Open Salaries

I joined Zalando open salary initiative. You submit your salary information to a form, once you do this you get access to all the other submissions of the form.

It took me a long time to wrap my head around the idea. It is scary having your salary exposed to your colleagues.

It can lead to resentment if you discover you are under paid, or fear of envy/hate if you discover you are paid much higher than your colleagues.

After a lot of thinking and discussions with the founder of the initiative inside the company, I decided to join. I already knew where I am in comparison to my salary band before joining. However I had a few reasons to join.

1) Gathering the courage to do this. I like to push my limits and the fact I was fearing the consequences that may arise from this – including my own insecurities – made me more determined to do it.

2) Understanding the market. I hope one day to start a company and this was free data to understand how much it costs per engineer/product manager/data scientist…etc.

3) I don’t fit the typical stereotype of a wheelchair user who is also a social justice warrior, however I thought I might help someone by exposing this info. You never know.

At the end, I believe money doesn’t define one’s worth. What matters is the value you create in the universe and how you treat others around you. That being said, I believe money defines your level of freedom, which I am a big believer in, and that’s why I believe in money.