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Patrick's "salary negotiation" piece has made the rounds here a number of times, and I always have the same reaction to it: It probably works, if you are alread

Patrick's "salary negotiation" piece has made the rounds here a number of times, and I always have the same reaction to it: It probably works, if you are already a software celebrity like Patrick, or some other highly sought after Captain of the software engineering industry. For us rank-and-file employee number 12887's, I just don't see it working--I've really never negotiated compensation significantly successfully in my 25+ year career. Here's how salary negotiation usually goes if you're not someone like John Carmack: Them: We'd love to have you join the team! Here's your compensation letter, please get back to us within the next 2 weeks and we'll move forward. You: Thank you, I believe my background and skills would suggest a compensation of $1.5X instead of $X. Is this possible with your hiring budget? Them: The offer is for $X and we believe it is appropriate for your level. You: Maybe my level should be higher then? Them: Ha Ha You: Looking at [website A, B, C] I see the average compensation for this role is $1.25X. Surely there is room to move this upward. Them: We don't agree with that data. The offer is for $X. Shall we move forward? You: What about equity or bonus, is there any flexibility with those numbers, or vacation time, or...? Them: The offer is for $X. If you don't want the job, we can move on to one of our other 20 candidates who are in the pipeline for the role. That's basically how salary negotiations went for almost the entirety of my career. If your results have been different, I'm kind of envious!

