Why I Built KajerDam: Why Bangladesh Needs More Salary Transparency
For many professionals in Bangladesh, salary decisions are often made without enough reliable market information.
And that can be a problem.
Two people can have similar job roles, similar years of experience, and comparable skills, yet earn significantly different salaries.
AAbdullah Al Mubin10 min read11 views
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Summary
For many professionals in Bangladesh, salary decisions are often made without enough reliable market information.
And that can be a problem.
Two people can have similar job roles, similar years of experience, and comparable skills, yet earn significantly different salaries.
Why I Built KajerDam: Why Bangladesh Needs More Salary Transparency
Almost everyone who has attended a job interview has heard this question:
What is your expected salary?
It sounds like a simple question.
But the real question is:
Where does that number come from?
Do we base it on a friend's salary?
Do we add a percentage to our current salary?
Or do we simply make an educated guess?
For many professionals in Bangladesh, salary decisions are often made without enough reliable market information.
And that can be a problem.
Two people can have similar job roles, similar years of experience, and comparable skills, yet earn significantly different salaries.
One person might be earning BDT 30,000.
Another might be earning BDT 80,000.
The biggest problem, however, is not always the difference itself.
The biggest problem is this:
Many of us simply do not know what our work is actually worth in the market.
That is one of the main reasons why I decided to build KajerDam.
বাংলাদেশের চাকরির বাজারে Salary নিয়ে তথ্যের অভাব অনেক সময় মানুষকে এমন গুরুত্বপূর্ণ সিদ্ধান্ত নিতে বাধ্য করে, যেখানে সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়ার জন্য প্রয়োজনীয় তথ্যই তাদের কাছে থাকে না।
AAbdullah Al MubinRead article
Salary is often considered a highly personal topic in Bangladesh.
Many people do not feel comfortable discussing how much they earn.
Sometimes it is because of company policies.
Sometimes it is because people do not want their colleagues to know.
And sometimes, salary discussions simply feel socially uncomfortable.
The result is that many professionals have limited information when making important career decisions.
A fresh graduate may not know what salary to expect for their first job.
An experienced professional may not know whether they are being paid below the market rate.
Someone changing jobs may not know what salary range to mention during an interview.
As a result, we often provide a number.
But that number is not always based on data.
Often, it is based on assumptions.
The Same Experience, but Very Different Salaries
It is important to clarify one thing.
People with the same job title or the same number of years of experience should not necessarily earn exactly the same salary.
Many factors influence compensation.
For example:
Skills and expertise
Industry
Company size
Company budget
Location
Remote vs. on-site work
Level of responsibility
Communication and leadership skills
Technical or domain knowledge
Market demand
Because of these differences, there is no single "correct" salary for everyone.
However, with enough real-world data, it becomes possible to understand something much more useful:
A realistic market range.
And that is the idea behind KajerDam.
The goal is not to tell everyone exactly what they should earn. The goal is to help people better understand the market around them.
What Is KajerDam?
KajerDam is an initiative focused on helping professionals in Bangladesh better understand the market value of their work through real-world salary insights.
The platform aims to build useful insights based on factors such as:
Job roles
Years of experience
Skills
Industry
Location
Other relevant professional information
The core idea is simple:
The more reliable real-world data we have, the better we can understand the job market.
Why Community Data Matters
The most important part of a salary transparency platform is not a beautiful design.
It is not a complex algorithm either.
The most important part is:
Real data.
One person's salary cannot represent an entire market.
But when information from many professionals with similar roles, experience levels, and backgrounds is analyzed together, patterns can begin to emerge.
For example, having salary data from two people in a particular role may not tell us much.
But having data from hundreds or thousands of professionals can help identify broader patterns, such as:
Typical salary ranges
Differences between experience levels
Industry trends
Location-based differences
Career growth patterns
This is why KajerDam is designed around a community-driven idea.
I do not know the salary of every professional in every industry.
But together, we can build a better understanding of the market.
Why Privacy Is Important
One of the biggest concerns people have when discussing salary is privacy.
That concern is completely understandable.
People naturally ask:
If I share my salary information, can someone identify me?
Salary information can be useful for understanding the market, but that does not mean a person's identity needs to be publicly exposed.
The core idea is simple:
The goal is to understand the market, not to identify individuals.
A salary transparency platform can only become useful if people feel safe and comfortable contributing information.
That is why privacy and responsible data handling are essential to this type of platform.
Why Salary Data Matters for Professionals
Imagine that you are applying for a new job.
During the interview, the recruiter asks:
What is your expected salary?
If you have little information about the market, two things can happen.
You May Ask for Too Little
You may accept an offer that is significantly below what your skills and experience could potentially earn in the market.
Or You May Ask for Too Much
You may mention a number that is far outside the company's budget, making the conversation more difficult.
But if you have a better understanding of the market range, you can make a more informed decision.
This is not only useful for salary negotiations.
It is also important for long-term career planning.
For Freshers
A fresh graduate may ask:
What salary should I expect for my first job?
Which skills could improve my earning potential?
Which industries offer stronger long-term career growth?
Having access to better market information can help make those early career decisions less dependent on guesswork.
