In October 2021, we published an article emphasizing the importance of salary transparency with benefits such as equality and employee trust. As we explained in the article, Buffer is a radical company in the salary transparency approach.

This article revisits salary transparency, including insights based on the podcast “Moving to salary transparency” by Hung Lee from Brainfood with guest speakers from CLEO, TRAFFIT, 360Learning, People Collective, and Whereby. In addition, this article also analyzes the hierarchical salary structure of Buffer.

Buffer, released in 2010, is a company focused on Social Media Tools. It lets users plan and schedule social media campaigns and track their progress with analytics. Buffer has +80 workers living in 15 different countries.

The motivation for Buffer to publish this data is to help other businesses. Nevertheless, being salary transparent is a trust-builder tool within the company and it holds the employers accountable.

Buffer Analysis

48% is the salary difference between Customer Advocates and Customer Advocate Managers. The increase between the DEI Manager (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and the chief of staff is also 48%. From Head of Customer Advocacy Operations to VP of Customer Advocacy, an increase of approximately 50% can be observed.

The change with the greatest difference in the hierarchy is the increase from marketing engineer to engineering manager (first increase) at 60%.

The case for product managers is notable since there are three levels: Product Managers, Director of product, and CPO. The first increase in the hierarchy is just 22%, whereas the second is 45%. It shows that the salary of the CPO is inflated.

Dealing with seniority

For example, a product designer earning $120,000 when promoted to a senior product designer earns $140,000, whereas when promoted to a design manager earns $200,000. In terms of hierarchy, the managerial role is superior to the individual contributor role.

Similarly, a product manager earning $150,000, when promoted to a senior product manager earns around $165,000, whereas when promoted to director of the product earns $200,000.

These are two clear examples where the salary increase between an employee and a senior employee ranges from 10%-20%. Meanwhile, the salary increase between the employee and the manager is significantly higher.

Hierarchy across departments

To give context, the department with the highest salaries on Buffer is “Product” with an average of $170,000 annually. On the other hand, the legal department has an average of only $100,000.

When comparing these two departments, it is clear that customer advocate managers and senior escalation managers are compensated less than data engineers. It should have been the other way around as data engineers are just individual contributors, while the other positions are managerial, which means they have a varying set of responsibilities and lead other employees.

This shows that Buffer still has some space for implementing appropriate salary structuring in their organization.

Wage differences around the world

This means that Software Engineers in Egypt and India, and Engineering Managers in Nigeria, have better compensations. This is primarily because their pay is proportionally higher in their respective countries than the CEO and CPO salaries in the US.

Other workers who benefit from their locations include those living in Romania, Morocco, Spain, and South Africa.

Moreover, if salaries are public, companies are compelled to keep up with market prices. This is a particularly appealing signal for future candidates. It ensures that the salary offer they receive will be in-line with the market.

Salary transparency is an excellent tool for comparing your company to others of similar size. In addition, if your company is expanding, you can use the hierarchical levels of more prominent companies as a guide.

Different levels of transparency

Not all companies use the same model when sharing salaries, resulting in a broad spectrum of transparency options. Some companies just give possible ranges of wages for each position. Others present the skills that can make these salaries vary within a range.

An extreme case would be to share individualized wages for each position or individual. On the other hand, companies can communicate the salaries only to company members or make them available to anyone who is interested.

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