sokoloff 1y ago
If you don't have a strong BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), you're not going to get very far with just asking. "I received your offer for $X. I really enjoyed the interviews, meeting the team, and am intrigued by the problems I'd get to solve with them. Unfortunately, I have a competing offer for $1.25X from another company and I need to make sure my family is provided for. If you would match it, I'm excited to join, but if your offer is firm at $X, I'm afraid I won't be taking it." If they really just need someone to hold down a chair, they'll probably not budge. If they really want specifically you, they're more likely to bend if they believe that's their only move.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Basically correct. I guess my point is Patrick could have saved a lot of typing and simply wrote "Have one or more competing offers."
  - jt2190 1y ago
    Do you consider yourself an _excellent_ negotiator already? It really feels like you’re trying to suggest that negotiation can’t ever work for anyone except a handful of celebrities, even for those who are excellent negotiators. Someone’s already asking about your BATNA, and I’m wondering if you negotiate all benefits (amount of time off for example) since your story focused on salary alone.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      Based on my results, I am clearly not a skilled negotiator! I have found most companies to be inflexible around everything, from salary to equity to vacation time to health benefits to 401(k). The package is what it is, and if you don't want to take it, you can leave it.
      - lazide 1y ago
        Sure, because you personally aren’t in a place you can just leave it. If you don’t have a good competing alternative offer/option, you’re not negotiating, you’re begging. And chances are, they have alternatives.
      - jt2190 1y ago
        Interesting. I think there’s definitely a “meta-game” that negotiation requires you to prepare in advance if you want success. For example, knowing if the job opening is in a “cost center” or “revenue center” for the company, or how the job is funded. Clearly a well-funded department can offer more salary, and a revenue increasing job can pay more than a cost-savings one, since revenue has no upper bound and savings is bounded. Companies that have high revenue per developer can pay more in general. Companies that have to compete globally for talent have pay more than those that only have to compete in a local market. I can go on but you get the idea.
lnsru 1y ago
I am the 12887 too. Luckily applied at the place in emergency mode and was perfect fit. Negotiated +6%. Yeah! In the second year it was reduced by 3% coupling my bonus to unachievable goals. As someone wrote on HN: it is not their first rodeo. HR knows how to attract and get to the right salary level afterwards. What can I do? Swallowing is the only way. There are no job ads in my area.
- marcinzm 1y ago
  You still got 3% in a market that’s not in your favor. And likely you’d have had -3% otherwise and not 0%.
- Lu2025 1y ago
  How about extra vacation time? Does anyone have experience getting it when asked (and actually being able to take that time off)?
  - wrsh07 1y ago
    I expect this is one where if you're coming from an Etsy or Google that gives 5 weeks after 5 years of tenure you could negotiate for preservation of that perk, but it seems like it could be challenging depending on your batna (see definition elsewhere in comments)
  - jandrewrogers 1y ago
    Yes, I once added two extra weeks of vacation time.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
    Yes. I was actually offered more vacation time because the company had to pay the recruiter a percentage of my first-year salary, but they didn't have to pay anything if they made increased PTO part of my compensation package. So, we ended up with the salary increase I asked for, with 3 weeks of it paid for by extra vacation.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  > HR knows how to attract and get to the right salary level afterwards. This has to be the key point. They do this all the time as part of their job. You do it every few years, or maybe every decade. Of course they are better at it.
whiplash451 1y ago
You indeed have little to no leverage if you don't have a better offer elsewhere. Was true in 2012, remains true today.
Ifkaluva 1y ago
In my experience the only thing that works is competing offers.
acrooks 1y ago
There are two fundamental ways to win a negotiation. By "win", I mean achieve an outcome outside the norm, such as an above market rate salary. 1. Negotiate from a position of strength You pointed out a couple of these, like when you have a strong personal brand (like Patrick) or when the market dynamics favour employees. The former is not something you can control so, when the market is in this place, you should take advantage of it to propel yourself. However, the former is completely within your control. You can spend some time and effort building a personal brand. Many people discount the value of a brand and the effort spent building one, but it totally works. I have marketing-savvy friends who, since early in their career as juniors, spent a lot of time on LinkedIn thought leadership & brand building. And it totally works. In fact, I have one such friend who was recently part of a restructuring layoff (i.e., not related to performance). Because of the brand they built, once they posted about the layoff on LinkedIn, they had 12 offers within a week all higher than their previous salary. Another area where you can gain leverage is when you already work at a company that wants to retain you. The only time a business will bend over backwards for an employee is when the conversation is about retention. To make the conversation about retention you need to be completely willing to walk, and your negotiating position is strengthened if you have counter offers. To maintain your political capital (which will be important if you stay) you need to be careful about how you play this game. I've worked with people in the past who approached the business confrontationally, saying "if you don't give me $X, I quit" - that strategy only works once. But there are ways to structure this conversation where you don't leave a bad taste in anybody's mouth. 2. Care about something different than your counterpart Often the person you're negotiating with cares the most about optimising certain metrics. You should try to spend some time figuring out what those metrics are and see if there is something different that makes a difference in your life. e.g., your employer might be really under the gun about managing fixed salaries. This is very common in a lot of businesses to try to manage their headcount. So they might be more willing to give you a $50k cash bonus compared to a $25k salary increase. Or maybe they're more open to an extra week or two of vacation vs. salary. This phenomenon has been really helpful for me in the last year. I run my own business, but my business is fully bootstrapped, so I don't have a board or any investors to please. As a result, I'm not as motivated by ARR as other SaaS companies. Sometimes I encounter customers who would rather pay me a 3-4x one-time fee instead of ARR. By making these deals I immediately guarantee what would have otherwise been four years of cash (potentially with a cancellation risk during the term). A VC-funded SaaS business would almost never make a deal like this, because such a deal would not have a material impact on valuation. Another example - I was moving recently and sold some furniture. I was chatting with somebody who was an optometrist who wanted to buy a few things, which I listed at $200. They offered $100. I countered, asking for the right to use their employee discount, and ended up getting $500 in value. So you should also spend some time trying to figure out what your negotiation counterpart cares about. Maybe there is an arbitrage where you can both get exactly what you want, instead of needing to find an outcome where one person wins and the other one loses.
setheron 1y ago
If you say a number, even 1.5x you've already lost. Replying with either yes (accept) or no are the only two responses that work.
shepherdjerred 1y ago
I didn't try to negotiate my first job (I was just happy to be employed, especially at AWS) My two jobs since I've been able to get more by... just asking for more, even without competing offers.
whatshisface 1y ago
You really have one option per scenario over a total of two scenarios as #12887, and they are "yes I will take this job," and "if you want me to leave my present employer, you would have to offer more than my current salary."
systemf_omega 1y ago
You don't have to be a star programmer, fame isn't the only form of leverage. If you're in demand, and you're good at what you do, the road is paved for you. Top companies have already set the bar. Them: we offer 250k-350k Me: I don't consider anything below 500 The answers I get vary. Some tell me to politely fvck off. Some tell me they need to discuss with leadership. Some just go for it because they know how hard it is to fill that role. The justification is simple: why would I take a job with you if I can land an HFT gig at twice the pay?
- dcsan 1y ago