For Experienced Professionals
An experienced professional may want to know:
Is my current salary competitive?
What salary range should I expect when changing jobs?
How does my compensation compare with similar professionals?
Which skills could potentially improve my career opportunities?
Better data cannot answer every question.
But it can provide a stronger starting point for making decisions.
For Career Switchers
Someone moving into a new industry may want to understand:
What is the salary range in the new field?
Will the transition require a temporary salary reduction?
What skills are most valuable?
What does long-term career growth look like?
Again, real market insights can be much more useful than assumptions.
Why I Built KajerDam
KajerDam was not created simply because I wanted to build another website.
It started with a problem.
I have seen people:
Changing jobs
Preparing for interviews
Negotiating salaries
Planning career transitions
Making important professional decisions
But many of those decisions are made without enough information about the market.
A career decision can have a significant impact on someone's life.
So I started thinking:
What if people had better access to salary information?
What if professionals could make career decisions based on broader market insights rather than assumptions?
That question eventually led to the idea of KajerDam.
KajerDam Is Not a One-Person Project
One important thing I want to make clear from the beginning is this:
KajerDam cannot become useful through one person's data or knowledge alone.
The platform becomes more valuable when more people participate and contribute real-world information.
A fresher sharing their experience today could potentially help another fresher understand the market tomorrow.
An experienced professional's contribution could help someone else realize:
Maybe I am being paid below the market rate.
Small pieces of information, when combined responsibly, can help create a much larger picture of the job market.
That is why community participation is at the heart of the project.
What Could KajerDam Become?
The long-term goal is not simply to show a salary number.
The goal is to gradually build a better understanding of the professional job market.
Over time, useful insights could include:
Salary ranges by job role
Salary growth by experience
Differences between industries
Location-based salary comparisons
The relationship between skills and earning potential
Career growth trends
Better information for salary negotiations
Of course, meaningful insights require enough high-quality data.
This is not something that can be built overnight.
It is a long-term journey.
One Contribution Could Help Someone Else
Not everyone wants to publicly discuss their salary.
And that is completely understandable.
But when salary information can be contributed responsibly and used to create broader market insights, it has the potential to help many people.
Your contribution could help:
A fresher understand what to expect from their first job
A professional evaluate whether their salary is competitive
A job seeker prepare for salary negotiations
Someone planning a career change better understand the market
Sometimes, a small piece of information can help someone else make a much bigger decision.
Salary Transparency Does Not Mean Forcing Everyone to Share
Salary transparency does not mean forcing everyone to publicly reveal how much they earn.
It means creating better access to information.
It means helping people make more informed career decisions.
It means reducing the amount of guesswork involved in answering questions like:
What should I expect to earn?
Am I being paid fairly?
What is the market value of my skills?
KajerDam is a small step toward making those questions easier to explore.
This Is Just the Beginning
KajerDam is still at the beginning of its journey.
Building useful salary insights will take time.
It will require participation.
It will require data.
And it will require feedback from people who understand the realities of Bangladesh's job market.
But I believe that better information can lead to better decisions.
And better decisions can create better opportunities.
My goal with KajerDam is simple:
Help people better understand the value of their work.
If we can gradually build a stronger picture of the job market together, perhaps fewer people will have to make important career decisions based entirely on guesswork.
AMT Stack is a premium software engineering company delivering custom SaaS platforms, business automation systems, and AI-powered web applications for clients across Bangladesh, the UAE, the UK, France, and the USA.
The production systems we build follow the same architectural principles discussed throughout this blog—modern technologies such as Next.js, TypeScript, and Prisma, combined with engineering practices focused on writing code that remains scalable, reliable, and maintainable years after launch.
We also maintain @amtstack/envmaster—an open-source, AST-powered environment variable toolkit used in our own deployment pipelines and made available to the broader JavaScript community.
Looking for a technology partner for your enterprise software project? We'd be happy to discuss your requirements and explore how our engineering approach can help bring your product to life.
কাস্টমার আপনার ওয়েবসাইটে এলো। তার একটা প্রশ্ন — "তোমরা কি e-commerce ওয়েবসাইট বানাও? দাম কত?" এখন রাত ১১টা। আপনার team ঘুমাচ্ছে। কাস্টমার উত্তর না পেয়ে চলে গেল। এই সমস্যাটা সমাধান করতেই আমরা AMT Stack এর ওয়েবসাইটে একটি AI Chatbot যুক্ত করেছি — যেটা শুধু "চ্যাটবট" না, একটা সম্পূর্ণ RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) Pipeline।
Enterprise software" শুনলেই আগে মাথায় আসত — Java, .NET, বিশাল টিম, লাখ টাকার licensing fee, এবং deployment timeline মাস না বছরে হিসাব হতো। সেই দুনিয়া এখনো আছে, কিন্তু এখন enterprise software বানানোর নতুন একটা পথ তৈরি হয়েছে। AMT Stack এ আমরা যত production system বানাই — multi-tenant SaaS platform, business automation suite, বা AI-powered application — সবকিছুই Next.js এবং TypeScript দিয়ে বানাই।
