[HN Gopher] Salary expectations questions - How should you answe...
___________________________________________________________________
Salary expectations questions - How should you answer them? (2020)
Author : mooreds
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-11-10 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fearlesssalarynegotiation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fearlesssalarynegotiation.com)
| throwaway8754aw wrote:
| I tell recruiters what I want to make from the beginning (my
| first reply to them on LinkedIn or wherever they reach out) yet
| say that's what I'm making now ..how competitive is this
| opportunity?
|
| Either they can match or increase it. If they can the
| conversation continues and the pay is set in stone never to be
| discussed again thru all interview processes.
| dijit wrote:
| Third-Party Recruiters are actually great, they're super
| expensive for the company who you hire through, but they're the
| only people motivated to make sure it's a good fit and are
| neutral on it.
|
| You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you
| somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer, but there's
| something that seems to make this not true, perhaps reputation?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah if they put you in a crappy job or it's not what they
| represented it was, you'll never use them again and you'll
| tell your network not to use them.
|
| They are motivated to place you in a job, since that's how
| they get paid, but they want you to be happy with it.
| wordofx wrote:
| Recruiters only get paid if a candidate stays beyond a period
| of time. If the candidate does not work out the recruiter
| needs to find a replacement. Recruiters won't deal with shit
| people because if they don't stay or are prone to not working
| out they are a burden.
|
| In terms of money it's usually a percentage of the salary. So
| if the recruiter works on 10% then they have incentive to get
| you as much money as possible.
| borplk wrote:
| It's quite logical to think that they have an incentive to
| get you as much money as possible but in reality it's often
| not quite correct. Their stronger incentive is to establish
| a relationship with a business and to continue feeding them
| candidates at an attractive price point for the business.
| The marginal amount of extra commission that they make on
| your increased salary is not that significant.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The incentive is not to make sure you get the most money.
| The incentive is to make sure you get placed fast.
|
| While $200K vs $220K means a lot to you over the course of
| your job, they aren't going to risk losing a placement
| arguing for you to get $20K more so their firm can get $44K
| instead of $40k and the recruiter themselves can get maybe
| 60% of what the firm gets.
|
| There was a famous similar study published in Freakonomics
| about real estate agents.
|
| https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-
| revisite...
| tomp wrote:
| 200 vs 220 is likely noise. The recruiter shouldn't care
| about tha2, and neither should you.
|
| But PS200k vs PS400k is real!
|
| That's the real span for e.g. hedge funds in London.
| Actually, it was a few years ago. Probably more now!
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You shouldn't care about $20K???
|
| In 10 years invested at $20K a year that's 370k at 10%
| returns (about average for the S&P 500).
|
| Thinking like that is how car manufacturers get people to
| pay for useless add ons.
|
| On top of that, raises are usually a percentage of
| current base.
|
| Would you tell someone making $20K not to worry about
| $40K
| killingtime74 wrote:
| you've not heard of tax?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It's called a 401K or HSA...
|
| One is free from federal and state tax up to $23K (well
| $30.5K for me this year - check my username) and one is
| free from Federal, State and FICA up to $4250 if you're
| single or $8500 if married.
|
| That means I can shelter $39K from taxes.
|
| That $20K is over half the allowable amount.
| willseth wrote:
| 20k isn't noise to most people in a 200k salary range.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And with most raises being 3%-4% a year, if you don't
| negotiate that in the beginning, it's going to take 3
| years to reach that amount after you start
| wordofx wrote:
| > The incentive is to make sure you get placed fast.
|
| No. If you place someone and the company has a 3 month
| probation period. If the person does not last past
| probation the recruiter does not get paid.
|
| Unless America is different, this is how it works in
| Europe, Asia, AU/NZ.
|
| The only time this changes is contract work because
| contract work done via a recruiter is the recruiter might
| charge you at $150/hr to the company and pay you $100/hr
| taking $50/hr for himself.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There isn't an official "probationary period" at most
| jobs in the US.