  You had me until HFT...
  - systemf_omega 1y ago
    Doesn't have to be finance. AI can pay just as well. Tech too depending on seniority.
- deadbabe 1y ago
  The proliferation of AI and LLMs has completely obliterated leverage. Don’t want the job for the salary offered? Too bad. Hire a cheaper person armed to the teeth with the best LLM coding tools and move on. Unless you’re coming in with significant clout that will move revenue and relations to bridge partnerships across other companies, you will not be worth the extra $250k on skills alone.
  - systemf_omega 1y ago
    That's what bottom-tier companies always tell me. Last decade it used to be outsourcing. I was getting low balled left and right with phrases like "I can pay a guy from Asia a lot less for the same work". Now it's LLMs. Same old.
    - deadbabe 1y ago
      Except now it’s for real.
itronitron 1y ago
I'm curious what your thoughts are on the "salary expectations" question in the initial phone screen or first stage. In my experience, I have never been asked that question and then moved onto the next step in the process, regardless of whether or how I answer the question. So I am left thinking they are just collecting salary metrics for the position.
- whiplash451 1y ago
  Never (ever) respond to this question early in the process. The company is just collecting market data. Tell them that the salary should be negotiated at the end if the process is successful. If they tell you "but we need this to make sure we're not wasting your time and ours", tell them "well give me a range for what you can do and I'll tell you if you're wasting my time"
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- sokoloff 1y ago
  Interviewing while employed, I’ll happily give my “I’m not considering anything lower than <this>” number in the first 15 minutes of discussion. I’m not interested in spending more time without general alignment on that. The few times early on that I didn’t do that, it was a giant waste of time. If I was interviewing from a position where I needed a job soon, I would be less inclined to be that upfront, of course.
- llama_boy 1y ago
  I've always said "I'm more interested in finding the right role, than I am in the salary, and I am sure we can come to an agreement if we feel it's a good fit". If they push further than that, I ask what sort of range they are looking at to make sure we're broadly aligned and not wasting each others time.
wrsh07 1y ago
I actually strongly disagree with this take and 1) after reading the original post immediately linked it to a friend who had an outstanding offer. She got a significant raise from fairly light negotiating 2) personally, I don't think of myself as a particularly aggressive negotiator. However, I have been able to truthfully discuss compensation using the tactics described with recruiters to get leveling and comp where I've wanted it to be for my last couple of jobs. Yes, I always had multiple offers. That's part of negotiating. More generally, though, I think spending 30+ minutes (reading the piece and more) thinking about negotiating has helped me build a better mental model for what to bring to the table.
- whiplash451 1y ago
  > She got a significant raise from fairly light negotiating Either she had a competing offer, or the company she is interviewing for has weak processes. A company yielding "a significant raise from fairly light negotiating" is very worrying IMO. Think about it: what does that tell you about the next newcomer that will come after you?
  - wrsh07 1y ago
    It was a different era, she was a particularly strong candidate and they had given a low-ball offer. I don't think she had a competing offer fwiw (Less process is normal at smaller orgs, so that's also something to consider)
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    > Either she had a competing offer, or the company she is interviewing for has weak processes Or she had no competing offers but said she had competing offers ;)
    - wrsh07 1y ago
      Fwiw, I would discourage lying or fraud (which you will inevitably turn to when they ask you for the redacted offer letter including the offer numbers) during an interview process You can strengthen your case extremely well by simply telling the best version of the truth While Julia discusses interviews in this post, it is equally relevant to engaging in discussion with recruiters or hiring managers: https://jvns.ca/blog/2014/02/03/sounding-confident-in-interviews/ https://jvns.ca/blog/2014/02/03/sounding-confident-in-interv...
tptacek 1y ago
This could not be less true and I really wish people would stop spreading this idea, because it's costing other people lots of money. In fact, the Venn diagram mapping "software celebrities" like Patrick and expert negotiators has not much overlap at all. You've never heard of some of the best-compensated developers I know (and they don't work on "celebrity" projects, either); meanwhile, I can think of multiple "celebrities" who have gotten extremely raw deals --- one, for instance, was brought in to lead engineering & R&D at a security company working against organized crime, and didn't even get any equity. Patrick is right: compensation is much more about negotiating skill than it is about reputation or (especially) notoriety, holding everything else equal.
- antonymoose 1y ago
  When is the last time you had to negotiate a salary for a standard software firm?
  - tptacek 1y ago
    At the job I have now. I'm not a founder here. I don't know what your point is, though, because I'm not talking about me.
- rl1987 1y ago
  Does this sort of stuff still work for people who can do Python or Javascript just as well as thousands of others? I expect most companies today to simply stop talking to a typical candidate if they refused to tell their number first.
  - joshuacc 1y ago
    I’ve never provided a number first. I’ve also never been dropped from interviews or negotiations because of that. I’m an expert in my specialty now, but I wasn’t when I started following Patrick’s advice.
closeparen 1y ago
L5 at FAANG and adjacent companies (Airbnb, Uber, Stripe, Block, Databricks, etc) is a rank and file, employee number 12887 rule. Yet it is compensated in the mid six figures, and the ranges are easily more than $100k wide. Position in the range depends on a number of factors, famously stock market timing is a big one, but competing offers and negotiation are certainly in there.
psanford 1y ago
One of the key points to patio11's article is that there is only upside to negotiation with no downside. You are basically saying: negotiation doesn't work so why bother. Please stop. I once negotiated a large raise at a job where afterwards my boss told me that he could not have justified giving me that raise on his own, but because I asked for it he was able to make the case. Negotiating often works. It has no downside for you (besides making you feel uncomfortable) and major upsides that last well beyond your current role.
- SilasX 1y ago
  That’s just not true. They can withdraw the offer when you try to negotiate it. It’s bad etiquette, but nothing physically stops them from it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2014/03/13/what-a-philosophy-prof-who-lost-her-job-offer-can-teach-you-about-smart-negotiation/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2014/03/13/wh...
  - __turbobrew__ 1y ago
    If the company withdraws the offer when you negotiate it isn’t worth working there anyways. What happens when you need to negotiate unpaid time off to look after your sick family or you need to have other accommodations?
    - JacobThreeThree 1y ago
      >it isn’t worth working there anyways There is a potential downside, and it's this scenario because things go south.
  - psanford 1y ago
    There is no incentive for companies to do that. Its a thing that could theoretically happen in rare cases but essentially never does in the industry. Read patio11's article on why. I think its telling that you have to reach for a >10 year old article for evidence that this is an actual risk.
spike021 1y ago
the people who can negotiate, especially when changing jobs, are almost always the ones who can get multiple offers. i'm usually lucky if i can get one offer when interviewing. no room to negotiate that way...
jstummbillig 1y ago
I would find this less confusing of a top comment, if it did not ignore vital information and advice that already is in Patricks piece (and apparently ignored, even after having seen it "a number of times"?). To anyone agreeing with this position, I would recommend giving it another read. Which is not to say that this advice must lead to a raise for everyone who reads it, but if your current assessment of the piece is "this only works for super stars" then you have definitely not really ingested the ideas offered (but you might be making excuses for why that is).
dan-robertson 1y ago
Maybe this is a stupid question, but it wasn’t clear to me reading your comment: how many times did you attempt negotiation and have it fail in roughly the way you describe?
xondono 1y ago
I’m hardly a “Captain”, and I’ve successfully negotiated salary increases several times. The only thing you need is leverage, and yes, rank-and-file are not going to have a lot of leverage at a FAANG. You can’t negotiate if you’re not willing to let the job go through.
