23 ms·

Salary negotiations for techies

262 points by jerome_etienne 16y ago

Jd 16y ago
Great article, although there are a couple of things that probably should be mentioned: (1) Part of the reason programmers are bad negotiators are because they don't usually have highly cultivated social skills. If by some chance a programmer is a budding socialite, there is a good chance he/she isn't that great of a programmer. (2) Trying to get compensation derived from worth to company is not a bad idea except -- and this is a big except -- it can create additional pressures on the person delivering. If you are the best member of a team and also being compensated more than the other members of the team, your management is going to consistently want more value from you and they are going to likely want that in the form of tangible and immediate value, not a refactoring of this or that or some cool experimental project. Which is to say, the more highly compensated you are, the less likely that you will actually be able to enjoy the work you are doing. As far as I'm concerned that is a very good reason to either (1) accept a lower salary on the basis of the factors mentioned or (2) work as a consultant at a high hourly rate and spend your free time on other more interesting projects. (3) This is related to (2), but people don't work as well when they are thinking about compensation (e.g. the surprising truth about what motivates us short film http://ow.ly/1s8Y9r http://ow.ly/1s8Y9r). Definitely consultants in general are much worse programmers than hobbyists (I've worked with both), although hobbyists may not be the best people to rely on when you are facing a hard deadline. What can you do about it? For me, I think the simple answer is simply do what you love doing and make sure you have enough money to keep on doing it -- which is to say, don't worry about money all that much. But maybe I'm still in that typical programmer paradigm...
- djacobs 16y ago
  If by some chance a programmer is a budding socialite, there is a good chance he/she isn't that great of a programmer. I strongly disagree. I know plenty of uber-social hackers who are good at compartmentalizing code and "being in the zone". They show up at a party and instantly the tech-speak is gone, and pop culture references and empathy turn on. So let's not box us all into this good programmer-vs.-socialite binary.
  - cabose07 16y ago
    I would have to agree with DJ on that. I know some very talented programmers that you would never think they were a tech-geek just based on their social life.
- SoftwarePatent 16y ago
  "the more highly compensated you are, the less likely that you will actually be able to enjoy the work you are doing." If you take only one thing from this thread, it should be the above quote. If you need a highly intelligent, hardworking person to do something tedious and dull, how can you convince them to do it? You pay them buckets of money. Examples: programmers in finance, big law firm associates.
  - varjag 16y ago
    I'm not sure where that generalization comes from. My best jobs were/are the best paying ones. Among my programmer friends, the "well paid but soul crushing job" wasn't really ever the case either. Shitty jobs, on the other hand, tend to be one where you are underpaid.
dreamux 16y ago
I once had an internship in University where I was solely responsible for a $250k contract (which took 3 months to complete). Furthermore, that contract was a gating feature to a larger ($4M) contract for the company. The only way to appreciate the value you bring to the company is to involve yourself with the business operations, talk to your PM and sales/marketing people (this has the bonus of helping you understand what they do, a perspective sadly absent on most devs). Keep track of everything.
ericb 16y ago
It is always easiest to get a big jump by moving to a new job. Your company, and future companies anchor on the salary you are paid now. When recruiters or hiring managers ask, don't give out that number at negotiation time. Instead, here is my hack: when a recruiter first calls, be blunt with them. Ask "do you know the salary range for the position?" and if it isn't great, say "Sorry, I'm only looking at senior roles that can pay in the 115-125 range because I have n years and a strong background in x." Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range you give is what the offer will come in at if you eventually get hired--the recruiter is taking notes. If the recruiter is not sure about the upper end of the employer's range, he or she may even call the company and confirm for you by feeling out what they would pay their "best candidate." If your number is beyond the range for the position, move on. If not, you've set a price for yourself, in advance, set an expectation that you are worth that price, and sent the message through the recruiter without ever having to negotiate a thing. If you're thinking "do I really want whoever is hiring me to have to pay a recruiter?" the answer should actually be yes. Why? People who pay recruiters 1-want someone badly enough to pay extra for them, 2-are spending their time on more important things, 3-have the money to pay a recruiter, and so are showing at least some budgetary strength and flexibility and 4-recruiters will sell you to the company, and act as a non-threatening channel to pass information like "I have another offer at 110 with work from home 2 days a week I'm considering." edit: minor edits to clarify whose "range" I meant. Also, if it was unclear, to get recruiters contacting you, put your resume on monster.com and make it public. Then sign in/update it every now and then as I think that bumps you to the top and shows you as recently active.
- Peroni 16y ago
  I wish more people took your attitude. That last paragraph nailed it for me. As a tech recruiter I get treated with such disregard by experienced candidates as it's assumed we are a purely and simply a middle-man. Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range is what the offer will come in at Not strictly true. Every employer wants to pay as little as possible obviously to keep costs down but if the salary range is, for example: £100k to £120k and it's clearly communicated to the employer that your minimum expectation for the role is going to be £120k then there is no reason why you would ever end up being offered much less. The key, as you mentioned is to be clear with the recruiter from the beginning. Recruiters have no reason to lie about the salary. Bottom line is, the more you get paid, the more we get paid. It's in my best interests to get you the highest possible salary on offer and I won't waste your time, my clients time or my own time putting you forward if you tell me your minimum is £120k and the client told me their absolute top end is around £110k.
deleted 16y ago
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netmau5 16y ago
