[HN Gopher] Is Patrick Mackenzie's salary negotiation guide rele...
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Is Patrick Mackenzie's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's
market?
The market has changed a lot since this classic blogpost[1] on
salary negotiation was written. With no specific numbers to back it
up, it feels like demand for generalists SWE has decreased, while
supply has increased by a lot. In this market where every company
out there tries to minimise costs, is there still room for salary
negotiation for generalists that interview with non-FAANG? Do you
have any industry insights or anecdotes to share? [1]
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
Author : sideway
Score : 26 points
Date : 2024-10-30 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Whenever you have more than one offer, there is room for
| negotiation.
| paulcole wrote:
| Even if you have one offer there is room for negotiation if
| you're willing to accept that you might end up with 0 offers.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| In the past I would have said "this" but I've seen a lot of
| people declining good offers for better ones that never
| materialized. Be careful playing chicken if you can't afford
| to.
| joezydeco wrote:
| With the amount of scatterbrained recruiters out there these
| days, what kind of magic does one pull to get multiple offers
| to appear so close together?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| If you make it to an offer, it probably means you are the best of
| the lot. You can always negotiate somewhat. Unless your ask is
| outlandish, they can always say "no, but the offer stands". If
| you ask for 10x what youre offered / marker, that's different of
| course.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There is always room. If a company makes you an offer it means
| thyley want to hire you over every other candidates so far and
| their first offer is unlikely to be the best they can do.
| athesyn wrote:
| It's an employers market, so probably no.
| c2h5oh wrote:
| Not for senior roles it isn't.
| ratedgene wrote:
| Sure it is.
| tomcam wrote:
| I'd like to suggest an alternate method that worked for me. I
| only applied to jobs that 1) I thought I'd enjoy greatly, and
| that 2) I felt my skills could benefit the employer more than
| most other applicants. Generally I didn't get fantastic salary
| jumps but I chose jobs in good companies that didn't cause me too
| much stress. This let me be a better team player.
|
| Over time it meant that I could study for my next job at night
| while still having a good work experience. I am paranoid so I
| always worked close enough to the job that I could bike there if
| necessary, and I saved money for a rainy day. I even chose to
| avoid Silicon Valley because I didn't like the ultracompetitive
| vibe.
|
| I ended up with a big payout from one job that started on the
| path to my own long-term business, but all along the work/life
| balance was excellent.
|
| I'm sure I could have negotiated higher but programmers tend to
| make good money anyhow. Never bothered me when I made $90K but it
| could have been $105K or whatever.
| ljf wrote:
| Clickable link for the lazy
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
| motohagiography wrote:
| It's long for today's attention, but negotiation guides are
| fairly consistent maps of a territory. They teach you it is a way
| to relate and a perspective to start from. It's a way to
| protagonize yourself instead of competing to debase yourself more
| than the next person.
|
| Focus on a high quality agreement and a process that feels good
| independent of the numbers and you will be happy with the result.
| My confidence comes from knowing I challenge myself to do hard
| things, can work effectively while relying on others to scale
| effort, and that I am a peer in high performance environments.
|
| There's a shorter guide that comes from Pfeffer, which is the
| triad of Performance, Credentials, and Relationships, where each
| org weights these differently, and the people whose weighted
| score is highest will prevail. Know the weights in the place
| you're considering, and know how you rank in those areas. Use
| that as confidence to engage in a mutual process of discovery,
| where you are working together to find the best quality agreement
| possible. Maybe the best one you find is not what you're looking
| for, but by agreeing to work together to find the best possible
| outcome, you're already negotiating.
| sideway wrote:
| Thank you for your reply. I'm not a native speaker and find
| your writing style quite intriguing, which always makes me
| wonder "what does this person read?". Could you suggest a
| couple of your favourite books?
|
| Apologies for this public private message, there seems to be no
| contact info in your profile.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Not sure but if Trump wins and turns H1B visas on its head again,
| we might see a reversal.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The only thing that really matters is that you can casually say
| no, and that you have multiple options.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| Your most powerful tool in negotiation is the ability to say no.
| That comes when you have competing offers.
| chomp wrote:
| Ok yes this guide is fine, a lot of things are up for
| negotiation, and I think it's a lot more widely known these days
| to negotiate for stuff.
|
| But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not
| grok negotiating. They know it's something you're supposed to do,
| but they will try and negotiate things that are not negotiable
| (like making it a hard ask for extra contributions per paycheck
| for healthcare to match their former employer, rather than just
| ask for more money to cover the difference) or they'll make
| demands for things we already offer if they had just paid
| attention and read the benefits packet we emailed them, and it
| takes a bunch of back and forth to figure out what they're asking
| for (nothing, in the end). Or they'll ask for weird PTO accrual
| and cash out schemes that just leaves us asking "why didn't you
| just ask for more cash and more PTO up front because now HR is
| pulling people into meetings to try and figure out this demand".
|
| People need more than knowing to negotiate, they need to know how
| to negotiate, and that means partially knowing what is
| negotiable. (We'll change a lot actually in negotiations, but not
| everything)
| Aeolun wrote:
| > People need more than knowing to negotiate, they need to know
| how to negotiate, and that means partially knowing what is
| negotiable.
|
| Everything is negotiable. Some things are just easier than
| others. Besides, did you tell them up front what was
| negotiable, or did you just kinda expect them to figure it out?
| kylehg wrote:
| I think the overall thrust of the article -- "always try to
| negotiate, try to get better at it, it's low-downside and high
| upside" -- is still very relevant and I frequently share it with
| friends interviewing even today.
|
| Some specific things haven't aged well from this article in my
| recent experience:
|
| 1. Many companies have comp bands advertised and enforced by
| local law, and even outside of this many have implemented more
| regimented/structured comp in an attempt to reduce bias. 2.
| Relatedly I've seen more companies take a "no negotiation"
| policy, especially for more junior roles. 3. The market overall
| is much more an employer's market and is not growing as quickly,
| so the median SWE has less leverage.
|
| I think the biggest impact of these changes is that the cost of
| not negotiating has become lower, and consequently the upside to
| negotiation is less, especially if you don't have competing
| offers or are more junior.
|
| That said: competing offers is still the single most effective
| negotiation tool, as others have said. I've seen companies be
| relatively inflexible on cash comp but highly flexible on equity
| comp, which tends to not be required as part of job listing
| bands, and becomes the lion's share of comp as you get more
| senior. And often there are carve-outs of matching offers.
|
| TL;DR: Still worth a read, but many of the specifics need
| discounting.
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