scarface_74 1y ago
I’m not a captain of industry by any means but I’m very credentialed in my niche of AWS cloud consulting specializing in app development since 2023 - 7 years of experience, 3.5 years working at AWS (Professional Services) open source contributions and a major contributor to popular official open source “AWS Solutions” in a certain niche and much more experience in general app dev - and I was not able to negotiate more than 5-10% for certain opportunities and some I couldn’t push them for more money at all. My comp is good for non FAANG especially seeing that I work remotely in a non HCOL no state tax city. But it’s hard for normies to do significant negotiations. I also have “unlimited PTO” and fully plan to take 20-25 days at least.
teaearlgraycold 1y ago
I have never not successfully negotiated a comp over up since I was 19. Even for college jobs I’d at least get an extra $1/hr. The rest vary from small bumps up $50k extra from Google without a competing offer. Maybe we’re just living in different worlds.
joshuacc 1y ago
I’m not a celebrity or superstar, and I’ve successfully used his techniques several times. The very first time it resulted in $20k improvement over the initial salary offer. Another time it resulted in an additional $40k in signing bonus. Most recently it resulted in a modest $5k boost to the offered salary. But the level of success you are likely to experience entirely depends on the alternatives that you have and the alternatives they have. (I should also note that I’ve never been located anywhere like SF.)
g9yuayon 1y ago
That’s why Patrick said it helps to have a strong reputation going in. Still, you can absolutely negotiate—just make sure you have real leverage. That usually means a competing offer from another solid company (ideally a competitor). Keep this in mind: it’s really hard for companies to hire good engineers. The onsite-to-offer ratio might be 20:1 or worse. So when a recruiter says they’ll just move on to the next candidate, they’re probably bluffing. But what if they do have 20 people lined up? Then you don’t have leverage with that company—and that’s fine. Take the offer if it’s good enough, or walk and try elsewhere. P.S., a fun anecdote: when Netflix was extending an offer to a renowned engineer, he brought his PR to negotiate. Apparently, it worked well for him. P.P.S, always interview for a higher title. I get it — it’s tough with hot companies like OpenAI. But for most places, it’s worth a shot. At the very least, don’t aim lower than your current level. It’s funny how the human mind works—interviewers anchor their expectations to your title. And ironically, a senior engineer interview is often just as hard as a staff-level one. If you’re feeling cynical, just remember: title inflation is real and everywhere, and plenty of high-level ICs are great at navigating politics, drawing boxes, and sounding confident, but not necessarily skilled at offering real values like solving hard engineering problems. So if you can’t beat the game, why not play it?
gosub100 1y ago
They profit from turning you away because after the Nth person turns down their low-ball salary they can use this to justify bringing in more H1B workers because "we just can't find enough candidates for this position". They hire an H1B who happily works for 0.8X and decreases the average that much more.
Aurornis 1y ago
Some perspective from the employer side of salary negotiations: It’s not hard to recognize when someone is following the patio11 salary negotiation guide after you recognize the pattern. In my case I was already advocating for upper end pay packages for people joining us. One thing you learn quickly is that despite all the Internet talk about having a BATNA or putting companies in a bidding war against each other is that the majority of candidates really don’t have other options to even compare against. Combine this with the one-size-fits-all salary negotiation advice and a problem arises: The only way they can feel like they’ve won the negotiation is to fight for some arbitrary increase and then have the company give it to them. My mistake early on was trying to give people the best possible offer out of the gate that I could possibly justify. Many people took it because it was a big raise for them or they understood what we had discussed. However, you could tell when someone was reading a compensation negotiation guide because it was like the number did not actually matter. The only thing they cared about was getting something extra added on top of it. Some people would be so tunnel visioned on this idea of getting the extra bump that they’d threaten to walk from an excellent offer over something trivial like a $5K bump So what’s the strategy? You start holding back that last little bit of your budget for the inevitable up negotiation round, then you give it to them when they do their negotiating script that the internet guide told them to follow. If the person doesn’t negotiate, you then surprise them with it as bonus plan or something similar. It works, but I hated it. Eventually you get a feel for who’s likely to play the negotiation script and who was not, so you could somewhat predict it most of the time.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  What are the predictors?
- octo888 1y ago
  > One thing you learn quickly is that despite all the Internet talk about having a BATNA or putting companies in a bidding war against each other is that the majority of candidates really don’t have other options to even compare against. You also "learned" this by your company themselves making it hard for candidates to have multiple offers, as you seemed to imply in another comment that you shorten the timeline near the end (after no doubt having a long application and interview process, which I'm sure is rationalised as industry standard) to prevent multiple offers ("we need to move on to the next candidate quickly") And even had the audacity to say that people who want to extend the process aren't serious, knowing full well most companies drag on the application and interviewing process for weeks and months. It's all just power dynamics and everything else is nonsense I'm not sure we need HR PR on this site, on this post about trying to bump salary, in this very tough climate.
slt2021 1y ago
be ready to walk away from their offer. Thats the only secret for negotiations, there is no other secret sauce. >Them: The offer is for $X. You: Thank you, but I will continue my final interview process with [CompetitorA] and [CompetitorB] >Them: How much more money do you want to accept our offer and terminate interview process with our main competitors? You: Add Y% and I will sign the job offer right now. This approach doesn't require you to lie, or photoshop fake offer letter (like some bad people advice on places like Blind), and doesn't require you to arrange a direct bidding war - all are huge red flags for any employer. Again: Be honest and upfront, full integrity, never lie, dont make it about money, but rather about the mission of the job
amy214 1y ago
Where I work, there are basically set pay levels that one isn't allowed to fiddle with all that much, all the way to the CEO This way, you don't get outlier high salaries for strong negotiators (which causes hurt feelings down the road for weaker negotiators), nor low salaries for weaker negotiators. Downside if someone pushes negotiation, there's basically no wiggle room. And the salaries themselves are a bit on the generous side of fair, so if someone thinks they're worth more, they're welcome to prove it because they probably aren't aligned with market rates.
patio11 1y ago
As I note frequently, I have a small pile of thank you letters as a result of the negotiation piece. Very few are written by people with an outsized public profile. How many people do you think would hit that bar in the industry? Hundreds? I have hundreds of letters with numbers attached to them to say nothing of how many people simply negotiate, get the comp bump, and do not feel the need to email me about it.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I don't know what to say... I'm not going to argue with your thank you letters, I'm sure your advice has helped many people! Somehow this became one of my most highly upvoted comments ever on HN, so my view of it seems to also be striking home for a lot of us. I'm not trying to say all that matters an outsized profile. I agree that if you have that rare intersection of: 1. acing the interview, 2. a strong background with well-known companies, and 3. (critically) are job-hunting during a hiring bull market, to the point where the company cannot pick-and-choose, and they feel they must hire you, then sure, negotiation will bear some fruit. OR, if you managed to get multiple offers. I think a lot of us have never seen either of those situations.
ludicity 1y ago
McKenzie's advice has worked for me every single time. I've managed 10% to 20% at every job since graduating (sometimes with leadership bending a lot of rules for it). This was before I started writing my blog. There are jobs where I suspect I couldn't get a raise, but they're all roles where I would be unable to differentiate myself from a commodified ultra-scrub engineer (think the cheap labour you get from generic Azure consultancies).