This is all good advice. I recently had to negotiate a raise for myself, and I think the critical insight is that you need to be willing to walk. If you are comfortable being without work for a little while, great. Otherwise, go seek out other opportunities so you have the confidence to act when they don't give you what you want. The most important thing you can do is to take a close look at what value you provide for the company. Your dev manager will definitely care about how difficult it will be to replace you, but once you leave the technical stratosphere, the only thing that matters is your effect on the bottom line. Consider what you've done to make a dent and be sure that those efforts are communicated up the chain of command, even if you have to do it yourself. I asked for a raise, got half of what I wanted, and began the process of looking elsewhere. My managers wanted to keep me and noticed that I wasn't particularly happy with the result. A week later, they made the difference and then some with a bonus vesting at the end of the year. In the end, I got more than I asked for and the company was able to provide it in a way that made sense for them financially. I love my job so it took me many more months to act than it should have for fear of losing it. But, like jacquesmattheij said, you've got to realize that neither party has a long-term obligation to each other- this is a business relationship, first and foremost.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  the critical insight is that you need to be willing to walk This is the critical insight! This also applies in other business deals like sales and hiring. If you are desperate, if you have to get the job or close the deal, then you are meat. The other party can sense this (through instincts that have been honed over millions of years of evolution) and they know that they can string you along. This is exactly what is happening with the super-slick sales guy who can't seem to close the deal but keeps on coming back to the devs for that one additional feature. This is what happens to the startup with the one big client that keeps stringing them along. This is also why nerds can't close the deal with women and why many people end up staying in dead-end jobs. Be willing to walk. Get yourself the resources so you can walk. (It's not a lot. When he was struggling, Humphrey Bogart had a $100 bill in his sock drawer, and whenever the world got him down, he looked at it and thought to himself, "I don't need those jerks. Screw them!") Value your independence most of all, be looking for the best value for you, and create genuine value for those you interact with. The rest will follow.
jswinghammer 16y ago
I think salary history is usually the strongest card you have. If I make X at my current job you will need to make me a comparable offer or you don't get me. It takes awhile to get there but if you make sure you get yearly raises it won't take long. I would usually quit without a yearly raise or a very good explanation. The market is in your favor as a programmer. If you have even the hint of a clue it's even better. I remember 4-5 years ago being on a phone screen and was asked what if any books I was reading and when I listed them he said "The job is yours' if you want it." I didn't but it was enlightening. I walked into my bosses office the next day and said I want a 20k raise and got it.
- saw-lau 16y ago
  Does anybody have any experience of withholding what their current salary is when asked? I'm a terrible negotiator by my own admission and always blurt out what I'm on immediately when asked in interviews or by recruiting agents (and I'm tediously honest enough to actually say the real value and not a 10% increase that all my friends tell me to add). If I turned round and said 'I'm sorry, that information's irrelevant,' what would happen?
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >If I turned round and said 'I'm sorry, that information's irrelevant,' what would happen? Could you ignore the question and give them the information that you want instead? Interviewer: "What salary are you currently getting?" You: "I'm expecting $120k for this position" ?
    - hammock 16y ago
      It's best not to lead with an offer. Make them offer first, no matter how long it takes/how far down the line you have to go. Giving your upper range like that gives them an easy excuse to dismiss you.
      - daemin 16y ago
        Actually it was on HN some time ago that it is in your benefit to 'anchor' the salary discussion around the salary that you want to get. The trick to it is to quote a high enough number that is more than you want to get (so you can negotiate down), but that fact that you quoted it will anchor the negotiations around your number, not theirs.
nathanb 16y ago
> Typically, in a mature company the salaries of the dev team are a rounding error on the total operation. Depends on the company. For a mature software development company the engineers' salaries are likely to be quite a large line item. This is especially the case since sales are generally paid on commission and carry quotas, so there's no reason to assume that in a company with a decent focus on R&D this statement will be true.
DevX101 16y ago
Just throwing a crazy idea out in the wild here: Have a service where a professional negotiates salary on your behalf. 1. Is there interest in this? 2. Would this be feasible? Employers sure as hell wouldn't like it, but I wonder if they'd tolerate it.
- mistermann 16y ago
  That's supposedly what my headhunter does for me on my behalf (part of how they try to justify their $10 to $25 per hour cut), but I've never seen them do this successfully. It makes no difference to them, they get paid the same either way.
  - smanek 16y ago
    In my experience, head hunters usually get paid a fee equal to N months of your salary (where, most often, 3<=N<=6). If they negotiate my monthly salary up to 12K instead of 10K they'll probably make 6K-12K extra, so they do have an incentive to negotiate. Of course, their incentive is much smaller than mine, since an initial 2K/month salary boost might translate to 50K in extra salary over my tenure with that company and, conceivably, extra hundreds of thousands over my career.
    - andrewf 16y ago
      If it would take a recruiter more than 20% more effort to get your salary up by 20%, they are better off putting their time into placing as many people as possible. Because they can increase their total commissions by 20% if they increase their number of employees placed by that much.
      - natch 16y ago
        True if they can find a pool of candidates that don't care about getting better compensation. Many people, like me, are not in that pool. If they can't get me the compensation I ask for, they won't place me. Someone else will place me instead. So by not doing that 20% of work, they are losing not 20%, but 100% of what they would make from my placement. But yes, perhaps they can make it up by finding people who don't care about compensation. But really my take on this is different. If it takes an extra 20% of work, then the hiring company is probably not for me. I'd rather work for companies where good compensation is a given, because they tend to do other things better as well.
edw519 16y ago
There's one other huge factor at work here (for many programmers, anyway). I'm tempted to call it the "wimp factor", but that's too negative, so I'll just call it the "introvert factor". I'm a perfect example... I was always small for my age and looked nerdy with my glasses and attraction to books, etc. I was always picked last for sports teams, drew little attention from girls, and was usually the first one to be bullied. It even happened in my own family, subconsciously I hope. It was always easier to pick on the little guy to get what you want. Fast forward to adulthood, and not much has changed, especially with bosses. It seems like my boss was always a sales/business guy, extroverted, and bigger than me. His/her natural reaction was to "bully", probably because they knew they could get away with it. This was for almost everything: project management, discussions about work, and of course, money. No more. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I decided not to take this shit any more. The more anyone picked on me, the harder I shot back, right between the eyes. Nothing pisses me off more than being bullied, especially about money. This is not natural behavior for me. (I imagine if it was natural, I would have become a sales person or a lawyer.) I have to consciously work hard to stick up for myself. But as soon as I paint the other person, especially my boss, as a bully, I put myself on even ground. And as soon as they see that, they understand that they can no longer take advantage of me. Only then can I be treated like everyone else.
