I'll respond to a few points here: 1. I've never had a problem getting the salary that I wanted and have had a steadily increasing market-rate developer salary

I'll respond to a few points here: 1. I've never had a problem getting the salary that I wanted and have had a steadily increasing market-rate developer salary at each job. 2. I've only ever managed to actually work for free once, the other times they insisted on paying a base hourly, intern wage. 3. If you go in thinking this is where you want to work, but are wrong because it's "impossible to understand the company and how it operates from outside," it's much less of a hassle to leave during a trial period. Finally I think there is a lot of posturing around negotiating positions and "strength." That's bs. If you're looking to get the highest salary you can, fine, but if you're looking for a job that you love I can only relate that this technique has worked again and again for me and no theoretical critiques of negotiating strategy can change that.