sokoloff 1y ago

If you don't have a strong BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), you're not going to get very far with just asking. "I received your offer for $X. I really enjoyed the interviews, meeting the team, and am intrigued by the problems I'd get to solve with them. Unfortunately, I have a competing offer for $1.25X from another company and I need to make sure my family is provided for. If you would match it, I'm excited to join, but if your offer is firm at $X, I'm afraid I won't be taking it." If they really just need someone to hold down a chair, they'll probably not budge. If they really want specifically you, they're more likely to bend if they believe that's their only move.

ryandrake 1y ago
Basically correct. I guess my point is Patrick could have saved a lot of typing and simply wrote "Have one or more competing offers."
- jt2190 1y ago
  Do you consider yourself an _excellent_ negotiator already? It really feels like you’re trying to suggest that negotiation can’t ever work for anyone except a handful of celebrities, even for those who are excellent negotiators. Someone’s already asking about your BATNA, and I’m wondering if you negotiate all benefits (amount of time off for example) since your story focused on salary alone.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Based on my results, I am clearly not a skilled negotiator! I have found most companies to be inflexible around everything, from salary to equity to vacation time to health benefits to 401(k). The package is what it is, and if you don't want to take it, you can leave it.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Sure, because you personally aren’t in a place you can just leave it. If you don’t have a good competing alternative offer/option, you’re not negotiating, you’re begging. And chances are, they have alternatives.
    - jt2190 1y ago
      Interesting. I think there’s definitely a “meta-game” that negotiation requires you to prepare in advance if you want success. For example, knowing if the job opening is in a “cost center” or “revenue center” for the company, or how the job is funded. Clearly a well-funded department can offer more salary, and a revenue increasing job can pay more than a cost-savings one, since revenue has no upper bound and savings is bounded. Companies that have high revenue per developer can pay more in general. Companies that have to compete globally for talent have pay more than those that only have to compete in a local market. I can go on but you get the idea.

lnsru 1y ago

I am the 12887 too. Luckily applied at the place in emergency mode and was perfect fit. Negotiated +6%. Yeah! In the second year it was reduced by 3% coupling my bonus to unachievable goals. As someone wrote on HN: it is not their first rodeo. HR knows how to attract and get to the right salary level afterwards. What can I do? Swallowing is the only way. There are no job ads in my area.

marcinzm 1y ago
You still got 3% in a market that’s not in your favor. And likely you’d have had -3% otherwise and not 0%.
Lu2025 1y ago
How about extra vacation time? Does anyone have experience getting it when asked (and actually being able to take that time off)?
- wrsh07 1y ago
  I expect this is one where if you're coming from an Etsy or Google that gives 5 weeks after 5 years of tenure you could negotiate for preservation of that perk, but it seems like it could be challenging depending on your batna (see definition elsewhere in comments)
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  Yes, I once added two extra weeks of vacation time.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  Yes. I was actually offered more vacation time because the company had to pay the recruiter a percentage of my first-year salary, but they didn't have to pay anything if they made increased PTO part of my compensation package. So, we ended up with the salary increase I asked for, with 3 weeks of it paid for by extra vacation.
lostlogin 1y ago
> HR knows how to attract and get to the right salary level afterwards. This has to be the key point. They do this all the time as part of their job. You do it every few years, or maybe every decade. Of course they are better at it.

whiplash451 1y ago

You indeed have little to no leverage if you don't have a better offer elsewhere. Was true in 2012, remains true today.

Ifkaluva 1y ago

In my experience the only thing that works is competing offers.

acrooks 1y ago

There are two fundamental ways to win a negotiation. By "win", I mean achieve an outcome outside the norm, such as an above market rate salary. 1. Negotiate from a position of strength You pointed out a couple of these, like when you have a strong personal brand (like Patrick) or when the market dynamics favour employees. The former is not something you can control so, when the market is in this place, you should take advantage of it to propel yourself. However, the former is completely within your control. You can spend some time and effort building a personal brand. Many people discount the value of a brand and the effort spent building one, but it totally works. I have marketing-savvy friends who, since early in their career as juniors, spent a lot of time on LinkedIn thought leadership & brand building. And it totally works. In fact, I have one such friend who was recently part of a restructuring layoff (i.e., not related to performance). Because of the brand they built, once they posted about the layoff on LinkedIn, they had 12 offers within a week all higher than their previous salary. Another area where you can gain leverage is when you already work at a company that wants to retain you. The only time a business will bend over backwards for an employee is when the conversation is about retention. To make the conversation about retention you need to be completely willing to walk, and your negotiating position is strengthened if you have counter offers. To maintain your political capital (which will be important if you stay) you need to be careful about how you play this game. I've worked with people in the past who approached the business confrontationally, saying "if you don't give me $X, I quit" - that strategy only works once. But there are ways to structure this conversation where you don't leave a bad taste in anybody's mouth. 2. Care about something different than your counterpart Often the person you're negotiating with cares the most about optimising certain metrics. You should try to spend some time figuring out what those metrics are and see if there is something different that makes a difference in your life. e.g., your employer might be really under the gun about managing fixed salaries. This is very common in a lot of businesses to try to manage their headcount. So they might be more willing to give you a $50k cash bonus compared to a $25k salary increase. Or maybe they're more open to an extra week or two of vacation vs. salary. This phenomenon has been really helpful for me in the last year. I run my own business, but my business is fully bootstrapped, so I don't have a board or any investors to please. As a result, I'm not as motivated by ARR as other SaaS companies. Sometimes I encounter customers who would rather pay me a 3-4x one-time fee instead of ARR. By making these deals I immediately guarantee what would have otherwise been four years of cash (potentially with a cancellation risk during the term). A VC-funded SaaS business would almost never make a deal like this, because such a deal would not have a material impact on valuation. Another example - I was moving recently and sold some furniture. I was chatting with somebody who was an optometrist who wanted to buy a few things, which I listed at $200. They offered $100. I countered, asking for the right to use their employee discount, and ended up getting $500 in value. So you should also spend some time trying to figure out what your negotiation counterpart cares about. Maybe there is an arbitrage where you can both get exactly what you want, instead of needing to find an outcome where one person wins and the other one loses.

