Interesting Compensation Scale

This is a topic that is always heavily discussed. Compensation is always a key factor in any negotiation, even in the rare instances when it appears not to be. There are times when I do work with individuals that claim they do not care about the pay, but somehow it always creeps back up as the negotiation takes its course. It might not always be number one or two on the their list of top priorities, but it still always makes the list.

I always enjoy reading Joel Spolsky's articles/blog. In this case, he wrote an article for Inc. about compensation. The article can be found here . He informs us about the pay scales at his company, Fog Creek Software. He is of the belief that everyone in a certain labor grade receives the exact same salary. While there are people that will agree and disagree with this, I tend to not have a problem with it. I always admire his novel approaches in improving the workplace and developing a cohesive unit. Anyone that goes outside of the status quo and is willing to pursue a new path gets my vote.

The one potential challenge I see with his system as it relates to open source is in his matrix on the second page. If you are lacking years of experience, then you can only attain a certain labor grade, in this case a 9 for having a year or less of experience. If I were to implement this in an open source company, I would take out this criteria. I would solely focus on skill set and scope of the position. There are too many times when I work with extremely talented open source developers that might not have the years of experience as the person working next to them. Yet they have done some phenomenal things in the open source space in a very short period of time. Does that mean that they should be penalized from a monetary standpoint for not putting in their time? I think not. But, much like anything, it is open for debate. I just thought this is another area where open source differentiates itself from traditional business practices based on its development platform.

As always, I am curious to hear your thoughts on this. And, I would also be interested in finding out if there are any open source companies that have installed this pay matrix into their operation. If so, have you left it as is, or have you tweaked it?