- blhack 16y ago
  You are completely dead-on with this assessment. For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, "tech" was a place that we could go during our childhoods where people would just leave us alone. If I was sitting in my room trying to figure out some bizarre IRQ conflict between my sound card and my wireless card, nobody was standing there making fun of me for not being able to run as fast as them, or not being able to do any pushups. "We judge people based on what they say and thing, not what they look like, and you call us criminals." I think that's why a lot of kids turned to tech. Well the same thing is happening now in the workplace. If we just shut up and sit in our cubes, nobody will bother us. Standing up to $boss means that we might be embarrassed.
- jnovek 16y ago
  So, what do you do (or have you done) if your boss is a fairly rational geek-type? I'm a geek and am sympathetic to the problems you've described, but for me negotiating salaries is every bit as miserable from the other side of the fence (I run a startup) for the same reasons (introverted, etc.). When I encounter engineers who have been "hardened" by crummy bosses in the past, I often just toss salary negotiations off onto my business and sales-minded cofounder who doesn't mind playing hardball.
chanux 16y ago
Now I'm convinced that Jaques left HN for good.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  It's Jacques. Note the 'c'. Signed, a different Jacques.
pdx 16y ago
I'm having my review today and I am not making enough to live on. Every month, after mortgage on the house, modest car payment, and insurance for wife and two kids, I dip into savings to pay the bills. It's already too late to "plant the seeds" for a big raise, so I'm anticipating some little 1% raise today at my review. I had my chance a few weeks ago, when I stayed late to confirm and fix a bug that would have cost us a $2M contract, and everybody knows what I did and how important it was. Still, without me actually pushing for a big raise, I know it won't happen. It's a small company and money is not wasted. To pay me a big raise I didn't ask for would be throwing money away. So why didn't I ask? I think because I don't want the commitment a big raise would impose on me to stay indefinitely, and I don't want to be comfortable. I like feeling the pinch of money, as it keeps me motivated to work on my startup ideas. If I allowed myself to get too comfortable, I fear it might not be the best for me, long term.
- wballard 16y ago
  Hmm, so a raise in no way implies a commitment to stay. Raise your sights -- going from 'broke' to 'getting by' may be motivating, but not quite as lucrative as going from 'getting by' to 'killing it'. I'll tell you, flat out -- no matter how much you make, you'll feel the pinch, you'll just learn to move the 0.
  - pdx 16y ago
    A large raise involves my manager walking up to the owner of the company and laying out a case for why the owner of the company should have less money in his pocket every month, because I'm so important to the company. If I then quit while that conversation is still fresh in mind, say, within a couple of years, my manager will lose credibility with the owner. This seems to articulate best the reasons, but to be honest, it's less logical and more from the gut. In my gut, it just seems like I'm "honor bound" to commit for a long time after receiving a large raise.
    - wballard 16y ago
      I hear you, but that's not in your own interest to feel that way. Honor in this case is meeting your commitments, your explicit commitments. In this case, you are -- at least in you words here -- negotiating against yourself. Count on the owner and your boss to act in their own interest, for themselves.
sethg 16y ago
I have found the salary.com Web site to be a helpful tool in setting expectations: if you actually cough up money for their report, you can fill in your location, job category, years of experience, company size, etc., and get back a report showing the range of salaries people like you are earning. The one thing I am uncertain about is how I would place myself on that range: should I be asking for a 75th-percentile salary and settle for 50th, or ask for 90th and settle for 75th?
tptacek 16y ago
Some related advice I just gave a family member on this subject: In most mature companies, you're reviewed on a cycle, and the bump you get is preprogrammed according to an HR spreadsheet. The conversation that results from this is not a real salary negotiation. Your goal needs to be to break out of the cycle. What I think you should try is, let the review run, and get your HR-approved comp pellet. Then say, "Thanks for increasing my comp. I appreciate it. I have a question. What were the factors that led you to raise my salary?" They'll give a platitudinous answer. Let them. Then say, "That makes sense. I have another question. Over the past year, I did XXX, YYY, and ZZZ. You didn't mention these things. That's fine! But I'd like to make sure I'm putting my energy into things that the business values here. Instead of XXX, YYY, and ZZZ, what should I do?" Then have the conversation, in specific terms, and follow up with an email recapping the conversation. I have a couple theories about this approach: (1) (Extremely important and something I know to be valid:) Business isn't a meritocracy. The winners know how to market themselves. Coders look over each others shoulders on Github and developer a sense of who the bad-asses are. Successful business people always broadcast their wins. You need to seek out and seize opportunities to toot your horn on the record. This is something tangential to salary negotiation that introverted and meritocratic tech people also suck at. (2) The "objectives" most people are given at salary reviews are inevitably vague. This serves the purpose of the business by making comp something out of the control of both the team member and the manager. (3) Even if you don't want to push for a bigger bump (and most of you, if you think about it seriously, don't, or you'd already be making more money), it is still in your long term interests to establish a winning track record on your terms. If you leave it to the managers to decide what goes on the track record, you will lose out to every member of your team who is better at politics and marketing than you are.
- bcrawford 16y ago
  The truth is: most companies have no interest in providing you a big bump as their additional input will not dramatically improve your output, if at all. If you want to market yourself better - then do it where it counts: get out there and interview. At my last job, I was being paid at a mid-level admin rate but was expected to do senior-level engineering and even architectural work (I had proven that I could). The best they could do is 3-10% (and even that was pulling teeth) per year. I had already been there several years and it would have taken me several more to finally make what I should have been making all along... minus the opportunity for raises based on that income. In the end: I went out, interviewed, and negotiated a salary elsewhere at such an insanely high increase (just under 40%) that I figured my then-current employer would just show me the door and say thanks for my time. Much to my surprise, despite having a hard time squeaking out a few extra K before, they were not only offering to match my offer but exceed it by an appreciable margin. The moral of the story: a lot of employers will aim to profit on your complacency. Period. It is more profitable to pay you the least as possible as long as possible. They got damn good (if I do say so myself) engineer at a steep discount. Even if I had taken their offer (which I didn't), it would have taken me a couple more years just for my pay to normalize to what it should have been all along.