setheron 1y ago

If you say a number, even 1.5x you've already lost. Replying with either yes (accept) or no are the only two responses that work.

shepherdjerred 1y ago

I didn't try to negotiate my first job (I was just happy to be employed, especially at AWS) My two jobs since I've been able to get more by... just asking for more, even without competing offers.

whatshisface 1y ago

You really have one option per scenario over a total of two scenarios as #12887, and they are "yes I will take this job," and "if you want me to leave my present employer, you would have to offer more than my current salary."

systemf_omega 1y ago

You don't have to be a star programmer, fame isn't the only form of leverage. If you're in demand, and you're good at what you do, the road is paved for you. Top companies have already set the bar. Them: we offer 250k-350k Me: I don't consider anything below 500 The answers I get vary. Some tell me to politely fvck off. Some tell me they need to discuss with leadership. Some just go for it because they know how hard it is to fill that role. The justification is simple: why would I take a job with you if I can land an HFT gig at twice the pay?

dcsan 1y ago
You had me until HFT...
- systemf_omega 1y ago
  Doesn't have to be finance. AI can pay just as well. Tech too depending on seniority.
deadbabe 1y ago
The proliferation of AI and LLMs has completely obliterated leverage. Don’t want the job for the salary offered? Too bad. Hire a cheaper person armed to the teeth with the best LLM coding tools and move on. Unless you’re coming in with significant clout that will move revenue and relations to bridge partnerships across other companies, you will not be worth the extra $250k on skills alone.
- systemf_omega 1y ago
  That's what bottom-tier companies always tell me. Last decade it used to be outsourcing. I was getting low balled left and right with phrases like "I can pay a guy from Asia a lot less for the same work". Now it's LLMs. Same old.
  - deadbabe 1y ago
    Except now it’s for real.

itronitron 1y ago

I'm curious what your thoughts are on the "salary expectations" question in the initial phone screen or first stage. In my experience, I have never been asked that question and then moved onto the next step in the process, regardless of whether or how I answer the question. So I am left thinking they are just collecting salary metrics for the position.

whiplash451 1y ago
Never (ever) respond to this question early in the process. The company is just collecting market data. Tell them that the salary should be negotiated at the end if the process is successful. If they tell you "but we need this to make sure we're not wasting your time and ours", tell them "well give me a range for what you can do and I'll tell you if you're wasting my time"
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
sokoloff 1y ago
Interviewing while employed, I’ll happily give my “I’m not considering anything lower than <this>” number in the first 15 minutes of discussion. I’m not interested in spending more time without general alignment on that. The few times early on that I didn’t do that, it was a giant waste of time. If I was interviewing from a position where I needed a job soon, I would be less inclined to be that upfront, of course.
llama_boy 1y ago
I've always said "I'm more interested in finding the right role, than I am in the salary, and I am sure we can come to an agreement if we feel it's a good fit". If they push further than that, I ask what sort of range they are looking at to make sure we're broadly aligned and not wasting each others time.

wrsh07 1y ago

I actually strongly disagree with this take and 1) after reading the original post immediately linked it to a friend who had an outstanding offer. She got a significant raise from fairly light negotiating 2) personally, I don't think of myself as a particularly aggressive negotiator. However, I have been able to truthfully discuss compensation using the tactics described with recruiters to get leveling and comp where I've wanted it to be for my last couple of jobs. Yes, I always had multiple offers. That's part of negotiating. More generally, though, I think spending 30+ minutes (reading the piece and more) thinking about negotiating has helped me build a better mental model for what to bring to the table.

whiplash451 1y ago
> She got a significant raise from fairly light negotiating Either she had a competing offer, or the company she is interviewing for has weak processes. A company yielding "a significant raise from fairly light negotiating" is very worrying IMO. Think about it: what does that tell you about the next newcomer that will come after you?
- wrsh07 1y ago
  It was a different era, she was a particularly strong candidate and they had given a low-ball offer. I don't think she had a competing offer fwiw (Less process is normal at smaller orgs, so that's also something to consider)
- throwaway290 1y ago
  > Either she had a competing offer, or the company she is interviewing for has weak processes Or she had no competing offers but said she had competing offers ;)
  - wrsh07 1y ago
    Fwiw, I would discourage lying or fraud (which you will inevitably turn to when they ask you for the redacted offer letter including the offer numbers) during an interview process You can strengthen your case extremely well by simply telling the best version of the truth While Julia discusses interviews in this post, it is equally relevant to engaging in discussion with recruiters or hiring managers: https://jvns.ca/blog/2014/02/03/sounding-confident-in-interviews/ https://jvns.ca/blog/2014/02/03/sounding-confident-in-interv...

