Seems HN readership doesn't have much job hunting experience! Glassdoor, although often wildly inaccurate and empty of data, is still one of the most useful resources out there for job hunting and conducting due diligence on companies. I do wish their data was better though ...
It's definitely easier to spot the soul sucking companies. They are the ones with the majority of bad reviews spotted with glorious reviews left by management trying to up their average.
I usually don't post reviews, good or bad, on Glassdoor, because I can just imagine the fallout of a data breech/hack which would end up doxing a ton of old disgruntled employees.
I don't think Glassdoor has very stringent identity checks (a problem in itself), so I imagine most posters are using throwaway email accounts to shield themselves from any fallout.
Interesting to see new resources like http://levels.fyi which has more granular compensation data for companies on a level by level basis, wonder if the trend is moving towards completely open models where things aren’t hidden behind sign up walls
The data on staff engineer salaries at Google seems very off. The total comp for staff is $580K with a breakdown of total comp with being a 200K base, a 200K bonus, and 172K of stock. I would be surprised if the average staff engineer gets a bonus that is at 100% of their salary level. I guess this is the issue with user submitted data.
You could add h1 salary info (which is publicly available) to improve accuracy on the base compensation portion.
Small companies maybe, but larger companies seem to have different cultures depending on which department you work in and where. I worked in a satellite office of a company that was based aboot 200 miles away and our experiences were a lot different from each other.
As much as GD gets under my skin, it has actually been useful to me. I looked up a firm and saw that many reviewers thought the CEO was nutz (along with many astroturfed reviews). After a 2 hour phone interview (5-7pm on a Friday) I left a similar review. Gotta pass it along.
One thing that GD could do is launch into the #MeToo movement. Instead of excel files, having GD as a clearinghouse would be useful. The glaring libel and slander issues aside, it would be an exceedingly brave step, an unlikely one for GD, but a very useful one.