joshu 16y ago
I wonder if "good negotiator" and "good engineer" is correlated or anti-correlated? I want good engineers, so I don't want to punish people for being bad negotiators. We just pay the best we can.
- marshray 16y ago
  More than once I've heard the sentiment from (independent) managers that people focused on salary and raises tend to be less than great as developer/engineers. Probably to some degree they were feeding me a line of BS (subtly suggesting that I not negotiate aggressively), but sometimes knowing the personnel in the departments there was probably some truth to it too.
dmvaldman 16y ago
There are currently 3 blog posts from this guy on Hacker News' front page. Is something fishy going on? Don't mean to be a cynic, this article is okay and all, but who is this guy (and what's his secret!)?
- gyardley 16y ago
  Jacques is 'jacquesm' here, is a well-regarded commenter, and up until quite recently was extremely active. I imagine that's led a lot of people to both subscribe to his blog and recognize it when they see his posts. The secret: if you build your reputation, you can benefit from your reputation.
siculars 16y ago
My Rules for Negotiation: 1. Always be willing to walk away. 2. Never, ever, take the first offer. 3. Never take an offer immediately. Always sleep on it. 4. Never base your worth on "comps" aka. comparable salaries. You are an individual with your own "value add" to put it in marketing/sales/management speak. 5. Always remember that you always, always work for yourself. Your current employer just happens to be paying for your time now. Most everyone I meet when asked "who do you work for?" will say so and so company. But in reality they have no more commitment to you than you do to the stranger on the street. Always know that everything you do you do to extend your knowledge, your power and your influence. I always say "I work for myself. So and so just happens to be paying me right now."
- adrianwaj 16y ago
  "work for" should really be "work with." Powers that be prefer it to be the former so that they feel they have less work and more freedom from it.
bioh42_2 16y ago
The fastest and easiest way to raise your salary is to change jobs. Here's some very unorthodox advice that actually works quite well in practice. 1. Call a good headhunter, let them negotiate salary for you. Finding a good headhunter can be hard. And be prepared to refuse high paying positions you don't think would work for you. Expect the headhunter to push you a bit but know that eventually they will get the message and look for something which both pays a lot AND is what you want. 2. Interview for another company and do one of the biggest "don'ts" there is - Tell them what you are making now and that's you're not looking to leave unless they offer a lot more. The above two things are strongly discouraged, but in practice both work remarkably well. Getting a big raise form the company you are already working for, is always going to be much harder. And unless you really, really don't want to leave your current company, it is much easier to find another job.
- wyclif 16y ago
  Why would those things be discouraged (by people giving good negotiation advice) if they work well?
  - kemayo 16y ago
    Using a headhunter is often discouraged because they'll take a cut of your salary for the first X months. Thus if you can get placed via your own connections you can plausibly get a higher salary because they won't be paying the headhunter as well. Telling a potential employer how much you're making now is often discouraged because it gives them a perceived valuation for you, which might make them reluctant to go too much higher.
nathanlrivera 16y ago
Have you ever had a situation where you had to negotiate multiple offers? How did you negotiate to get the highest possible offer from each?
patio11 16y ago
Businesses pay for value, not for work successfully completed as requested. Want to hack something? Either hack the org chart and get assigned to where you provably make money, or hack your job duties such that you can measure how much money each project translates into. The first thing I do for new clients is get metrics (or set up systems to do so), because you can best believe that when they move in the right direction I'm charging more next time.
- dpritchett 16y ago
  To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect. http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
semerda 16y ago
I always say, "if you don't ask then you never get." What's the worst that can happen if you ask - boss says no, you feel stupid for a while or a loss of a job. The later means you are working for the wrong man so it may be easier to find out now rather then later. Regret is harder to cope with. So don't regret and speak your mind! I also came across this good article which basically stated that our behavior at work has to do with the environment we grow up in. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/yes-rich-kids-already-won-the-career-game-heres-why/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/yes-rich-kids... "Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways... fear authority tremendously... or show an open distaste for managerial authority." ... "The rich kid, on the other hand, relates even to the highest-ranking executives as equals, because he knows that they are his social equals. He’ll answer to them, but with an understanding that his subordination is limited and offered in exchange for mentoring and protection. He views them as partners and colleagues, not judges or potential adversaries." Food for thought.
known 16y ago
Ask for a win-win proposition.
URSpider94 16y ago
One thing that I believe in myself, and that I coach my team on, is that there are three currencies that you can accept as payment: money (including stock, bonuses, etc); title; and training. To me, it may be worth staying (temporarily) at a job where you feel that you are underpaid in money, if you are getting lots of opportunities to learn new skills, or you are managing a larger team or scope of work than you would have at another company. Think of it as similar to the time spent in an MBA or other post-graduate training program. The hard part is to discern when you are being given a growth opportunity, and when you are just being used.
mncolinlee 16y ago
My dad spent over forty slaving away for one employer through about half a dozen office moves and two mergers. After the most recent merger, they outsourced his entire IT staff and asked him as IT manager to take the role of scapegoat for their lousy decision and accept a pay cut as well. He turned them down. This was the first time I ever saw my father stand up for himself. We all have to start understanding that the only way to be sure you're working for an employer who values your work is to work for someone who is willing to hear your constructive criticism and wage requests without googling "outsourcing" or "recruiters". It's possible your employer turns you down and gets rid of you. In the worst case, they keep you and move you downstairs into Storage B.