|
| But we are referring to cases where a good candidate
| wants $20k more. The recruiter is more interested in
| convincing a candidate to take the job than negotiating
| hard for them to get $220K.
|
| The candidate especially in this market isn't likely to
| jump ship in a year over $20K
| throwaway8754aw wrote:
| I don't argue as mentioned I tell the recruiters I'm
| making 220k (while really I'm only making $175k for
| example) already forcing them to either not continue the
| conversation if they can't match or they can & the
| conversation continues.
|
| Of course this is done once you have a few years
| experience and aren't really looking. Though recruiters
| on LinkedIn & via email reach out and you can casually
| play the field for fun to potentially giving yourself a
| huge increase. Job jumping is a good way to really boost
| your salary.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| The thing is, they won't get the placement if they don't
| push to get a $220k offer and the other recruiter does.
| It's competitive. It's a better model than real estate
| because you aren't agreed to work with one recruiter.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| But only one recruiter is going to be placing you at that
| job. Two recruiters trying to place you at the same job
| is radioactive to the company. The company has to decide
| who gets the referral money. Lawsuits start happening for
| the one who doesn't get referral money.
|
| Also most companies who do work with external recruiters
| only work with one company
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| _" You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you
| somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer"_
|
| You answered your own question: _" they're super expensive
| for the company who you hire through"_
|
| The person that pays the recruiter money is their _customer_.
| The item their customers pay for is the recruiter 's
| _product_ , which is you.
|
| So the recruiter's reputation does matters to acquire
| additional inventory, but it matters more for their actual
| customers. Selling bad fits to their actual customer, the
| hiring companies, would be business-ending.
|
| It is so important to understand when you are the product and
| when you are the customer.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Only talk about past salary if it was 20% above market.
| dijit wrote:
| Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and
| always pays the max.
|
| I usually ask "what do you expect to be paid" to understand if
| I'll make them happy or sad when discussing what I'll actually
| offer.
|
| This is not foolproof and has caused some issues with people
| coming in as very good negotiators and thinking my inability to
| budge is because I'm being hard-line, when in reality it's
| because- as mentioned, I _always_ offered the max for a role.
|
| The second issue is that not all people are equivalently
| valuable, but I think solving that in the _salary_ is terrible,
| because salary should cover your compensation for responsibility.
| If you have to reward someone valuable then it should probably be
| via bonus ' imo.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think salary + performance bonus is generally a good way to
| go. I've only had one job that did that. The base salary wasn't
| remarkable but there was a bonus that had a component that was
| calculated based on the overall performance of the company that
| year, and a component that recognized individual performance.
| So everyone got a bonus, but high performers got more.
|
| You used to see bonus compensation in most financial companies.
| I'm not sure if that's still the case.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| A former employer did 40% bonuses. It made for a nice holiday
| surprise even when they decided "the company didn't meet
| expectations" and gave everyone half bonus. Eventually they
| decided to "align with market expectations" and
| coincidentally started hemorrhaging staff.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Eventually they decided to "align with market
| expectations" and coincidentally started hemorrhaging
| staff._
|
| At my fist full-time job out of college (non-tech), the
| company gave everyone an extra paycheck as a Christmas
| bonus.
|
| The next year, everyone got half a paycheck as a Christmas
| bonus.
|
| The next year, everyone got a spiral-sliced ham as a
| Christmas bonus.
|
| Before the following Christmas came around, the majority of
| people had gone to the competition across town.
| Fargren wrote:
| > Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and
| always pays the max.
|
| Why don't you disclose the value to the candidate then, rather
| than asking what's their expectation?
| paulddraper wrote:
| Because it helps you position the offer, and emphasize/sell
| certain parts.
|
| Salary, equity, title, working hours, etc.
|
| More information always helps.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Fargren is asking why a recruiter would want to to withhold
| information.
