Or maybe you say that you don't talk about this stuff?
For tech friends/coworkers I make it a point to discuss salary. I've had too many coworkers and good friends making way under what they could be.
Every time, without fail, that I made assumptions about what a friend was making I was extremely wrong and even felt a little guilty that I didn't bring it up sooner since they can and should be making more.
So when he asked how much I made I innocently answered because I'm an idiot, it turned out I earned 12000 more than him a month. It was sort of awkward and I wished I hadn't said anything.
$118,000 a year in the greater philly area.
Other than that, it’s only served in my experience to get people asking me for money.
In my early 20s, I used to have my parents help me with my taxes. That lead to them regularly pressuring me for money, and being very new to the industry I made a fraction of what I make now. They have no idea what I make now, and I have in recent years put on a bit of a song and dance about how I’m always broke to get them to ask less.
A while ago I dated another engineer at my company and at one point I shared what I was making with her. She got very upset. It was a decent chunk more than her, but I had ten years more experience than her. I made a fraction what she was making at her experience level, it seemed more than reasonable to me. She made a fuss about it to HR, it was a mess.
Generally I think nothing good comes from sharing your pay. I would avoid it.
I've found the tech salary is much higher than other fields and I've learnt to shut my mouth about it as it can make other people uncomfortable because its 10X what they get.
Salary should be public information, just like it is already in some countries and for government jobs. Here's the salary for the "Ed Smith"s in Florida - https://salaries.myflorida.com/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&by_name=Ed+Sm...
The highest paid is a state judge named "Jared Smith", pulling $165,509.04/year. The only "Edward" earns $113,300.04/year.
When I worked at a public university, my salary was public.
Remember, in many cases it is illegal for your employer to reprimand you for discussing your salary. https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/ and Colorado’s 2008 Wage Transparency Act (https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/colora... )
There are typically 4 reasons someone asks;
a) they make a lot and want to have a dick measuring contest, usually in public. The social score I keep for these people drops markedly when this happens. They dont take it very well if they find out they are packing a small one, the ones who take it really badly - the ones you are on the same level as. Often they will masquerade as being in the d) category.
b) they make nothing and want to shame you. As bad as a)
c) judgement; 'why do you spend so much on X', 'why is your car so shitty', etc. I have might have more contempt for these people than a) or b). They are like financial planners, but unsolicited and shitter.
d) they are really wanting advice, or to give advice. Benchmarking salaries, suggesting you are underpaid, asking paths for their children etc. (If your kid wants to know, make the intro and let them have the conversation). These are the good guys, but sadly a very low % of requests. If you close yourself to the first 3 cases (95%) then this very small category, where you can actually make a difference for people goes away too.
Now that I'm in my late 20s, I won't share it with anybody other than my wife, including future children. Having spent some time in a different culture, and listened to a few too many episodes of the Dateline podcast (it's a thing!), I realize that it really just takes one wrong person finding out to cause a lot of problems in your life.
It stops the dynamic of "oh look he is a fun guy to hang out with" to "dude he makes so much more than me"
I've had past dating relationships fail because the girl felt so uncomfortable making min wage around me. Everything just became about money after. She stopped offering to split bills at dates etc. I had to cut it off entirely
Growing up, I've lived a fairly poor lifestyle. Most of what I owned were hand me downs and I paid through most of college through side jobs and scholarships. My parents are also really cheap so I didn't live with AC in a hot humid environment most of my life
But they like buying nice cars, and I drove that to school everyday since I needed transportation. I got treated like a rich spoiled kid even though I had to work most weekends and summer since 13 on my family's business.
That being said, I avoid talking about salary unless someone asks me directly. Even then I won't give a straight answer, I'll just give a large range value and state "this is what people roughly make with my experience"
I've had a coworker who worked on the same contract doing the same work at a different firm then us. He asked "yo how much do you guys make". I really wished my coworker didn't answer this since we found out he makes about half of our salary (to be fair he is way more junior though). It's made the work dynamic really weird
I try to stress that the reason I make so much money has very little to do with how "qualified" or "smart" I am, but much more with how our society has decided to allocate money and prestige.