262 points by jerome_etienne 16y ago

Jd 16y ago

Great article, although there are a couple of things that probably should be mentioned: (1) Part of the reason programmers are bad negotiators are because they don't usually have highly cultivated social skills. If by some chance a programmer is a budding socialite, there is a good chance he/she isn't that great of a programmer. (2) Trying to get compensation derived from worth to company is not a bad idea except -- and this is a big except -- it can create additional pressures on the person delivering. If you are the best member of a team and also being compensated more than the other members of the team, your management is going to consistently want more value from you and they are going to likely want that in the form of tangible and immediate value, not a refactoring of this or that or some cool experimental project. Which is to say, the more highly compensated you are, the less likely that you will actually be able to enjoy the work you are doing. As far as I'm concerned that is a very good reason to either (1) accept a lower salary on the basis of the factors mentioned or (2) work as a consultant at a high hourly rate and spend your free time on other more interesting projects. (3) This is related to (2), but people don't work as well when they are thinking about compensation (e.g. the surprising truth about what motivates us short film http://ow.ly/1s8Y9r http://ow.ly/1s8Y9r). Definitely consultants in general are much worse programmers than hobbyists (I've worked with both), although hobbyists may not be the best people to rely on when you are facing a hard deadline. What can you do about it? For me, I think the simple answer is simply do what you love doing and make sure you have enough money to keep on doing it -- which is to say, don't worry about money all that much. But maybe I'm still in that typical programmer paradigm...

djacobs 16y ago
If by some chance a programmer is a budding socialite, there is a good chance he/she isn't that great of a programmer. I strongly disagree. I know plenty of uber-social hackers who are good at compartmentalizing code and "being in the zone". They show up at a party and instantly the tech-speak is gone, and pop culture references and empathy turn on. So let's not box us all into this good programmer-vs.-socialite binary.
- cabose07 16y ago
  I would have to agree with DJ on that. I know some very talented programmers that you would never think they were a tech-geek just based on their social life.
SoftwarePatent 16y ago
"the more highly compensated you are, the less likely that you will actually be able to enjoy the work you are doing." If you take only one thing from this thread, it should be the above quote. If you need a highly intelligent, hardworking person to do something tedious and dull, how can you convince them to do it? You pay them buckets of money. Examples: programmers in finance, big law firm associates.
- varjag 16y ago
  I'm not sure where that generalization comes from. My best jobs were/are the best paying ones. Among my programmer friends, the "well paid but soul crushing job" wasn't really ever the case either. Shitty jobs, on the other hand, tend to be one where you are underpaid.

dreamux 16y ago

I once had an internship in University where I was solely responsible for a $250k contract (which took 3 months to complete). Furthermore, that contract was a gating feature to a larger ($4M) contract for the company. The only way to appreciate the value you bring to the company is to involve yourself with the business operations, talk to your PM and sales/marketing people (this has the bonus of helping you understand what they do, a perspective sadly absent on most devs). Keep track of everything.

ericb 16y ago

It is always easiest to get a big jump by moving to a new job. Your company, and future companies anchor on the salary you are paid now. When recruiters or hiring managers ask, don't give out that number at negotiation time. Instead, here is my hack: when a recruiter first calls, be blunt with them. Ask "do you know the salary range for the position?" and if it isn't great, say "Sorry, I'm only looking at senior roles that can pay in the 115-125 range because I have n years and a strong background in x." Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range you give is what the offer will come in at if you eventually get hired--the recruiter is taking notes. If the recruiter is not sure about the upper end of the employer's range, he or she may even call the company and confirm for you by feeling out what they would pay their "best candidate." If your number is beyond the range for the position, move on. If not, you've set a price for yourself, in advance, set an expectation that you are worth that price, and sent the message through the recruiter without ever having to negotiate a thing. If you're thinking "do I really want whoever is hiring me to have to pay a recruiter?" the answer should actually be yes. Why? People who pay recruiters 1-want someone badly enough to pay extra for them, 2-are spending their time on more important things, 3-have the money to pay a recruiter, and so are showing at least some budgetary strength and flexibility and 4-recruiters will sell you to the company, and act as a non-threatening channel to pass information like "I have another offer at 110 with work from home 2 days a week I'm considering." edit: minor edits to clarify whose "range" I meant. Also, if it was unclear, to get recruiters contacting you, put your resume on monster.com and make it public. Then sign in/update it every now and then as I think that bumps you to the top and shows you as recently active.

Peroni 16y ago
I wish more people took your attitude. That last paragraph nailed it for me. As a tech recruiter I get treated with such disregard by experienced candidates as it's assumed we are a purely and simply a middle-man. Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range is what the offer will come in at Not strictly true. Every employer wants to pay as little as possible obviously to keep costs down but if the salary range is, for example: £100k to £120k and it's clearly communicated to the employer that your minimum expectation for the role is going to be £120k then there is no reason why you would ever end up being offered much less. The key, as you mentioned is to be clear with the recruiter from the beginning. Recruiters have no reason to lie about the salary. Bottom line is, the more you get paid, the more we get paid. It's in my best interests to get you the highest possible salary on offer and I won't waste your time, my clients time or my own time putting you forward if you tell me your minimum is £120k and the client told me their absolute top end is around £110k.

deleted 16y ago

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netmau5 16y ago

This is all good advice. I recently had to negotiate a raise for myself, and I think the critical insight is that you need to be willing to walk. If you are comfortable being without work for a little while, great. Otherwise, go seek out other opportunities so you have the confidence to act when they don't give you what you want. The most important thing you can do is to take a close look at what value you provide for the company. Your dev manager will definitely care about how difficult it will be to replace you, but once you leave the technical stratosphere, the only thing that matters is your effect on the bottom line. Consider what you've done to make a dent and be sure that those efforts are communicated up the chain of command, even if you have to do it yourself. I asked for a raise, got half of what I wanted, and began the process of looking elsewhere. My managers wanted to keep me and noticed that I wasn't particularly happy with the result. A week later, they made the difference and then some with a bonus vesting at the end of the year. In the end, I got more than I asked for and the company was able to provide it in a way that made sense for them financially. I love my job so it took me many more months to act than it should have for fear of losing it. But, like jacquesmattheij said, you've got to realize that neither party has a long-term obligation to each other- this is a business relationship, first and foremost.

