Policy on pay

Money matters, and money matters. Confusing, we know, but in other words, matters about money and the fact that money matters.

Here's all you need to know about your salary payments, meal cards (mmmm, Curb), raises and our level system. Let's talk money.

Monthly pay

As we're legally obliged by Portuguese law, we pay 14 months: 12 months of salaries, plus Subsídio de Férias (to be paid with your June salary) and Subsídio de Natal (to be paid with your November salary).

Your salary will always be paid every month by no later than the 30th of each month. More like the 25th, in reality.

You can choose to be paid in 3 different ways:

• Option 1: Subsídio de férias to be paid in full with your June salary, and Subsídio de Natal, to be paid in full with your November salary.

• Option 2: 50% of your Subsídio de férias to be paid with your June salary, and 50% of your Subsídio de Natal to be paid with your November salary. The remainder 50% of each Subsídio is to be divided equally for 12 months and paid monthly with your salary.

• Option 3: Both Subsídios are to be equally distributed for 12 months and paid monthly with your salary.

You can opt for any option, and if you wish to change it along the way, you can, too. Notify Catarina by the end of December of that year for the change to occur for the following year.

Meal card

Your meal card is topped up to the value of 9,60€ per working day at the end of each month (≈2304€ per year based on 20 working days per month).

You do not receive meal card allowance for days not worked, such as public holidays, sick leave, paternity leave or vacations, except period and birthday leaves.

Look at that, 2304€, straight to Curb.

PPR's

Planning for the future is important, it may feel like a long way off, but one day you'll be glad to have your pension pot. On top of the mandatory paying in to Social Security for your state pension, Significa offers all employees the opportunity of a private pension program with two partner providers.

It's simple, you can choose if you wish to set up a PPR through Significa's providers, and if so how much of your monthly salary you wish to contribute to it. Significa does the rest for you, and you'll see your pot increasing each month as your salary is paid. Alternatively, you can always receive your full salary payment and set up your own PPR separately.

Pay increases

Pay increases are determined by performance reviews, which are conducted twice a year in June and December, to take effect the following month. You can read more at Personal development.

If you've Exceeded expectations or Set a new standard (terms originated from CultureAmp's Performance Reviews), you will be considered for a pay increase. The amount of the pay increase will depend on your contributions to Significa and your personal development.

Pay grades

First of all, pay grades apply to every person, regardless of their department. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know engineers typically have higher salaries than everyone else. We don't care about that.

We are a Design-led company, so how logical would it be to privilege engineers? Everybody is equally important to Significa. Period. An Office Manager at level 5 will get the same salary as a Back-end developer at the same level.

We hope this creates transparency across the board. We believe you must know where you fit within our structure, what you need to do to get a raise, and what you need to do to be promoted. And perhaps not less important, you'll be able to see and compare the pay grades of your colleagues, too.

How did these levels come about?

Simple: with market analysis. We've scoured the market, both locally and nationally, to align our pay grades with the current trends. Using tools such as level.fyi and Landing Jobs’ annual Global Tech Trends Report for Portugal, we aligned our pay levels with the national averages for tech companies.

Starting from the minimum salary at Significa, we are committed to paying all our employees above the maximum local living wage for a typical family, "O Salário Digno"– nobody at Significa will earn lower than the maximum living wage for Porto.

We are Office-first, which means we won't be hiring outside of Portugal. Simply put, Significa cannot afford to compete with international competitors for talent, so there is no point in aligning ourselves with international market trends. We are in Porto, Portugal, so that's our area for benchmarking.

Is this risky? Yes. Have we had people poached by international companies? Of course. Have people left to find international, higher-paying companies? Multiple times. But we are committed to our local community of Porto, and prefer whenever possible to hire local talent, if people go on to earn international salaries elsewhere, well good on them.

Oh, and one more controversial thing to add to the mix: we don't pay based on years of experience. Much like our Hiring criteria, we pay based on merit. We don't care if one’s got 20 years of working experience as a designer under their belt if there's a youngster who's better than them. Both salaries will be arranged based on pure competence.

In any case, we will update the pay grades frequently based on local trends, which will constantly be under review.

Pay transparency and the drawbacks we are fine with

There are both positive and negative aspects to this move. It's a risky one that not everybody may love. It can cause jealousy. It can cause friction and gossip among team members if one believes another team member is misplaced at a certain level.

If this is your case, we urge you to talk to management and share your concerns with us rather than letting your grudge build up and getting those frustration levels through the roof. Your manager will gladly be transparent and explain the rationale behind our decisions.

We may be shooting ourselves in the foot, as this leaves us little room to negotiate with potential new hires. But that's ok. We'll take the hit. Fundamentally, we believe this creates a fair system that puts everybody on the same page to grow and achieve their career goals with us.

It is also part of our commitment to fairness in itself. This is a testament to the fact that no newcomer will break the pay grades. This may make hiring harder, but at least we won't be wasting anybody's time.

On the flip side, we hope this builds trust. We hope it motivates you to improve. We hope it reduces rumours. We hope this brings structure to one-on-ones and performance reviews and that, whereas before, you might just get a raise not knowing what was next, now you can see what is coming ahead.

Is this perfect?

No, it's not. It will probably have some holes to cover up, for which we'd love your feedback. Your next steps should be to carefully review the Career path you're on, and look at your current level and the following one, assess how you feel about it, and share your thoughts with your manager.

We may need to make changes, and that's ok. Like an MVP, we improve as we go. We are open to that, so please do talk to us.