salary

Microsoft likes to tout the cost savings that derive from paying Windows-skilled employees less money.

That's great, if you're an employer, but if you're an engineer who needs to feed her family, the money is in Linux and Mac OS X skills, as highlighted in a recent post on the site of the Free and Open Source Software Learning Centre:

Of course, once you look past the operating-system data, it's clear that open-source skills do, on average, command less of a premium, perhaps because they're in more abundant supply. Because students are more likely to … Read more

Wall Street executives feeling harassed by taxpayers outraged at their pay might take note of how Google's ruling triumvirate fared in 2008: $1 in salary each, no bonus, no stock grants, and no stock options.

Google has offered co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt "market-competitive" salaries every year since 2005, but once again in 2008, the three turned it down, according to a company regulatory filing Tuesday. "Due to their own preferences not to receive salary compensation, Eric, Larry, and Sergey each rejected these offers and continue to receive base salaries … Read more

To stem continued losses, Sony said Thursday there will be no pay increases for non-managerial employees this year.

Sony doesn't give automatic raises every year based on seniority--unlike many other Japanese companies--but instead awards them based on responsibility and performance, according to Reuters.

It's the first time Sony has ever made such a move, but the company's financial circumstances give it few options. Sony is predicting an operating loss of $2.9 billion for the current financial year ending March 31, the electronics giant's first annual loss in 14 years.

It has already resorted to closing … Read more

Hewlett-Packard is cutting salaries of EDS workers another 10 percent beyond what it first announced in February, ZDNet reported Friday.

Last month, the company announced salary cuts for all employees, ranging from 2.5 percent for nonexempt employees to 20 percent for the CEO, ZDNet said. HP also said it was making changes to employee benefits to save money.

According to a Friday memo obtained by ZDNet: "Unfortunately, we need to take additional action. Specifically, we have decided to make a temporary, additional reduction in base salary affecting EDS business unit employees in the United States and Puerto Rico.&… Read more

Correction at 7 a.m. PST January 23: The 2006 growth rate in tech salaries was slightly off. It was 1.7 percent.

Salaries of tech professionals managed to spike up an average of 4.6 percent last year to $78,035, according to survey results released Thursday by tech career site Dice.com.

The survey results, ironically, come at a time when companies across corporate America are announcing layoffs, freezing wages, and even going so far as to temporarily institute wage cuts, like Advanced Micro Devices.

Dice, based on a survey of more than 19,000 respondents taken between … Read more

Rather than twiddling your thumbs through the economic downturn, ZDNet's Joe Brockmeier has even better advice: write more open-source software. There are a variety of good reasons to do so, including using code contributions as a way to position your talents to would-be employers, but one stands out:

Studies have shown that open-source developers make more money than those that simply know how to CTRL-ALT-DEL their way out of Windows problems.

How much more? Up to 40 percent more. But the benefits don't stop there. Employers also benefit, as Jon Williams, CTO of NBC Universal's iVillage once told me, … Read more

Glassdoor.com has picked up $6.5 million in second- round funding, the career information site said Monday.

Sutter Hill Ventures led the round, with follow-on investment from Benchmark Capital. With this latest round, Glassdoor.com has raised a total of $9.5 million in venture funding.

Glassdoor.com lets people anonymously share real-time information about specific jobs at various companies, the salaries for those positions, the work environment, benefits, and a CEO approval rating.

The site rolled out its beta in June and has grown to 110,000 contributions for 14,000 companies in various industries. The U.S. … Read more

Apparently, Apple engineers get paid less than their Silicon Valley peers. Some are speculating that Apple will need to cough up more cash or face a rash of defections.

I doubt it.

For one thing, Apple's engineers also get stock. Have you noticed the stock price lately? There's more than one way to get paid.

There's also the Apple mystique. No, it doesn't put granola on the table but it counts for something. As Fabrizio Capobianco, my friend and Funambol's CEO, often tells me, Juventus can get top-notch players for less because many of the … Read more

Yahoo President Sue Decker saw her salary, bonus, and incentive play payment increase from $1.35 million in 2006 to $1.76 million in 2007, but factoring in stock and options, her overall compensation declined, the company said in regulatory filing Tuesday.

Decker's stock and stock option compensation, as valued by Yahoo, dropped from $14.6 million in 2006 to $13 million in 2007, the company said.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang, who took over the top executive post from Terry Semel in June, got a $1 salary and no stock or new options. That figure is unchanged … Read more