be in the right place at the right time or willing to relocate and follow your dream job to whereever it's located...not everyone is hiring when you are looking..
Okay, I'm curious....why were you discriminated against and why was it "fully legal to descriminate against me back then" ?!?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Boy, this is a can of worms and it's an emotional topic, so I'm not trying to offend anyone.
First it's not legal to discriminate in the US. Race, gender, or anything else. If you've been discriminated against, you have recourse. That being said, it's hard to prove.
Loner, 5 months isn't very long and it could be as simple as the other person negotiated for more. Too many people, and I used to be this way, don't ask for what they could get. They want to get the job and don't want to give the hiring person any reason to look at someone else. I think that's a mistake. You need to ask for what you want. If you are concerned about salaries, I'd bring it up when you feel comfortable, but definitely at review time. If you're doing the same job, then you should be paid the same. But you have to negotiate that.
As far as finding it hard to get a job as a "white man", I believe that companies or government may have been looking for a minority. That's the law and it's setup because of the blatant and widespread discrimination that has existed for a long time. The law is written to give preference to minorities, all else being equal. It's not there to get less qualified candidates hired over more qualified, though "qualified" is very subjective.
If some white guys don't get the job they wanted, it's the tradeoff. Lots of non-white-guy minorities have been missing out on jobs for years
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Without getting into the race issue, this is a problem and as stated earlier, why salaries are not discussed. As a Director of Software Development, this was an issue that I had to deal with. Sometimes it was caused by the salary of new hires. We all know that salary increases are slower for perm employees.
How to address the issue is the challenge. Do research and determine what someone of your experience should be making. That will give you some leverage with your boss. That will allow you approach him/her with facts and not just emotions. Be fair, and don't expect your answer to be the only one. It may take some time to leverage out the difference, the other person may be making more than he should.
From my experience as Director, I found that most people think that they should be making more for what they do. True as that may be, it not always the case. Another thing that I've found, through my experience, is that it's more important to enjoy what you do than to have more pay. (Provided you are paid fairly.)
Curtis Smith
SQL Server DBA
Well in worked in Theory ... -
Back in the early 80's affirmative action was a big thing. The state had a procedure for handling this. The personnel department rated all incoming resume's on a 1-100 basis, except they reserved the last 20% for special circumstances: 5% each for minority, woman, veteran, or disabled. The highest rating your resume could receive before bonuses was 80%.
However, your resume didn't get passed on to the department that was hiring unless it scored over 90%.
I was young and starving and had I known a lawyer would have taken the case on contingency, I would have sued. (As did eventually happen with reverse descrimination cases.) But needing to put food on the table I took other work and eventually worked my way up the chain.
Fifteen years later I was back as a high dollar independent consultant working for that same state on a project and told the story in one of our meetings. One of the managers laughed and told everyone it was true, he had worked in personnel way back then. But there I was, the highest paid person in the room with people 10 to 20 years older than me...
Seriously, that descrimination was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
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Loner, no platitudes nor advice about getting another job ... just a few words (wise or not) that have server me well in life so far ...
"There is ONLY one thing that you can always change about any situation you are in - it's your own attitude <period> "
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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I too would suspect that the other guy negotiated better, which may have been supported - fairly or not - by a perception of skills to match. As a hiring manager you typically have room to maneuver on salary, more so than at reviews. If you're hiring two people, one wants $70k and another $75, you typically don't just pay them both $75k to make it fair, especially when that might be $5k more than you're paying the people you already have! Over time most employees hit a salary cap and it evens out. It's not quite fair, but you have to remember the manager has a fiduciary responsibility to manage costs as part of his job.
I would work on understanding what can be done at review time and start making a cause to get a good increase.
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Are you exactly comparing apples to apples? Are you a FT employee with some additional benefits? Generally contractors get paid more hourly but they dont get any benefits - no paid vacation, no insurance benefits, no bonus etc?
Speaking of women getting paid less, I have the exact opposite situation at my work place. Most of our QA team comprises of women. They all get paid very close to what I make. Now I am a DBA with an MS degree. The "women" from QA I am talking about have just a bachelors degree from their home countries and even their experience is not as much as mine. But still the pay range for them and mine is so close that I wonder why the hell have I busted my @$$ to get a masters degree and acquire advanced DB skills when I could have just become a QA to opene up web pages, do some data entry and click "submit" buttons and take screen-shots for any errors and send out an email and go home happy. And I wouldnt say my pay is less. Its decent enough. Its "them" who are getting paid more than they should be.
Thats the way it is. Either be happy with the job you have or find a job where you can be happy.
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Dinakar Nethi
Life is short. Enjoy it.
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We both are in the same position but I have more IT experience even not all of them are data warehouse and SQL Server.
In his resume, he graudated in India and got a BS degree. I came to US and studied in an University in Minnesota and got my BS degree in computer science.
He came to US to work in 1989. He did not mention anything before 1989 and did not mention when he graduated from college. All his jobs were consultant jobs, most of his assignments were about 6 months.
I always worked as a permanent employee and my average employment was about 2 -3 years each company. I started working to build data warehouse in 1998 using Oracle and started working with SQL Server in 2000. He started working in data warehouse in 2004 using SQL Server. Before that he worked in different companies as SQL Server DBA or developer but as I said most of the assignments lasted for about 6 months.
Now that he works here for a few months, I can see his SQL skill is not as good as mine.
When the company offered me the job, I thought they gave me a decent salary, I went to salary.com to do a research. It was reasonable and definitely more that my old company.
I even involved in looking for another candidate after I got hired. I interviewed him and I knew he had less experience than me so I automatically thought that he could not possibly get more than me. I guessed I was wrong.
I like my job and my boss. I do not want to change job.
I put out this post just because I felt it was unfair. Now I am looking forward for my review next year.
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Generally its the nature of "consulting" that you need to change jobs frequently about 6 mo/s -1 yr because thats the primary reason companies bring in consultants. The projects are short term and no one wants to join as a permanent employee only to be looking for jobs in a few months. It makes sense to bring in consultants on a no-hassle basis and let them work for as long as the project requires them which could be anywhere from 6 mos to a year or two.
If you like your job, just ignore other things. There are always people that get unfair amounts of salary in every company. You wouldnt want to make your life uncomfortable by comparing with them.
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Dinakar Nethi
Life is short. Enjoy it.
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I would say there is a lot of discrimination out there. My previous employer got me at the lowest point in my career. My company had laid off and had to go back to India and just a week before I was supposed to leave I got this offer and I took it. It was a 15% cut from what I had been getting. I took the offer and started as DBA. Slowly I got involved in a lot of projects and wore lot of hats. Each year when I had the review my employer would give some stupid reason as to why he can’t give me a good raise. I had to stick with them due to visa restriction. I was there for 4.5 years and only during my last year did my salary go back to what I had been getting before joining this company.
I got to find out what the web admin was getting and it was 50% more than what I was getting. When the web admin had to take off for weeks I would cover up for him. But when I took a trip back home they had to hire some one to fill in my shoes (and u guessed it, that person was getting a lot more too). I finally decided to quit and the funny thing was they hired 3 people to do what I was doing and 2 of them couldn’t take the workload and quit in 2 weeks. They hired 2 more. In the mean time I had to support them for 4 months and made them pay a lot for my consulting time J
Companies don’t realize how good an employee they have till that person leaves so I would say if u feel discriminated quit where u are working.
Oh by the way the old company still calls me for help and asks me when I would come back (Sweet revenge).
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