|
| Your answer is "More information always helps." That
| doesn't answer the question.
| itronitron wrote:
| Yeah, the company can tell the candidate the salary they
| will pay for someone in the role. If that doesn't match
| the candidate's needs then the process stops. If the
| candidate's performance during the interviews shows they
| can't function effectively in the role, the process
| stops.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Are you not allowed to disclose salary first? Sorry to be
| blunt, but if you are allowed, then this sounds incredibly
| stupid.
| dijit wrote:
| I can disclose, but when I have people start trying to
| negotiate as if it's a starting position, they get really
| happy with the number and then irreconcilably annoyed when
| they realise the number doesn't change.
|
| Hindsight and looking externally on the situation would have
| you think that you'd react differently, but it's a 5/5 repro
| rate.
|
| If I think the money is enough then I'm quite happy, but if
| they expect more then I have to emphasise other parts of the
| job (remote first structure for example, and flexible working
| hours) - I wouldn't need to do that if their request was
| lower than what I offer.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Why not disclose it and also say "it's not up for any
| negotiation".
| dijit wrote:
| that is exactly how it's presented, I give my methodology
| and how I arrived at the number (market rate in munich +
| 20%) and then give the number with exactly this caveat.
| pm90 wrote:
| Remember that people go by what others do. There is 0
| penalty for lying about the fact that the number is not
| negotiable and so recruiters will do that often. So job
| applicants are conditioned to try to negotiate even if
| told quite clearly that its the "final number".
| em-bee wrote:
| you could post it as a range. from something lower up to
| what you actually intend to offer. or even below that. if
| your goal is to avoid needless negotiations, then after you
| tell them your range, they tell theirs and then you tell
| them the actual offer.
| em-bee wrote:
| someone else replied and then deleted their comment, but i
| think they made an interesting point that i don't agree with.
|
| they said that someone desperate to get a job will accept a
| low offer and keep looking for something better. and by
| asking them for their expectation this could be prevented.
|
| if i am desperate for a job then i am going to give you a
| lower expected number in the hopes that i'll get the job and
| then keep looking anyways.
|
| so no, i don't think asking a desperate candidate will help
| you avoid that problem.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| > If you have to reward someone valuable then it should
| probably be via bonus' imo.
|
| That, and it should be individual, instead of the "based on how
| the company performed" thing many do.
|
| A star engineer who overhauls cuts your server costs in half
| shouldn't get dinged because someone in sales couldn't be
| effective
| slwvx wrote:
| Stacey Vanek Smith wrote "Machiavelli for Women". She said in
| radio interviews about the book that she wanted to put in the
| book the suggestion that if an interviewer asks what you make, an
| interviewee should reply with the real value plus 10%. Apparently
| legal people at her publisher did not allow her to put this in
| the book.
|
| I think it's reasonable to ask what an interviewee expects to
| make, but not reasonable to ask what an interviewee makes now.
| romanows wrote:
| That's fascinating, I wonder why that suggestion would be any
| more dangeous than any other advice. Too bad she didn't just
| put in a footnote describing why she can't suggest asking for
| 10% more.
| phil21 wrote:
| Lying about this these days seems rather risky to me. Some
| employers may not care, but some will.
|
| The Worknumber product from ADP (and it's equiv from Paychex)
| covers a vast range of white collar employees. Perhaps most.
|
| Your new employer has a very good chance of seeing precisely
| what your current salary is down to the paycheck level going
| back years to even verify raises and title changes.
|
| Replying with what you require to make to take the job seems
| like a much safer bet to me.
| analognoise wrote:
| You can opt out of that I think, can't you?
|
| Might be wise to do before you interview.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You can opt out of The Work Number. It's a bit of a
| convoluted process, but not byzantine - I did it a few
| months ago, involves filling out a form by hand and
| scanning it or mailing it, but I did get written
| confirmation that I'd been opted out.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Note that this may make major purchases more complex in
| the future.