stcredzero 16y ago
the critical insight is that you need to be willing to walk This is the critical insight! This also applies in other business deals like sales and hiring. If you are desperate, if you have to get the job or close the deal, then you are meat. The other party can sense this (through instincts that have been honed over millions of years of evolution) and they know that they can string you along. This is exactly what is happening with the super-slick sales guy who can't seem to close the deal but keeps on coming back to the devs for that one additional feature. This is what happens to the startup with the one big client that keeps stringing them along. This is also why nerds can't close the deal with women and why many people end up staying in dead-end jobs. Be willing to walk. Get yourself the resources so you can walk. (It's not a lot. When he was struggling, Humphrey Bogart had a $100 bill in his sock drawer, and whenever the world got him down, he looked at it and thought to himself, "I don't need those jerks. Screw them!") Value your independence most of all, be looking for the best value for you, and create genuine value for those you interact with. The rest will follow.

jswinghammer 16y ago

I think salary history is usually the strongest card you have. If I make X at my current job you will need to make me a comparable offer or you don't get me. It takes awhile to get there but if you make sure you get yearly raises it won't take long. I would usually quit without a yearly raise or a very good explanation. The market is in your favor as a programmer. If you have even the hint of a clue it's even better. I remember 4-5 years ago being on a phone screen and was asked what if any books I was reading and when I listed them he said "The job is yours' if you want it." I didn't but it was enlightening. I walked into my bosses office the next day and said I want a 20k raise and got it.

saw-lau 16y ago
Does anybody have any experience of withholding what their current salary is when asked? I'm a terrible negotiator by my own admission and always blurt out what I'm on immediately when asked in interviews or by recruiting agents (and I'm tediously honest enough to actually say the real value and not a 10% increase that all my friends tell me to add). If I turned round and said 'I'm sorry, that information's irrelevant,' what would happen?
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >If I turned round and said 'I'm sorry, that information's irrelevant,' what would happen? Could you ignore the question and give them the information that you want instead? Interviewer: "What salary are you currently getting?" You: "I'm expecting $120k for this position" ?
  - hammock 16y ago
    It's best not to lead with an offer. Make them offer first, no matter how long it takes/how far down the line you have to go. Giving your upper range like that gives them an easy excuse to dismiss you.
    - daemin 16y ago
      Actually it was on HN some time ago that it is in your benefit to 'anchor' the salary discussion around the salary that you want to get. The trick to it is to quote a high enough number that is more than you want to get (so you can negotiate down), but that fact that you quoted it will anchor the negotiations around your number, not theirs.

nathanb 16y ago

> Typically, in a mature company the salaries of the dev team are a rounding error on the total operation. Depends on the company. For a mature software development company the engineers' salaries are likely to be quite a large line item. This is especially the case since sales are generally paid on commission and carry quotas, so there's no reason to assume that in a company with a decent focus on R&D this statement will be true.

DevX101 16y ago

Just throwing a crazy idea out in the wild here: Have a service where a professional negotiates salary on your behalf. 1. Is there interest in this? 2. Would this be feasible? Employers sure as hell wouldn't like it, but I wonder if they'd tolerate it.

mistermann 16y ago
That's supposedly what my headhunter does for me on my behalf (part of how they try to justify their $10 to $25 per hour cut), but I've never seen them do this successfully. It makes no difference to them, they get paid the same either way.
- smanek 16y ago
  In my experience, head hunters usually get paid a fee equal to N months of your salary (where, most often, 3<=N<=6). If they negotiate my monthly salary up to 12K instead of 10K they'll probably make 6K-12K extra, so they do have an incentive to negotiate. Of course, their incentive is much smaller than mine, since an initial 2K/month salary boost might translate to 50K in extra salary over my tenure with that company and, conceivably, extra hundreds of thousands over my career.
  - andrewf 16y ago
    If it would take a recruiter more than 20% more effort to get your salary up by 20%, they are better off putting their time into placing as many people as possible. Because they can increase their total commissions by 20% if they increase their number of employees placed by that much.
    - natch 16y ago
      True if they can find a pool of candidates that don't care about getting better compensation. Many people, like me, are not in that pool. If they can't get me the compensation I ask for, they won't place me. Someone else will place me instead. So by not doing that 20% of work, they are losing not 20%, but 100% of what they would make from my placement. But yes, perhaps they can make it up by finding people who don't care about compensation. But really my take on this is different. If it takes an extra 20% of work, then the hiring company is probably not for me. I'd rather work for companies where good compensation is a given, because they tend to do other things better as well.

edw519 16y ago

There's one other huge factor at work here (for many programmers, anyway). I'm tempted to call it the "wimp factor", but that's too negative, so I'll just call it the "introvert factor". I'm a perfect example... I was always small for my age and looked nerdy with my glasses and attraction to books, etc. I was always picked last for sports teams, drew little attention from girls, and was usually the first one to be bullied. It even happened in my own family, subconsciously I hope. It was always easier to pick on the little guy to get what you want. Fast forward to adulthood, and not much has changed, especially with bosses. It seems like my boss was always a sales/business guy, extroverted, and bigger than me. His/her natural reaction was to "bully", probably because they knew they could get away with it. This was for almost everything: project management, discussions about work, and of course, money. No more. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I decided not to take this shit any more. The more anyone picked on me, the harder I shot back, right between the eyes. Nothing pisses me off more than being bullied, especially about money. This is not natural behavior for me. (I imagine if it was natural, I would have become a sales person or a lawyer.) I have to consciously work hard to stick up for myself. But as soon as I paint the other person, especially my boss, as a bully, I put myself on even ground. And as soon as they see that, they understand that they can no longer take advantage of me. Only then can I be treated like everyone else.

