5 ms·

I've been meaning to ask some of my founder friends about this. I've casually heard that Google and Facebook have driven the starting salary for Bay Area devel

I've been meaning to ask some of my founder friends about this. I've casually heard that Google and Facebook have driven the starting salary for Bay Area developers up above $150k/yr for college kids with no experience. I'm a talented 25 year-old web developer who jumped from contracting to full time a year ago. I received a $110k/yr (not eligible for bonus) offer. The people I asked at the time said it was a competitive salary and not worth negotiating. Now I'm wondering if it's time to move on. I see boxes in on job applications for "expected annual salary" and I don't know what to put. I know the money you save when you're young is what allows you to retire/start a company/etc., and want to make sure I'm being paid competitively. At the same time, I don't want to misread the market and come across as out-of-touch on one of these apps. Guys, what's the going rate for a talented front-end web developer in the Bay Area about 4 years out of school?

patio11 15y ago
I see boxes in on job applications for "expected annual salary" and I don't know what to put. "Negotiable", "Market rate", etc. That box is asking you to compromise your negotiating position. There is no legal or moral stricture that says you have to oblige them. The people I asked at the time said it was a competitive salary and not worth negotiating. This makes me angry. Of course it is worth negotiating. What would have happened if you had said "That is an interesting number. How would you feel about $115k?" Answer: in all probability, you'd be a couple thousand dollars richer now for three minutes of work, the worst possible outcome would have been accepting the offer at $110k, and nobody at your company would care either way because the difference is bat guano to them.
- xiaoma 15y ago
  >the worst possible outcome would have been accepting the offer at $110k, and nobody at your company would care either way because the difference is bat guano to them. That's a pretty unimaginative worst possible offer. The company could pay you 115k, resent it, and use it as justification to give you various shit-work. I've seen that happen to a friend and it actually hurt his mid term learning and career growth. It's also fairly common for a company to simply choose to fill the position with someone who's less troublesome. If you have an exceptional value to offer a company then, you have significant room for negotiation. If your skill is a common commodity, you likely won't.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Any company that treats you like shit because you negotiated a 5k bump over their first comp offer is a company you are better off not working for. And, please, read that sentence again. The worst case scenario is that you accept their first offer and don't find out until you've spent a year and a half of your life working there that the company isn't worth working for. That is the worst case.
    - xiaoma 15y ago
      There's a difference between giving someone extra work, likely "shit work" and treating someone like shit. More than one employee at excellent companies has been assigned more work due to having a higher salary than colleagues at the same grade. This is an easy, even somewhat logical rationalization for a manager to make. The "worst case" you put forward is still far from convincing. In work, black swans are generally positive. If a typical job has a value of x, most will be between .8x and 1.2x, but a few will be 10x or even 100x. Outside the military, where death is on the line, -100x jobs are very, very rare compared to +100x jobs. Wasting a year and a half in a ho-hum environment is not as big a price as missing a once in a lifetime opportunity due to over negotiation. In the opposite vein, the amazing opportunities often come at a reduced salary. How much less would Warren Buffet be worth today if he'd tried to negotiate a higher salary with Benjamin Graham instead of doing the exact opposite?
      - tptacek 15y ago
        I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: If your employer treats you more poorly because you negotiate a better comp package, you shouldn't be working for them; they are a bad employer. If negotiation costs you a "once in a lifetime" opportunity, the opportunity is "once in a lifetime" in the "boiler room pump and dump" sense, or the "late night infomercial" sense. A year of your life, however, is priceless.
        xiaoma 15y ago
        >I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: Your previous comment was only four sentences, one of which was an exhortation to read the previous sentence twice! I'm sure your implication wasn't intentional, but I find the suggestion that you aren't speaking simply enough for me to understand your reasoning offensive. It's not that your explanation was too complex. I just don't agree with it. It's rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. If one employee of a certain job-title asks more money than his/her colleagues who have equivalent skills, then expecting that person to handle more work or less desirable work that comes to the team is rational. It may not be optimal in every case, but it certainly doesn't make the manager's entire company "a bad employer". There are many good opportunities in life that can come from not being maximally greedy. Some are once in a life time, some are more commonplace. One need only read biographies to find examples.

patio11 15y ago

I see boxes in on job applications for "expected annual salary" and I don't know what to put. "Negotiable", "Market rate", etc. That box is asking you to compromise your negotiating position. There is no legal or moral stricture that says you have to oblige them. The people I asked at the time said it was a competitive salary and not worth negotiating. This makes me angry. Of course it is worth negotiating. What would have happened if you had said "That is an interesting number. How would you feel about $115k?" Answer: in all probability, you'd be a couple thousand dollars richer now for three minutes of work, the worst possible outcome would have been accepting the offer at $110k, and nobody at your company would care either way because the difference is bat guano to them.

xiaoma 15y ago
>the worst possible outcome would have been accepting the offer at $110k, and nobody at your company would care either way because the difference is bat guano to them. That's a pretty unimaginative worst possible offer. The company could pay you 115k, resent it, and use it as justification to give you various shit-work. I've seen that happen to a friend and it actually hurt his mid term learning and career growth. It's also fairly common for a company to simply choose to fill the position with someone who's less troublesome. If you have an exceptional value to offer a company then, you have significant room for negotiation. If your skill is a common commodity, you likely won't.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Any company that treats you like shit because you negotiated a 5k bump over their first comp offer is a company you are better off not working for. And, please, read that sentence again. The worst case scenario is that you accept their first offer and don't find out until you've spent a year and a half of your life working there that the company isn't worth working for. That is the worst case.
  - xiaoma 15y ago
    There's a difference between giving someone extra work, likely "shit work" and treating someone like shit. More than one employee at excellent companies has been assigned more work due to having a higher salary than colleagues at the same grade. This is an easy, even somewhat logical rationalization for a manager to make. The "worst case" you put forward is still far from convincing. In work, black swans are generally positive. If a typical job has a value of x, most will be between .8x and 1.2x, but a few will be 10x or even 100x. Outside the military, where death is on the line, -100x jobs are very, very rare compared to +100x jobs. Wasting a year and a half in a ho-hum environment is not as big a price as missing a once in a lifetime opportunity due to over negotiation. In the opposite vein, the amazing opportunities often come at a reduced salary. How much less would Warren Buffet be worth today if he'd tried to negotiate a higher salary with Benjamin Graham instead of doing the exact opposite?
    - tptacek 15y ago
      I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: If your employer treats you more poorly because you negotiate a better comp package, you shouldn't be working for them; they are a bad employer. If negotiation costs you a "once in a lifetime" opportunity, the opportunity is "once in a lifetime" in the "boiler room pump and dump" sense, or the "late night infomercial" sense. A year of your life, however, is priceless.
      - xiaoma 15y ago
        >I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: Your previous comment was only four sentences, one of which was an exhortation to read the previous sentence twice! I'm sure your implication wasn't intentional, but I find the suggestion that you aren't speaking simply enough for me to understand your reasoning offensive. It's not that your explanation was too complex. I just don't agree with it. It's rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. If one employee of a certain job-title asks more money than his/her colleagues who have equivalent skills, then expecting that person to handle more work or less desirable work that comes to the team is rational. It may not be optimal in every case, but it certainly doesn't make the manager's entire company "a bad employer". There are many good opportunities in life that can come from not being maximally greedy. Some are once in a life time, some are more commonplace. One need only read biographies to find examples.