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You (and the article) are ignoring smaller companies. In those, you often have the salary negotiations with the owner, or a partner. Your salary comes (effectiv

You (and the article) are ignoring smaller companies. In those, you often have the salary negotiations with the owner, or a partner. Your salary comes (effectively) out of their own pocket, and recruiting you is quite possibly a significant and risky investment for the entire company. In these sorts of situations, negotiation is much harder on a personal level, since the company is not a faceless entity. The company does have a face, that's the face you have to look into when you state your salary request. On the other hand, it's also harder to accept being underpaid, because if you don't get paid what you're worth, you know the extra profits will go (almost) directly into the pocket of a person you will see daily at work.

edanm 6y ago
That's kind of true, but you should probably ignore it for purposes of salary negotiation. It's not really that different from a bigger company in most cases- they have a budget in mind, and you can probably negotiate up to the limit of the budget. This will sometimes be a hard limit btw - e.g. if it's a Dev shop, they often know how much they're getting paid for a particular project, and can calculate the maximum salary they can profitably pay. Smaller companies are often more flexible on other terms though, which is worth knowing. Often they can give you eg work from home options, different configuration of vacation days, etc. This if useful to think any for negotiation purposes.
delinquenz 6y ago
Small companies with smart hiring managers or owners should know that if they pay candidates, especially highly skilled ones, not enough, they will probably jump ship after one or two years which is exactly the period after which employees reach a level of productivity that brings enough value for companies to justify the hiring.
- skrebbel 6y ago
  In all the places I've worked, every engineer knew there was another place where they'd likely earn significantly more. Yet, they didn't jump ship. These were not high turnaround places. Either my experience is exceptional, or your implication that money is the only thing that matters about a job is wrong.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    Yeah. I left a good salary behind and went 1/2 time for a super small company this year. Great decision. Money isn’t everything.
    - kkllkkllkk 6y ago
      That's easy to say after having had a high paying position for a while, which would give you the opportunity to build some financial stability. Never having had any stability, money plays a much larger role.
      - iso947 6y ago
        There was a comment a few weeks ago about someone saying how money doesn’t matter - his family doesn’t care if his networth aged 40 was $2m or $20m. Many people on HN, after a decade or so of amazon salaries, seem to have no concept of the real world.
      - christophilus 6y ago
        Well, yes. It wouldn't have been a good decision for me 20 years ago. But it was a good decision this year. Context is important. Money is important, obviously. But once you have a certain level of stability in your life, other priorities begin to overtake it.
  - Shinotiy 6y ago
    I always traded up. I have the feeling, that i'm still having a similar amount of fun/happiness when i do my current job vs. my previous job but with more money. More money means for me: less working later or nicer things now or faster/more stability & safety. I have also seen enough people being afraid of quitting, people unable to quit, people who did not pull their weight, still complaining, still not quitting. I have seen people not pulling their weight and being able to find a new/better job where they will still perform the same now just another company doesn't know what to do with them and just having them.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
- scarface74 6y ago
  You don’t always need “good engineers”. Sometimes you just need yet another software as a service CRUD developer.
mewpmewp2 6y ago
I find it is easier to prove your value in these cases and bounds are much wider.
yowlingcat 6y ago
> Your salary comes (effectively) out of their own pocket, and recruiting you is quite possibly a significant and risky investment for the entire company. So what? It's just like any other expenditure for the company. And it doesn't change the reality the owner is thinking about -- value of hiring you must be higher than cost of wages paid on a regular basis for it to work out. And probably high enough that they'd even bother trying to recruit anyways. In a way, it's sometimes even easier to have negotiations in the owner because it's so much easier to up-sell them on added value you can provide because you are talking to the person who'd be willing to buy even more of just that. There's no one-size-fits-all HR determined range to deal with.
cashsterling 6y ago
The corollary of working for smaller companies is once you are working there for a while and are contributing significant value... it is easier to get significant raises because your owner is thinking about "life without you" if they don't pay you well. IF you are really valuable to the company, you have a great chance of getting paid well, in proportion to your value.

edanm 6y ago

That's kind of true, but you should probably ignore it for purposes of salary negotiation. It's not really that different from a bigger company in most cases- they have a budget in mind, and you can probably negotiate up to the limit of the budget. This will sometimes be a hard limit btw - e.g. if it's a Dev shop, they often know how much they're getting paid for a particular project, and can calculate the maximum salary they can profitably pay. Smaller companies are often more flexible on other terms though, which is worth knowing. Often they can give you eg work from home options, different configuration of vacation days, etc. This if useful to think any for negotiation purposes.

delinquenz 6y ago

Small companies with smart hiring managers or owners should know that if they pay candidates, especially highly skilled ones, not enough, they will probably jump ship after one or two years which is exactly the period after which employees reach a level of productivity that brings enough value for companies to justify the hiring.

skrebbel 6y ago
In all the places I've worked, every engineer knew there was another place where they'd likely earn significantly more. Yet, they didn't jump ship. These were not high turnaround places. Either my experience is exceptional, or your implication that money is the only thing that matters about a job is wrong.
- christophilus 6y ago
  Yeah. I left a good salary behind and went 1/2 time for a super small company this year. Great decision. Money isn’t everything.
  - kkllkkllkk 6y ago
    That's easy to say after having had a high paying position for a while, which would give you the opportunity to build some financial stability. Never having had any stability, money plays a much larger role.
    - iso947 6y ago
      There was a comment a few weeks ago about someone saying how money doesn’t matter - his family doesn’t care if his networth aged 40 was $2m or $20m. Many people on HN, after a decade or so of amazon salaries, seem to have no concept of the real world.
    - christophilus 6y ago
      Well, yes. It wouldn't have been a good decision for me 20 years ago. But it was a good decision this year. Context is important. Money is important, obviously. But once you have a certain level of stability in your life, other priorities begin to overtake it.
- Shinotiy 6y ago
  I always traded up. I have the feeling, that i'm still having a similar amount of fun/happiness when i do my current job vs. my previous job but with more money. More money means for me: less working later or nicer things now or faster/more stability & safety. I have also seen enough people being afraid of quitting, people unable to quit, people who did not pull their weight, still complaining, still not quitting. I have seen people not pulling their weight and being able to find a new/better job where they will still perform the same now just another company doesn't know what to do with them and just having them.
- leetcrew 6y ago
scarface74 6y ago
You don’t always need “good engineers”. Sometimes you just need yet another software as a service CRUD developer.

mewpmewp2 6y ago

I find it is easier to prove your value in these cases and bounds are much wider.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> Your salary comes (effectively) out of their own pocket, and recruiting you is quite possibly a significant and risky investment for the entire company. So what? It's just like any other expenditure for the company. And it doesn't change the reality the owner is thinking about -- value of hiring you must be higher than cost of wages paid on a regular basis for it to work out. And probably high enough that they'd even bother trying to recruit anyways. In a way, it's sometimes even easier to have negotiations in the owner because it's so much easier to up-sell them on added value you can provide because you are talking to the person who'd be willing to buy even more of just that. There's no one-size-fits-all HR determined range to deal with.

cashsterling 6y ago

The corollary of working for smaller companies is once you are working there for a while and are contributing significant value... it is easier to get significant raises because your owner is thinking about "life without you" if they don't pay you well. IF you are really valuable to the company, you have a great chance of getting paid well, in proportion to your value.