|
| You may not remember to opt back in to the "service" a
| certain number of months before you buy a car, for
| example. Then you're stuck either paying a higher
| interest rate because the lender sees you as riskier
| without a trusted method of verifying income, or you have
| to do a bunch of paperwork with the seller or finance
| company may or may not be willing to deal with.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Lying about this these days seems rather risky to me.
| Some employers may not care, but some will_
|
| It doesn't have to be a lie. Between base salary and the
| value of benefits (and expected value of equity) you have a
| wide range of where you can answer what you're paid, what
| your compensation is, what your "take home" is (what does
| that even mean if you're W-2 and 1099?), _et cetera_.
| ripped_britches wrote:
| Bad idea to lie when there are other equally valid negotiation
| tactics available.
|
| I had a job early in my career and they asked to see my W2 from
| my previous employer to validate that my previous job income
| answer was correct and finish onboarding.
|
| Much better to instead have a second competing job offer in
| hand. Clearly that's more competitive than your old job you're
| leaving anyway.
| kmoser wrote:
| Theoretically, what they pay you should have nothing to do
| with your current salary, given that your current salary
| could be anywhere from $0 (e.g. if you're an unpaid intern)
| to INT_MAX (if you're being vastly overpaid).
|
| As a freelancer who gets paid by the hour or by the job, I've
| never been in a position to negotiate salary directly, so I
| wonder how tenable it is to politely decline to answer
| questions about your current salary, given that it may give
| the potential employer more leverage against you.
|
| I equate this to businesses (not you employer but places like
| the cable company) asking for your SSN: they may _want_ it,
| but you are not always legally or morally obligated to
| provide them with it.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| The person getting paid INT_MAX probably fooled a king with
| a chessboard.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| You only have w2 available for previous year. In any case
| employers can pay to Equifax and the like to view your actual
| salary which most payroll processors (including rippling
| starting next year, i think) happily sells to them.
| Apreche wrote:
| I don't know if this is the best advice, but here's what I tell
| prospective employers that ask for my compensation expectations.
|
| I tell them I live in NYC, and with my current compensation I can
| comfortably afford the preposterous rent.
| Uehreka wrote:
| It's very cool that you can get away with that.
| eastbound wrote:
| The real important question is the subsequent one:
|
| -- What are your salary expectations?
|
| -- $X
|
| -- Ok! That means if we propose Y, would you envision it?
|
| -- Yeah, maybe, because I'm out of choice / No because I already
| have an offer at $X-1.
|
| Source: I'm hiring (and yes, Y enters into consideration because
| most candidates overestimate their skills, but I always go for X
| if the candidate is as expected).
| sklivvz1971 wrote:
| > most candidates overestimate their skills
|
| In reality most candidate are just bad at estimating their own
| skills (in both directions) and of course they know almost
| nothing about the match between the skills and the position.
| voytec wrote:
| I've talked to several recruiters and HR people who were prepared
| for quite a different answer than I gave to this question.
|
| I got the feeling that several interviews were carried out
| afterwards out of politeness or because the recruiter "had to" do
| it, but the interview ended before it began. Than, there's either
| ghosting or almost immediate (like up to an hour past the
| interview) copy-paste email along the lines of "we decided to go
| with another candidate".
|
| A few recruiters however were open that they've checked the
| salary for similar position in my country's capital city (Warsaw)
| and it's much lower than what I'm asking. Pointing out 20+ years
| of experience and listing accomplishments seems less important
| for a lot of businesses, than paying as little as possible.
