In Bangladesh’s job market, salary information rarely circulates in the open. Candidates are often expected to negotiate, justify expectations and make career decisions with limited visibility into what roles actually pay.
For many new graduates, the process still relies on informal networks: a message to a senior, a rough estimate from a friend, or a carefully timed question at the end of an interview.
Beton Kemon, an initiative by Ishmam Chowdhury, seeks to address that gap. The platform allows people to anonymously share salary data, salary disbursement timelines and experiences of payment delays. Users can then look up companies and roles to see real salary ranges and patterns before applying, interviewing or negotiating an offer.
The idea grew out of a pattern Ishmam repeatedly saw across Bangladeshi career communities.
‘It came from my newsfeed, honestly,’ he said, referring to the steady stream of posts asking about salary ranges for specific roles. ‘If you don’t receive any accurate response to this, it becomes a frustration I think every jobseeker in Bangladesh has lived through.’
Access to reliable salary information often depends on personal networks, leaving many applicants to make decisions with partial data. Beton Kemon aims to turn that scattered information into a searchable, collective resource.
The platform is intentionally simple. Users submit their company, role, year, salary and payment experience through an anonymous form. By avoiding identifiers such as email addresses and IP tracking, it lowers the barrier to contribution and encourages more candid responses. The data is then organised in a public lookup view by company and role.
The first version was built quickly using Claude, covering ideation, design and user flow. The priority was usability rather than feature depth: the platform had to be lightweight, mobile-friendly and able to handle concurrent users.
But launching it brought an immediate challenge.
‘Building a platform whose entire value depends on strangers volunteering their salary information is a special kind of scary, because nobody wants to be the first to share,’ Ishmam said.
The initial breakthrough came through a defined community. When shared within the IBA-DU alumni network, the platform received more than 200 entries.
‘That was the moment it became clear this only works if it lives inside an active community, not as a link floating on the internet,’ he said.
A later collaboration with Grow Your Career expanded its reach and accelerated contributions, bringing in hundreds of additional entries across companies and roles.
The dataset now works as a reference point for candidates. Instead of approaching applications with rough estimates, users can view salary ranges and payment practices linked to specific roles. This can reduce uncertainty during offer evaluation and salary negotiation.
‘Currently, candidates walk into most job application stages with a guess,’ Ishmam said. ‘We are trying to turn that guess into a number—one backed by hundreds of people who have actually sat in that role.’
One notable feature is the inclusion of payment timelines. Alongside salary figures, users report when salaries are typically disbursed and whether delays occur. This adds practical context to compensation, particularly in sectors where payment consistency can vary.
The platform, however, depends entirely on user submissions, making data accuracy a central concern.
‘We have approached this through a combination of design choices,’ Ishmam said. ‘Full anonymity reduces hesitation in sharing real figures. Submissions undergo light moderation to filter obvious outliers. Finally, scale plays a central role, as larger volumes of entries stabilise the dataset and minimise the impact of individual inaccuracies.’
For now, Beton Kemon remains narrowly focused on compensation and payment patterns, avoiding additional layers such as company reviews. That keeps moderation more manageable and the platform’s purpose clear.
Planned updates include role-based search, which would allow users to explore compensation across functions, and the inclusion of benefits such as provident funds, insurance and profit-sharing.
‘In Bangladesh, the headline number rarely tells the full story,’ Ishmam said.
Year-on-year comparisons are also being considered, allowing users to track how compensation changes within companies over time.
As the dataset grows, so does its potential value for future jobseekers. Those interested in contributing or exploring existing entries can visit: https://www.betonkemon.com
