We've taken great care when designing our salary system to limit the opportunities for discrepancies and exceptions to creep in. Our Compensation Principles guide us in striving for an approach to salaries which is Transparent, Fair, Simple and Generous.

Our conclusion from many years of approaching compensation in this way has been that the most powerful way to avoid discrepancies and exceptions is for them to not be possible in the first place.

To achieve a Salary System where discrepancies and exceptions are actively rejected by the system itself, we have thought deeply about how all the different pieces of the system are set up, and how they interact with each other.

Our Salary System is based entirely on formulas which are exactly the same for every team member. Any differences in salaries which are based on roles, levels, percentiles, locations, salary choice, or other factors are explicitly stated in fields which are utilized by those formulas in the spreadsheet.

The Salary System is designed so that it would be almost impossible to create an exception which favors someone individually. Adhering to full transparency of the system also ensures that any changes or discrepancies are very quickly observed and shared.

By limiting discrepancies and exceptions in this way, it means that if we do find a situation where we believe a salary should be higher, it will lead to a situation where A rising tide lifts all boats (salaries), and mean that several or many salaries are increased in the process. Indeed, in reflecting and making decisions on How Salary Negotiation works at Buffer, we believe we have created a situation that allows for input to improve our system, yet does not allow for any individual to negotiate in a way that results in an exception for them alone.