3 ms·

You are doing something wrong, make sure to anchor a high salary early on.

potatolicious 13y ago
I have. The problem has always been the onerous approval chain in big companies, or crappy recruiters who fill the offer with discretionary bonuses that add up to my asking price. With startups I can actually negotiate and get results. With big companies every major hike in the offer needs to go through a long approval chain. In a few instances I've been off the market by the time they came back to me. I've also had less jerking around with the aforementioned bonus structures from startups. With big companies I've consistently gotten "$Y base plus up to $Z discretionary", where Y + Z adds up to my asking. I've taken one such offer before and gotten completely shafted (i.e., highly positive performance review, bonus nowhere to be found). Startups are much, much more willing to simply pay my asking salary as base. My impression with big companies is that their recruiters are their greatest liability. I've had recruiters ask for my salary be lowered because they're paying for my move. No thanks, I know exactly how much a move costs and it's nowhere near the (permanent! not one time!) reduction in salary. Things like that make a negotiation go south quickly. When it comes to smaller companies I've never been treated by HR/recruitment like I was born yesterday, whereas that experience is the norm with big companies.
- brosco45 13y ago
  Ah, ios/mobile. That is the one place where the big companies are underpaying because most of them don't need mobile apps. I heard of 200/300k for iOS devs though, so keep looking :)
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    At the time I was still working in backend. I also have no complaints about my pay ;) But my experiences with big companies have left with me little desire to talk to them. It's always been a frustrating experience full of low-ball offers and treating me like an idiot. Every time I've dealt with big-company salary negotiations it's felt like buying a used car. "Oh, we absolutely cannot go higher than that ceiling" "Welp, sorry then" "No wait, we talked to our VP..." - startups (or really, just smaller companies) have always been much more transparent and much more direct in their dealings.

I have. The problem has always been the onerous approval chain in big companies, or crappy recruiters who fill the offer with discretionary bonuses that add up to my asking price. With startups I can actually negotiate and get results. With big companies every major hike in the offer needs to go through a long approval chain. In a few instances I've been off the market by the time they came back to me. I've also had less jerking around with the aforementioned bonus structures from startups. With big companies I've consistently gotten "$Y base plus up to $Z discretionary", where Y + Z adds up to my asking. I've taken one such offer before and gotten completely shafted (i.e., highly positive performance review, bonus nowhere to be found). Startups are much, much more willing to simply pay my asking salary as base. My impression with big companies is that their recruiters are their greatest liability. I've had recruiters ask for my salary be lowered because they're paying for my move. No thanks, I know exactly how much a move costs and it's nowhere near the (permanent! not one time!) reduction in salary. Things like that make a negotiation go south quickly. When it comes to smaller companies I've never been treated by HR/recruitment like I was born yesterday, whereas that experience is the norm with big companies.

brosco45 13y ago
Ah, ios/mobile. That is the one place where the big companies are underpaying because most of them don't need mobile apps. I heard of 200/300k for iOS devs though, so keep looking :)
- potatolicious 13y ago
  At the time I was still working in backend. I also have no complaints about my pay ;) But my experiences with big companies have left with me little desire to talk to them. It's always been a frustrating experience full of low-ball offers and treating me like an idiot. Every time I've dealt with big-company salary negotiations it's felt like buying a used car. "Oh, we absolutely cannot go higher than that ceiling" "Welp, sorry then" "No wait, we talked to our VP..." - startups (or really, just smaller companies) have always been much more transparent and much more direct in their dealings.