tptacek 1y ago

This could not be less true and I really wish people would stop spreading this idea, because it's costing other people lots of money. In fact, the Venn diagram mapping "software celebrities" like Patrick and expert negotiators has not much overlap at all. You've never heard of some of the best-compensated developers I know (and they don't work on "celebrity" projects, either); meanwhile, I can think of multiple "celebrities" who have gotten extremely raw deals --- one, for instance, was brought in to lead engineering & R&D at a security company working against organized crime, and didn't even get any equity. Patrick is right: compensation is much more about negotiating skill than it is about reputation or (especially) notoriety, holding everything else equal.

antonymoose 1y ago
When is the last time you had to negotiate a salary for a standard software firm?
- tptacek 1y ago
  At the job I have now. I'm not a founder here. I don't know what your point is, though, because I'm not talking about me.
rl1987 1y ago
Does this sort of stuff still work for people who can do Python or Javascript just as well as thousands of others? I expect most companies today to simply stop talking to a typical candidate if they refused to tell their number first.
- joshuacc 1y ago
  I’ve never provided a number first. I’ve also never been dropped from interviews or negotiations because of that. I’m an expert in my specialty now, but I wasn’t when I started following Patrick’s advice.

closeparen 1y ago

L5 at FAANG and adjacent companies (Airbnb, Uber, Stripe, Block, Databricks, etc) is a rank and file, employee number 12887 rule. Yet it is compensated in the mid six figures, and the ranges are easily more than $100k wide. Position in the range depends on a number of factors, famously stock market timing is a big one, but competing offers and negotiation are certainly in there.

psanford 1y ago

One of the key points to patio11's article is that there is only upside to negotiation with no downside. You are basically saying: negotiation doesn't work so why bother. Please stop. I once negotiated a large raise at a job where afterwards my boss told me that he could not have justified giving me that raise on his own, but because I asked for it he was able to make the case. Negotiating often works. It has no downside for you (besides making you feel uncomfortable) and major upsides that last well beyond your current role.

SilasX 1y ago
That’s just not true. They can withdraw the offer when you try to negotiate it. It’s bad etiquette, but nothing physically stops them from it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2014/03/13/what-a-philosophy-prof-who-lost-her-job-offer-can-teach-you-about-smart-negotiation/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2014/03/13/wh...
- __turbobrew__ 1y ago
  If the company withdraws the offer when you negotiate it isn’t worth working there anyways. What happens when you need to negotiate unpaid time off to look after your sick family or you need to have other accommodations?
  - JacobThreeThree 1y ago
    >it isn’t worth working there anyways There is a potential downside, and it's this scenario because things go south.
- psanford 1y ago
  There is no incentive for companies to do that. Its a thing that could theoretically happen in rare cases but essentially never does in the industry. Read patio11's article on why. I think its telling that you have to reach for a >10 year old article for evidence that this is an actual risk.

spike021 1y ago

the people who can negotiate, especially when changing jobs, are almost always the ones who can get multiple offers. i'm usually lucky if i can get one offer when interviewing. no room to negotiate that way...

jstummbillig 1y ago

I would find this less confusing of a top comment, if it did not ignore vital information and advice that already is in Patricks piece (and apparently ignored, even after having seen it "a number of times"?). To anyone agreeing with this position, I would recommend giving it another read. Which is not to say that this advice must lead to a raise for everyone who reads it, but if your current assessment of the piece is "this only works for super stars" then you have definitely not really ingested the ideas offered (but you might be making excuses for why that is).

dan-robertson 1y ago

Maybe this is a stupid question, but it wasn’t clear to me reading your comment: how many times did you attempt negotiation and have it fail in roughly the way you describe?

xondono 1y ago

I’m hardly a “Captain”, and I’ve successfully negotiated salary increases several times. The only thing you need is leverage, and yes, rank-and-file are not going to have a lot of leverage at a FAANG. You can’t negotiate if you’re not willing to let the job go through.

scarface_74 1y ago

I’m not a captain of industry by any means but I’m very credentialed in my niche of AWS cloud consulting specializing in app development since 2023 - 7 years of experience, 3.5 years working at AWS (Professional Services) open source contributions and a major contributor to popular official open source “AWS Solutions” in a certain niche and much more experience in general app dev - and I was not able to negotiate more than 5-10% for certain opportunities and some I couldn’t push them for more money at all. My comp is good for non FAANG especially seeing that I work remotely in a non HCOL no state tax city. But it’s hard for normies to do significant negotiations. I also have “unlimited PTO” and fully plan to take 20-25 days at least.

teaearlgraycold 1y ago

I have never not successfully negotiated a comp over up since I was 19. Even for college jobs I’d at least get an extra $1/hr. The rest vary from small bumps up $50k extra from Google without a competing offer. Maybe we’re just living in different worlds.

joshuacc 1y ago

I’m not a celebrity or superstar, and I’ve successfully used his techniques several times. The very first time it resulted in $20k improvement over the initial salary offer. Another time it resulted in an additional $40k in signing bonus. Most recently it resulted in a modest $5k boost to the offered salary. But the level of success you are likely to experience entirely depends on the alternatives that you have and the alternatives they have. (I should also note that I’ve never been located anywhere like SF.)

