First, if you are at the 40th percentile for pay (and you are not a 40th percentile worker), even without the other potential job offers, you should have a conv

First, if you are at the 40th percentile for pay (and you are not a 40th percentile worker), even without the other potential job offers, you should have a conversation about increasing your salary. Have you gotten any raises or promotions? If not, or even if you have, you have a case to ask for more. Most companies like to stay in the 3-5% range for typical raises, but if you are under market but are a great employee they want to keep, they can usually go higher, maybe 10%. If you are a little more cutthroat, and have an appetite for risk, you can try the following technique. I have personally used this technique to get raises as high as 21% and 27% from an existing employer. It involves applying for one of these jobs and getting an offer letter in hand, taking that to your current employer and having them match or beat it. You have to be prepared to walk away from your current company if this goes wrong, and you can only do it once at that company. Compared to the more civil way described earlier (which will max out at 10%), this way can get you 20-30%. The risk is that your current employer will refuse to play ball and call your bluff about wanting to leave. Or they may give you the money and try to get rid of you later. If this happens, you will at least have a higher salary to start negotiations when you start searching again. The first time I tried this back when I was a PHP developer making $55k back in 2009. I got a raise to $58k, but I thought I deserved more. I got a job offer for $65k and took it to my employer who matched, but the new job was 20 miles closer to home and had half day Fridays, so I thought my current employer needed to beat the offer. I told the new job I was conflicted, and they increased their offer to $70k, which I accepted. You have to be willing to walk away if you play the counteroffer game.