That's gotten harder and harder the further I've gotten from the "just a software engineer" path.
I'm still an advocate for talking about it, even when my data points are not as relevant, in the same way I'm an advocate for open startups (and when my startup makes any money, I'll share :P). Having knowledge around how long it takes to grow something, or how long it takes to walk a career path is very important to decision making.
I was very close to becoming a substitute teacher. Then a teacher shared their salary with me. Even with the all the benefits it still wasn't worth it.
But I am usually giving ranges, to the best of my knowledge, like "expect 60-70k" for this or that. Also we have some 2-3 pretty good overviews of IT salaries in Germany, and for most people that's kinda correct, as we mostly don't have these weirdly high Valley salaries, so you can easily tell people "you should be making 50k, not 40k" but not "you shouldn't start working fresh out of uni for under 100k".
It can be very hard to find good salary data in my region. So I gladly provide this datapoint to those who ask for it.
I don’t lie about it, though. My memory isn’t the best and it’s likely I’d forget the number I said previously.
Here are some examples that taught me to keep my mouth shut:
One time I met a friend at church who was also an engineer. I thought it would be fun to invite them to my house some time to hack and collaborate on a side project. It became clear pretty quick that we would not work well together although we could still make great friends. At one point he asked me how much I make. Being a fellow software engineer I didn’t even hesitate to tell them. Their reaction made me very uncomfortable. They were so surprised and they started commenting on how expensive my place is (I was renting a couple rooms in someone else’s house at the time so it didn’t seem extravagant to me). A few weeks later I was at church talking with some friends outside and someone comes up from behind and starts telling, “Don’t talk to this guy! You can’t afford him! Trust me! You can’t afford him”. He was attempting to be funny and possibly even compliment me or brag for me. However it made me extremely uncomfortable and it changed the dynamic of a great conversation we were having prior. One that wasn’t about me at all and I didn’t appreciate the sudden subject change.
Another time a friend asked me my salary when I was helping them with their non profit website. When I told them they were floored. They brought it up every time I ever saw them going forward. It seemed so odd that I just stopped hanging out with them.
Both of these stories are from almost a decade ago on a startup salary that most people on HN would think was very low. It’s just such a different world than outside our industry still.
On the other hand, I’ve also used levels.fyi to help encourage friends and family members to get into software if they express interest but want to know what to expect.
I do let people know but the list of people I’m transparent with is very very small now.
Outside the workplace I lose my main motivator: ensuring we're all getting what we deserve.
People like friends/family aren't in the same bucket - so there's less to gain (either for me or them) by sharing this and likely exposing imbalance.
It is also obvious based on the type, length, and frequency of vacations that one takes. Also, how frequently you fly.
Some trusted friends and colleagues know though
I never talked about money when I was starting my career(and earning way less than my peers, friends and family) and do not talk about it now that I make much more than them.
In the US people brag all the time with money. People value other people more because they make money and they value you less if you don't make money. People working in the private sector earn much more that people in the public space.
In Spain it is the opposite. Spain today is a socialist State in which public servants earn in average more than 35% than people in the private sector. Everybody wants to be public servant because it is "safe", even when the State is bankrupted and supported by EU deficit that will end sooner than later.
In places like Africa, South America or South Asia talking about the money you have is just dangerous. One of my family members had a cocaine bag planted in her luggage in Thailand by the taxi driver. She noticed and trew that away but the police man in the airport knew exactly the specific place where the bag was and searched for it again and again.
You better be careful because people like your kids used to the West can really be very stupid in those countries, because they are used to things like a Police system that is not corrupt.
I have traveled to many places of the world on my own alone wearing causal clothes and not spending much money that would have been very dangerous if they knew the money that I had in the bank.