g9yuayon 1y ago

That’s why Patrick said it helps to have a strong reputation going in. Still, you can absolutely negotiate—just make sure you have real leverage. That usually means a competing offer from another solid company (ideally a competitor). Keep this in mind: it’s really hard for companies to hire good engineers. The onsite-to-offer ratio might be 20:1 or worse. So when a recruiter says they’ll just move on to the next candidate, they’re probably bluffing. But what if they do have 20 people lined up? Then you don’t have leverage with that company—and that’s fine. Take the offer if it’s good enough, or walk and try elsewhere. P.S., a fun anecdote: when Netflix was extending an offer to a renowned engineer, he brought his PR to negotiate. Apparently, it worked well for him. P.P.S, always interview for a higher title. I get it — it’s tough with hot companies like OpenAI. But for most places, it’s worth a shot. At the very least, don’t aim lower than your current level. It’s funny how the human mind works—interviewers anchor their expectations to your title. And ironically, a senior engineer interview is often just as hard as a staff-level one. If you’re feeling cynical, just remember: title inflation is real and everywhere, and plenty of high-level ICs are great at navigating politics, drawing boxes, and sounding confident, but not necessarily skilled at offering real values like solving hard engineering problems. So if you can’t beat the game, why not play it?

gosub100 1y ago

They profit from turning you away because after the Nth person turns down their low-ball salary they can use this to justify bringing in more H1B workers because "we just can't find enough candidates for this position". They hire an H1B who happily works for 0.8X and decreases the average that much more.

Aurornis 1y ago

Some perspective from the employer side of salary negotiations: It’s not hard to recognize when someone is following the patio11 salary negotiation guide after you recognize the pattern. In my case I was already advocating for upper end pay packages for people joining us. One thing you learn quickly is that despite all the Internet talk about having a BATNA or putting companies in a bidding war against each other is that the majority of candidates really don’t have other options to even compare against. Combine this with the one-size-fits-all salary negotiation advice and a problem arises: The only way they can feel like they’ve won the negotiation is to fight for some arbitrary increase and then have the company give it to them. My mistake early on was trying to give people the best possible offer out of the gate that I could possibly justify. Many people took it because it was a big raise for them or they understood what we had discussed. However, you could tell when someone was reading a compensation negotiation guide because it was like the number did not actually matter. The only thing they cared about was getting something extra added on top of it. Some people would be so tunnel visioned on this idea of getting the extra bump that they’d threaten to walk from an excellent offer over something trivial like a $5K bump So what’s the strategy? You start holding back that last little bit of your budget for the inevitable up negotiation round, then you give it to them when they do their negotiating script that the internet guide told them to follow. If the person doesn’t negotiate, you then surprise them with it as bonus plan or something similar. It works, but I hated it. Eventually you get a feel for who’s likely to play the negotiation script and who was not, so you could somewhat predict it most of the time.

mlrtime 1y ago
What are the predictors?
octo888 1y ago
> One thing you learn quickly is that despite all the Internet talk about having a BATNA or putting companies in a bidding war against each other is that the majority of candidates really don’t have other options to even compare against. You also "learned" this by your company themselves making it hard for candidates to have multiple offers, as you seemed to imply in another comment that you shorten the timeline near the end (after no doubt having a long application and interview process, which I'm sure is rationalised as industry standard) to prevent multiple offers ("we need to move on to the next candidate quickly") And even had the audacity to say that people who want to extend the process aren't serious, knowing full well most companies drag on the application and interviewing process for weeks and months. It's all just power dynamics and everything else is nonsense I'm not sure we need HR PR on this site, on this post about trying to bump salary, in this very tough climate.

slt2021 1y ago

be ready to walk away from their offer. Thats the only secret for negotiations, there is no other secret sauce. >Them: The offer is for $X. You: Thank you, but I will continue my final interview process with [CompetitorA] and [CompetitorB] >Them: How much more money do you want to accept our offer and terminate interview process with our main competitors? You: Add Y% and I will sign the job offer right now. This approach doesn't require you to lie, or photoshop fake offer letter (like some bad people advice on places like Blind), and doesn't require you to arrange a direct bidding war - all are huge red flags for any employer. Again: Be honest and upfront, full integrity, never lie, dont make it about money, but rather about the mission of the job

amy214 1y ago

Where I work, there are basically set pay levels that one isn't allowed to fiddle with all that much, all the way to the CEO This way, you don't get outlier high salaries for strong negotiators (which causes hurt feelings down the road for weaker negotiators), nor low salaries for weaker negotiators. Downside if someone pushes negotiation, there's basically no wiggle room. And the salaries themselves are a bit on the generous side of fair, so if someone thinks they're worth more, they're welcome to prove it because they probably aren't aligned with market rates.

patio11 1y ago

As I note frequently, I have a small pile of thank you letters as a result of the negotiation piece. Very few are written by people with an outsized public profile. How many people do you think would hit that bar in the industry? Hundreds? I have hundreds of letters with numbers attached to them to say nothing of how many people simply negotiate, get the comp bump, and do not feel the need to email me about it.

ryandrake 1y ago
Thanks for the reply. I don't know what to say... I'm not going to argue with your thank you letters, I'm sure your advice has helped many people! Somehow this became one of my most highly upvoted comments ever on HN, so my view of it seems to also be striking home for a lot of us. I'm not trying to say all that matters an outsized profile. I agree that if you have that rare intersection of: 1. acing the interview, 2. a strong background with well-known companies, and 3. (critically) are job-hunting during a hiring bull market, to the point where the company cannot pick-and-choose, and they feel they must hire you, then sure, negotiation will bear some fruit. OR, if you managed to get multiple offers. I think a lot of us have never seen either of those situations.

ludicity 1y ago

McKenzie's advice has worked for me every single time. I've managed 10% to 20% at every job since graduating (sometimes with leadership bending a lot of rules for it). This was before I started writing my blog. There are jobs where I suspect I couldn't get a raise, but they're all roles where I would be unable to differentiate myself from a commodified ultra-scrub engineer (think the cheap labour you get from generic Azure consultancies).