I spent approximately the past year looking for a new job (and accepted an offer this month). From my salary research regarding people in my situation, it seem

I spent approximately the past year looking for a new job (and accepted an offer this month). From my salary research regarding people in my situation, it seemed like a 10% pay hike makes the difference between a median salary and a 75th-percentile salary, or between 25th percentile and the median. If I had asked for $100K in the salary-negotiation stage for any of these jobs, I would not have considered $60K a serious counteroffer. Either the company had a serious misunderstanding regarding my skills and responsibilities (maybe we need to discuss further what I am bringing to the table), or the company doesn’t have a lot of cash and is offering extra-sweet equity packages instead (that might be a good offer for some people, but not for me), or they’re just lowballing everyone (FAIL).