‘I make significantly less than my male co-workers’: Women in Tech Open Up About the Frustrations of the Outdated Wage Gap

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  • 01
    r/ r/womenintech • 15 hr. ago genericdesigner Compensation in comparison to male coworkers
  • 02
    So I'll start this with - I'm the only female coworker in my team and for over a year was the only woman engineer at the company (luckily this has now changed).
  • 03
    I found out this past week that even after at $30,000 raise this year (which I was grateful for) I am still making $25k less than anyone else on my team - and half the team didn't get raises so I was at 55k less before the annual raise.
  • 04
    I've been in my company 2.5 years now, and when I started I was most certainly the most inexperienced but this far in I'm providing as much if not more value than many of the others on the team. Do I bring this up to someone? Let it go? Wait until our next product launch goes smoothly and mention it them?
  • 05
    I'm struggling with feeling this way after being grateful to get the 30k raise but am also feeling very frustrated with making so much less than my male counterparts. I should also add that they all have also gotten more stock options than me and I don't use the companies healthcare so all in all my compensation is significantly lower.
  • 06
    Help? Advice? Editing to add: I love my job, my coworkers, can live comfortably on my salary and really enjoy the company so I'm not wanting to job hunt but also don't want to feel this way.
  • 07
    h2ogal 14h ago This happened to me at the start of my career. I was accidentally given a report of all the salaries of my colleagues. The women were being paid less than the men by over 15% and the women and men had similar degrees and experience levels.
  • 08
    I spoke with my boss about it and he explained that it was due to negotiations (or lack there of). I was taken seriously and I was given raises and promotions at that company and remained there for 7 years.
  • 09
    EverythingBagels • 14h ago I quit a job several years ago after dealing this this. Ended up refusing to sign a non disparagement agreement in my final paperwork and was offered payment if I agreed to sign it. We agreed on the severance payment being the difference in pay I would have received if I was a man (calculated based on male counterpart who
  • 10
    started the same month as me), multiplied by my number of years there. Ended up paying off my student loans and putting a down payment on a house. Granted, the pay inequity wasn't the only reason for quitting, I was passed up for a promotion to a role I was already doing and when I asked what made my male counterpart eligible but not me, I was told I didn't have the
  • 11
    not me, I was told I didn't have the same "pedigree".... So, slightly different but probably not unrelatable given our industry seems to treat women like we are forever less than.
  • 12
    Moral of the story- it's gender discrimination. Document it and save it for later.
  • 13
    francokitty • 15h ago I have been in tech in sales and management. I usually made less than my male peers despite good performance. It still ankles me. Things never seem to change.
  • 14
    linnalannil 15h ago If you are in Europe you can ask by law to get the median of your title and level in that company by gender. After that go to HR/ your manager and say that you obviously are underpaid and you want to work towards fixing this. How can we do that in the next year?
  • 15
    LucyEmerald • 14h ago My company publishes the stats and for 2023 the gender pay gap was 35 percent for salary and 50 percent for bonuses. Of course they give the same paragraph about what they are doing to help each year
  • 16
    _SFcurious 12h ago You have leverage here: you are a good engineer • you are a female engineer • you likely live in a state with some of the more stringent salary transparency laws
  • 17
    I'm going to go ahead and assume that your company's HR is halfway decent. I'll assume that for two reasons: 1. because they gave you an unsolicited $30k raise when others were getting nothing. It shows they're aware of the gap and are taking steps to close it
  • 18
    2. if they are crappy HR, then none of my advice would apply anyways You should ask to have a meeting with HR about the company's compensation philosophy. This isn't a convo to have with your boss because it's honestly out of his (your boss is a he, right?) area of expertise, and to some degree (how
  • 19
    (your boss is a he, right?) area of expertise, and to some degree (how much depends on a lot of factors), outside his control. He'll likely be grateful that he isn't being forced to have a convo about something he doesn't fully understand or own, anyways. (But you should inform your boss that you are having this convo, to keep him in the loop).
  • 20
    A good HR framework is to have different levels for every job, and salary ranges within each level. Ideally this info is exposed to employees but sometimes it's not exposed, but HR has this framework anyways. And sometimes there really isn't much of a system.

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