What Do They Pay?
I have been heads down in my spare time for about three months building something I care deeply about, and I wanted to share it publicly.
Over the past few months, I have been working on “What Do They Pay?“, a project rooted in a simple belief:
wage data should be transparent, local, and accessible to the people who actually earn it.
We have started to see real momentum around pay transparency, including laws requiring compensation ranges in job postings, but in practice that data is still fragmented and difficult to use. There is no easy way to look at a specific region and quickly understand which industries are present, what different jobs actually pay hourly, or how companies compare locally. Most available data is national, averaged to the point of distortion, outdated, or locked behind recruiting platforms that were not built for workers.
That gap matters, especially for hourly workers making decisions about where to apply, what skills to build, or whether a commute is worth it, as well as for first time job seekers and people returning to the workforce who often have the least visibility into what fair and realistic pay looks like in their area or industry.
What Do They Pay? is my attempt to close that gap by crowdsourcing real, local hourly wage data, organized by location, job type, industry, and employer, from the people who actually earn it.
In addition to building a system for workers to share real wage data, we’re also creating tools for employers to post jobs directly, with pay transparency built in by default. The goal is to make it easier for companies to reach candidates who already understand the role, the compensation, and the local context. If we can align incentives early, transparency stops being a compliance checkbox and starts being a competitive advantage. And yes, that also means building a sustainable platform from day one.
This project sits at the intersection of:
- real world location and mapping data
- community sourced information
- modern tooling that makes previously difficult problems actually solvable
Why this matters to me:
- Workers deserve leverage rooted in reality, not guesswork
- Employers benefit from markets that are honest and efficient, where expectations are clearer upfront and trust reduces friction
- Better data leads to better conversations and better outcomes
This is still early, still evolving, and very much a work in progress, but it is real, it is running, and it is growing intentionally.
If you want to follow along or get early updates, you can visit whatdotheypay.com and sign up for the mailing list.
If you care about wage transparency, applied AI beyond the hype cycle, or building tools that meaningfully shift power toward people, I would love to connect and talk.
More soon.