blhack 16y ago
You are completely dead-on with this assessment. For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, "tech" was a place that we could go during our childhoods where people would just leave us alone. If I was sitting in my room trying to figure out some bizarre IRQ conflict between my sound card and my wireless card, nobody was standing there making fun of me for not being able to run as fast as them, or not being able to do any pushups. "We judge people based on what they say and thing, not what they look like, and you call us criminals." I think that's why a lot of kids turned to tech. Well the same thing is happening now in the workplace. If we just shut up and sit in our cubes, nobody will bother us. Standing up to $boss means that we might be embarrassed.
jnovek 16y ago
So, what do you do (or have you done) if your boss is a fairly rational geek-type? I'm a geek and am sympathetic to the problems you've described, but for me negotiating salaries is every bit as miserable from the other side of the fence (I run a startup) for the same reasons (introverted, etc.). When I encounter engineers who have been "hardened" by crummy bosses in the past, I often just toss salary negotiations off onto my business and sales-minded cofounder who doesn't mind playing hardball.

chanux 16y ago

Now I'm convinced that Jaques left HN for good.

jacques_chester 16y ago
It's Jacques. Note the 'c'. Signed, a different Jacques.

pdx 16y ago

I'm having my review today and I am not making enough to live on. Every month, after mortgage on the house, modest car payment, and insurance for wife and two kids, I dip into savings to pay the bills. It's already too late to "plant the seeds" for a big raise, so I'm anticipating some little 1% raise today at my review. I had my chance a few weeks ago, when I stayed late to confirm and fix a bug that would have cost us a $2M contract, and everybody knows what I did and how important it was. Still, without me actually pushing for a big raise, I know it won't happen. It's a small company and money is not wasted. To pay me a big raise I didn't ask for would be throwing money away. So why didn't I ask? I think because I don't want the commitment a big raise would impose on me to stay indefinitely, and I don't want to be comfortable. I like feeling the pinch of money, as it keeps me motivated to work on my startup ideas. If I allowed myself to get too comfortable, I fear it might not be the best for me, long term.

wballard 16y ago
Hmm, so a raise in no way implies a commitment to stay. Raise your sights -- going from 'broke' to 'getting by' may be motivating, but not quite as lucrative as going from 'getting by' to 'killing it'. I'll tell you, flat out -- no matter how much you make, you'll feel the pinch, you'll just learn to move the 0.
- pdx 16y ago
  A large raise involves my manager walking up to the owner of the company and laying out a case for why the owner of the company should have less money in his pocket every month, because I'm so important to the company. If I then quit while that conversation is still fresh in mind, say, within a couple of years, my manager will lose credibility with the owner. This seems to articulate best the reasons, but to be honest, it's less logical and more from the gut. In my gut, it just seems like I'm "honor bound" to commit for a long time after receiving a large raise.
  - wballard 16y ago
    I hear you, but that's not in your own interest to feel that way. Honor in this case is meeting your commitments, your explicit commitments. In this case, you are -- at least in you words here -- negotiating against yourself. Count on the owner and your boss to act in their own interest, for themselves.

sethg 16y ago

I have found the salary.com Web site to be a helpful tool in setting expectations: if you actually cough up money for their report, you can fill in your location, job category, years of experience, company size, etc., and get back a report showing the range of salaries people like you are earning. The one thing I am uncertain about is how I would place myself on that range: should I be asking for a 75th-percentile salary and settle for 50th, or ask for 90th and settle for 75th?

tptacek 16y ago

Some related advice I just gave a family member on this subject: In most mature companies, you're reviewed on a cycle, and the bump you get is preprogrammed according to an HR spreadsheet. The conversation that results from this is not a real salary negotiation. Your goal needs to be to break out of the cycle. What I think you should try is, let the review run, and get your HR-approved comp pellet. Then say, "Thanks for increasing my comp. I appreciate it. I have a question. What were the factors that led you to raise my salary?" They'll give a platitudinous answer. Let them. Then say, "That makes sense. I have another question. Over the past year, I did XXX, YYY, and ZZZ. You didn't mention these things. That's fine! But I'd like to make sure I'm putting my energy into things that the business values here. Instead of XXX, YYY, and ZZZ, what should I do?" Then have the conversation, in specific terms, and follow up with an email recapping the conversation. I have a couple theories about this approach: (1) (Extremely important and something I know to be valid:) Business isn't a meritocracy. The winners know how to market themselves. Coders look over each others shoulders on Github and developer a sense of who the bad-asses are. Successful business people always broadcast their wins. You need to seek out and seize opportunities to toot your horn on the record. This is something tangential to salary negotiation that introverted and meritocratic tech people also suck at. (2) The "objectives" most people are given at salary reviews are inevitably vague. This serves the purpose of the business by making comp something out of the control of both the team member and the manager. (3) Even if you don't want to push for a bigger bump (and most of you, if you think about it seriously, don't, or you'd already be making more money), it is still in your long term interests to establish a winning track record on your terms. If you leave it to the managers to decide what goes on the track record, you will lose out to every member of your team who is better at politics and marketing than you are.

bcrawford 16y ago
The truth is: most companies have no interest in providing you a big bump as their additional input will not dramatically improve your output, if at all. If you want to market yourself better - then do it where it counts: get out there and interview. At my last job, I was being paid at a mid-level admin rate but was expected to do senior-level engineering and even architectural work (I had proven that I could). The best they could do is 3-10% (and even that was pulling teeth) per year. I had already been there several years and it would have taken me several more to finally make what I should have been making all along... minus the opportunity for raises based on that income. In the end: I went out, interviewed, and negotiated a salary elsewhere at such an insanely high increase (just under 40%) that I figured my then-current employer would just show me the door and say thanks for my time. Much to my surprise, despite having a hard time squeaking out a few extra K before, they were not only offering to match my offer but exceed it by an appreciable margin. The moral of the story: a lot of employers will aim to profit on your complacency. Period. It is more profitable to pay you the least as possible as long as possible. They got damn good (if I do say so myself) engineer at a steep discount. Even if I had taken their offer (which I didn't), it would have taken me a couple more years just for my pay to normalize to what it should have been all along.

