What Do You Make? Job Site Promises Peek at Salaries

Popular real-estate Web site Zillow.com offers a glimpse of what your friends' and neighbors' homes may be worth. Now, Zillow founder Rich Barton plans to pull back the curtain on another cache of data that many people like to keep quiet: employee salaries.

He is launching a job-and-career site, Glassdoor.com, that includes compensation figures for jobs at specific companies, as well as reviews provided anonymously by employees. So far, the site has gathered about 2,000 salary reports and 1,300 employee-written reviews for more than 250 companies, many of them in the high-tech and financial industries.

Glassdoor, which opens with a test version of its service Wednesday, could provide a new window into the pay and other practices of big companies -- and give employees leverage in salary negotiations, analysts and corporate executives say.

Though some company executives may wince at seeing Glassdoor's unfiltered, raw information, "it could be good for our company," said Ken Klein, chief executive of Alameda, Calif., software maker Wind River Systems Inc., which has about 1,500 employees and has been reviewed by two employees on Glassdoor. Mr. Klein said two job salaries posted on the site -- $100,000 a year for a "systems administration architect" and $135,000 for a "senior member of the technical staff" -- seemed accurate. He also said the accompanying reviews, which were generally positive, were "thoughtful."

Glassdoor includes information on jobs at some of the nation's most high-profile employers. The average salary of a product manager at Google Inc., for example, is reported to be $129,400; software engineers earn just shy of $98,000. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment, except to say the company's salaries are competitive.

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Glassdoor's information is only as good as the accuracy and quantity of employee submissions. So far, just 10 software engineers and two product managers have shared salary data for Google. Glassdoor's Mr. Barton, a former Microsoft Corp. executive who started online-travel company Expedia Inc. before founding Zillow, said the quality of the data will improve as more people contribute to the site. Zillow faced early criticism over the accuracy of its home-value estimates; the company has encouraged homeowners to help improve its estimates by offering updated information on their homes.

Reviews and salary figures submitted to Glassdoor are examined by a five-person research department that sometimes contacts employees seeking additional information. The company uses technology to flag suspicious submissions, such as multiple reviews sent in from the same computer. Still, Glassdoor largely relies on the honesty of submitters, and doesn't attempt to verify data directly with companies, at least not yet.

So far, data on the site come from employees the company sought out through phone and online surveys. Glassdoor said it expects more submissions to come directly from employees when the site becomes better known.

Glassdoor's service is free, but visitors have to first submit a company review or salary data in order to browse what others have written. As a teaser, Glassdoor is offering free access to salary data and company reviews for Google, Yahoo Inc., Microsoft and Cisco Systems Inc.

Besides Mr. Barton's track record, the Sausalito, Calif., start-up is being closely watched because $3 million in funding came from Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that funded Internet stars such as eBay Inc. Other founders include former Expedia executives Robert Hohman, who is Glassdoor's chief executive, and Tim Besse.

For now, Glassdoor expects to make money by selling online advertising. Glassdoor won't allow users to apply for particular jobs, though the company said it could work with recruiters in the future. The site may also aim to help employers conduct employee surveys.

The company enters a crowded field. Job-related Web sites such as Jobster Inc. and one run by Vault.com Inc., contain information about and reviews of companies. Others, such as Salary.com, offer some free compensation data, though information is generally for job descriptions in specific ZIP codes and not for specific companies.

Glassdoor differs from many of its competitors because "it's not a recruitment site," so a "company can't threaten to not list jobs there if they see bad things," says Henry Harteveldt, an e-business analyst with Forrester Research in San Francisco.

--Jessica E. Vascellaro contributed to this article.

Write to Rebecca Buckman at rebecca.buckman@wsj.com