PSO PayScale

Day rate sharing for Protected Species Observers to ensure equal pay for all.

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Inspiration

In a former life, I spent 12 years as a Protected Species Observer (PSO) for the offshore oil industry and renewables industry. I spent many years on a boat, but eventually made my way to a land job as a project manager - and what I learned there changed my world. I had been watching dayrates fall through the years and couldn't quite understand why. But it turns out that the company I spent 12 years at was outsourcing work to other countries at a fraction of a cost with workers that were more highly educated than the US workers. Not only that - but they were the only company paying PSO's differently based on their home location (generally PSO's get paid by where the actual job is and if there's danger such as Somalia / Nigeria). It was already well known to me that attempts at unionizing had failed previously, and there's basically no pay analytics anywhere for the field since its such a niche job. The company had used scare tactics to get PSO's to not discuss dayrates, and so there was a huge gap of knowledge where people were just accepting what they were offered. Due to the unique bidding process for jobs, this exploitation was behind the reason why rates were beginning to fall. Other companies who didn't supplement their workforce were unable to keep up with the falling rates and the PSO's were the ones paying the price. I myself had watched my dayrate fall to below the initial rate that I had been hired at 12 years prior. After talks with my manager, it became apparent that no change would come from within the company, and so I decided to part ways with them. I simply couldn't be a part of that company even though I had finally achieved my goal of having a life on land. This would be the catalyst for my software engineering path and also the birth of the idea behind PSO PayScale.

Official Mission Statement

PSO in the sense that we use the term isn’t recognized as a job title on any of the standard salary estimator websites. For far too long PSOs have been asked to provide desired pay levels to secure project bids while having no insight into average pay rates as companies actively encourage contractors to not share their rates. This gap of knowledge has been exploited, driving contractor rates to the floor. PSOs pay the price, but also contracting companies suffer as they underbid to win contracts to stay afloat and then resort to low rates and trimmed margins in order to staff projects - often leading to mismatched and inexperienced teams. Excellent PSOs leave the field due to low wages and from feeling undervalued, and others lose motivation after coping with rates that have been cut up to 50%. There’s a whole host of other issues stemming from staffing projects this way and the hoarding of day rate data.

It is my hope that this tool can help level the playing field for everyone. I have high hopes for PSO PayScale, but I’ll be happy if it helps even just one person. I’m so excited to give back to the community that was such an instrumental part of my life.

What it does

During the bidding process for jobs, PSO's are often asked: What dayrate do you expect for this job? Discouraged from discussing pay and with no insight as to what others in the area are making has lead to a large gap in pay. PSO PayScale is a place where you can submit your dayrate, Position, and Location of Work, and then be able to see all data points (anonymous) for each position and location, as well as average dayrate pay / highest pay / lowest pay. This will then enable you to negotiate dayrates with actual information instead of just accepting what is offered to you.

How I built it

It's still bare-bones at the moment. Its a flask application written in python utilizing a postgresql database.

Challenges I ran into

I was having issues with my WTForms implementation and so had to scale back temporarily to hard-coded pages. I also ran out of time in general for a ton of things, including authentication / login.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Creating a clickable map for different oceans of the world.

What I learned

That coding is incredibly time-consuming, but incredibly rewarding.

What's next for PSO PayScale

Migrate forms to WTFlask as well as add Authentication. Build up the pages to look nice and then launch on Heroku to start collecting data. Eventually I would like to create a function where PSO's can print off a PDF stating the Min/Max/Average pays of the area their being asked to bid for in order to provide substance and data to help in dayrate negotiations.

GitHub Note

After applying to DubHacks a month ago and deciding to work on PSO PaysScale for it, I secured my URL and launched a simple Under Construction page - so you will see that the CNAME on github reflects that time frame. I know you're not allowed to work on projects prior to the start of the hackathon, so I have screen grabs of the github repo from Sat 10/17/20 to show that nothing other than a construction page existed prior to the beginning of the hackathon. Please let me know if you require them :)

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