joshu 16y ago

I wonder if "good negotiator" and "good engineer" is correlated or anti-correlated? I want good engineers, so I don't want to punish people for being bad negotiators. We just pay the best we can.

marshray 16y ago
More than once I've heard the sentiment from (independent) managers that people focused on salary and raises tend to be less than great as developer/engineers. Probably to some degree they were feeding me a line of BS (subtly suggesting that I not negotiate aggressively), but sometimes knowing the personnel in the departments there was probably some truth to it too.

dmvaldman 16y ago

There are currently 3 blog posts from this guy on Hacker News' front page. Is something fishy going on? Don't mean to be a cynic, this article is okay and all, but who is this guy (and what's his secret!)?

gyardley 16y ago
Jacques is 'jacquesm' here, is a well-regarded commenter, and up until quite recently was extremely active. I imagine that's led a lot of people to both subscribe to his blog and recognize it when they see his posts. The secret: if you build your reputation, you can benefit from your reputation.

siculars 16y ago

My Rules for Negotiation: 1. Always be willing to walk away. 2. Never, ever, take the first offer. 3. Never take an offer immediately. Always sleep on it. 4. Never base your worth on "comps" aka. comparable salaries. You are an individual with your own "value add" to put it in marketing/sales/management speak. 5. Always remember that you always, always work for yourself. Your current employer just happens to be paying for your time now. Most everyone I meet when asked "who do you work for?" will say so and so company. But in reality they have no more commitment to you than you do to the stranger on the street. Always know that everything you do you do to extend your knowledge, your power and your influence. I always say "I work for myself. So and so just happens to be paying me right now."

adrianwaj 16y ago
"work for" should really be "work with." Powers that be prefer it to be the former so that they feel they have less work and more freedom from it.

bioh42_2 16y ago

The fastest and easiest way to raise your salary is to change jobs. Here's some very unorthodox advice that actually works quite well in practice. 1. Call a good headhunter, let them negotiate salary for you. Finding a good headhunter can be hard. And be prepared to refuse high paying positions you don't think would work for you. Expect the headhunter to push you a bit but know that eventually they will get the message and look for something which both pays a lot AND is what you want. 2. Interview for another company and do one of the biggest "don'ts" there is - Tell them what you are making now and that's you're not looking to leave unless they offer a lot more. The above two things are strongly discouraged, but in practice both work remarkably well. Getting a big raise form the company you are already working for, is always going to be much harder. And unless you really, really don't want to leave your current company, it is much easier to find another job.

wyclif 16y ago
Why would those things be discouraged (by people giving good negotiation advice) if they work well?
- kemayo 16y ago
  Using a headhunter is often discouraged because they'll take a cut of your salary for the first X months. Thus if you can get placed via your own connections you can plausibly get a higher salary because they won't be paying the headhunter as well. Telling a potential employer how much you're making now is often discouraged because it gives them a perceived valuation for you, which might make them reluctant to go too much higher.

nathanlrivera 16y ago

Have you ever had a situation where you had to negotiate multiple offers? How did you negotiate to get the highest possible offer from each?

patio11 16y ago

Businesses pay for value, not for work successfully completed as requested. Want to hack something? Either hack the org chart and get assigned to where you provably make money, or hack your job duties such that you can measure how much money each project translates into. The first thing I do for new clients is get metrics (or set up systems to do so), because you can best believe that when they move in the right direction I'm charging more next time.

dpritchett 16y ago
To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect. http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

semerda 16y ago

I always say, "if you don't ask then you never get." What's the worst that can happen if you ask - boss says no, you feel stupid for a while or a loss of a job. The later means you are working for the wrong man so it may be easier to find out now rather then later. Regret is harder to cope with. So don't regret and speak your mind! I also came across this good article which basically stated that our behavior at work has to do with the environment we grow up in. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/yes-rich-kids-already-won-the-career-game-heres-why/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/yes-rich-kids... "Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways... fear authority tremendously... or show an open distaste for managerial authority." ... "The rich kid, on the other hand, relates even to the highest-ranking executives as equals, because he knows that they are his social equals. He’ll answer to them, but with an understanding that his subordination is limited and offered in exchange for mentoring and protection. He views them as partners and colleagues, not judges or potential adversaries." Food for thought.

known 16y ago

Ask for a win-win proposition.

URSpider94 16y ago

One thing that I believe in myself, and that I coach my team on, is that there are three currencies that you can accept as payment: money (including stock, bonuses, etc); title; and training. To me, it may be worth staying (temporarily) at a job where you feel that you are underpaid in money, if you are getting lots of opportunities to learn new skills, or you are managing a larger team or scope of work than you would have at another company. Think of it as similar to the time spent in an MBA or other post-graduate training program. The hard part is to discern when you are being given a growth opportunity, and when you are just being used.

mncolinlee 16y ago

My dad spent over forty slaving away for one employer through about half a dozen office moves and two mergers. After the most recent merger, they outsourced his entire IT staff and asked him as IT manager to take the role of scapegoat for their lousy decision and accept a pay cut as well. He turned them down. This was the first time I ever saw my father stand up for himself. We all have to start understanding that the only way to be sure you're working for an employer who values your work is to work for someone who is willing to hear your constructive criticism and wage requests without googling "outsourcing" or "recruiters". It's possible your employer turns you down and gets rid of you. In the worst case, they keep you and move you downstairs into Storage B.