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Salary is a negotiation between parties. Looked at soberly, you're the business, your employer is your customer, and the salary they pay you is really the price
by csallen 6y ago
Salary is a negotiation between parties. Looked at soberly, you're the business, your employer is your customer, and the salary they pay you is really the price you charge for your services.
They have no obligation to pay more for your services than they think they have to, compared to alternatives on the market. And you have no obligation to charge less for your services than you can get from other "customers". Either of you can negotiate the price up or down, and the other is free to take it or leave it.
It's not about who "deserves" what. It's a simple negotiation, like every other business transaction.
The more valuable (and less replaceable) your services are, the more pay you can successfully negotiate for. I guarantee you there are plenty of people at these "location-based pay" companies who've negotiated for considerably higher pay than others in their location. Just as there are many businesses (e.g. Apple) who've found a way to charge more for their products than their competitors have.
So it's worth learning to negotiate. And, perhaps more importantly, it's worth learning to provide massive value that's hard to replace. Or accepting the tradeoffs if you choose not to.
Let's say you mould your skillset to fit perfectly into a commonly-open job description: front-end software engineer. Well great, the benefit is you have lots of jobs you can apply for, so you can easily "fire" one company to go work at another. The downside is you're now in direct competition with a million other people who've shaped themselves to have the same common skillset, so it's easier for companies to fire you. Competition drives prices down and makes you more easily replaceable. But it gives you some safety due to redundancy. That's often a reasonable tradeoff to make, but you should be aware you're making it. If you want the big bucks, it helps to be rarer, and to work at places and in roles where it's easier to demonstrate your value.
- ZephyrBlu 6y agoDid you follow your own advice and negotiate with Stripe when they acquired Indie Hackers? :P.
- csallen 6y agoOf course! I don't claim to be a master negotiator -- far from it. But I did negotiate. And, more importantly, I'm quite differentiated. There was no other Indie Hackers to buy.
- albertgoeswoof 6y agoBut what was your BATNA?
- csallen 6y agoStay independent and keep growing my company and my revenue as I'd been doing, with no boss or anyone to answer to. It's called "Indie" Hackers after all :)
- nojvek 6y agoThis ^ 1000x. Every job you join is a business negotiation between buyer and seller. Companies want to offer the lowest compensation they can get an engineer for, the engineer wants the highest compensating company they can get an offer from. The match is where the market gets what the market wants. I’ve seen plenty of employees with deep context on codebase able to retain their SF salary as they’ve moved locations. For the business, it makes little difference where they work so they keep on paying, they’d rather not lose. For new hires, it’s a different game. Global means a global talent pool to choose from, a bigger market. Sometimes a cheaper market. Companies raise their salaries when they can’t hire talent they want at a price point. So know your worth, and be willing to walk away. Also offer something valuable that companies don’t want to walk away from.
- aagha 6y agoTo this end, do you (or anyone else reading this) have suggestions on good books to learn negotiation strategy and tactics? I've read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss [0] and found it interesting but I'm curious as to other reads folks might recommend. 0 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26156469-never-split-the-difference https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26156469-never-split-the...
- ckib16 6y agoFearless Salary Negotiation is a great book - very approachable and practical. I learned a lot from it. Also for context - just remember that actually negotiating already puts you in a good subset of people. Many people - including myself initially - are reluctant to negotiate. It's a learned skill. https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com
- zuhayeer 6y agoAgree 100% – of course it helps to have information to back up your negotiation which is why we built Levels.fyi