Between me and my friends we are readily open up about salary and rates. Not just that we also are open about bills, benefits we pay etc. It's not the salary, b

Between me and my friends we are readily open up about salary and rates. Not just that we also are open about bills, benefits we pay etc. It's not the salary, but what you take home after all the bills are calculated. I'm in a similar situation, and have had this happen so many times. I explicitely state when starting the process I'm a contractor. I lose wages when I interview, so I want to ensure we're on the same page. It's also an allocation of your companies time, and resources interviewing me. This is my minimum, are you able to meet it. Because between software projects, phone screens, and on sites. That's alot of time sunk into an application, and again your resources interviewing me. I've had so many times, after all the work get to the offer stage and it's 20k to 50k short, after they ensured me they could meet the minimum. I've renegotiated at times, but it's like pulling teeth. One company even tried shaming me, for not putting enough value into the awesome company culture. I'm here because I love your company, but if you don't want me worrying about bills and retirement during working hours then pay me a decent rate. I just got an offer 10k shy of what I asked. I already took 30k off my current rate, because it was a less populated area. I can cross counter negotiate or come up with other ideas. What got me was that it's based on me being a "junior" in the stack they use. I don't like the inflated use of senior. But a good techie/programmer can move from stack to stack. If we were more open about rates and what's avaialble. I think it would do more good.