|
| I got a few links to these "check salary for [level] [position]
| in [city]" websites from recruiters. All these seem to be crafted
| in a way that undervalues employees by artificially lowering
| country-wide salaries to ridiculous levels.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Pointing out 20+ years of experience and listing
| accomplishments seems less important for a lot of businesses,
| than paying as little as possible._
|
| If paying as little as possible wasn't that important to them,
| they wouldn't be hiring in Warsaw in the first place, but in
| the Bay Area, Seattle, Zurich, London, Sydney, etc
| dtnewman wrote:
| From my experience, this is not necessarily true. Some
| companies might have the budget to pay at the 50th percentile
| in New York, or the 95th percentile somewhere else, and would
| prefer to do the latter
| voytec wrote:
| I'm not interacting with companies seeking cheap labor in
| Poland - like Intel. Despite their quite active recruiters,
| all conversations with whom end up at "company policy doesn't
| allow me to discuss salary range".
|
| I've set up a small business with EU tax id over a decade ago
| and I'm issuing invoices to European countries (EU and
| Schengen) and North America.
|
| It's a trade-off of giving up European employment safety,
| pension, some quality of life when working in different
| timezone, benefits and job security, to work for higher
| salary.
|
| But it only makes sense until some business decides that they
| would like a contractor from Poland with a Polish salary.
| grugagag wrote:
| I agree with you but your locals need to be educated on
| this issue. Many may think it's a good deal, especially if
| promises are thrown in. They would sabotage themselves but
| it'll take some time for them to find out it's a bad deal.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _" company policy doesn't allow me to discuss salary
| range"._
|
| Walk.
|
| Any company that puts policy over people isn't a good
| company.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| So, the majority of companies?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, yeah.
|
| But you are right that this is not actionable.
| lolinder wrote:
| Presumably we're talking about remote roles here, in which
| case this is nonsense. A Zurich developer is not worth more
| in a remote role than a developer in Warsaw. The only reason
| large cities have inflated salaries is because that's what
| you have to pay someone for them to live within range of your
| fancy office. If it's a remote role anyway, the companies
| that aren't out to exploit you will pay the same salary band
| for all roles anywhere where they hire.
|
| Location-based pay in remote roles is a major red flag that
| the company doesn't reward merit.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Companies aren't moving to Warsaw to find the best talent
| in the world. That talent is mostly already in the super
| expensive tech hubs where the top software companies have
| flourished for decades and cross-pollinated creating a
| supply of experienced talent in the area.
|
| It's much more easy to find an experienced tech lead even
| remotely, around London or SF, than say in some village in
| Bulgaria or Poland because no F500 tech company ever came
| out of there.
|
| Companies like Google that have the infinite money glitch
| don't care about finding the best bargain employees, but
| most SW companies aren't Google.
| lolinder wrote:
| I don't know that it ever was true that "the best talent
| in the world" is concentrated in the super expensive tech
| hubs, but it's _absolutely_ not true any more post-COVID.
| It 's largely a myth that's understandably popular among
| Bay Area types.
|
| What you do find a lot of in tech hubs is the type of
| people who move to tech hubs. This often means that in a
| certain type of company you get better "culture fit" by
| using a geographic filter (thus avoiding illegally
| filtering by protected characteristics), and you
| definitely get a higher percentage of people who are
| willing to structure their life around their career. And
| when you get enough of those people in a room together,
| they're certainly the types that will happily persuade
| each other that they represent "the best talent in the
| world."
|
| Software is a potent leveler--all you need is a computer
| and you're on equal footing with the rest of the world--
| and I find that the best programmers are the ones who
| learned to do it for fun and only later made a career out
| of it. Those people are equally distributed across much
| of the world at this point, and if anything there are
| _fewer_ of them (as a percentage of job applicants) in
| the tech hubs because the tech hubs attract those who
| chose software for the money.
| Frost1x wrote:
| To play the devils advocate there are some justifiable
| reasons to try and hire international employees. Maybe some
| component requires some physical proximity or has some large
| benefit. Maybe someone is exceptional at a global level and
| doesn't want to move.
|
| With that said I tend to agree, most companies are shopping
| around for a bargain if they can find one.
| akomtu wrote:
| Most of the software is more like landscaping than
| architecture, but software engineers want to build fancy
| bridges and gothic temples.
| harimau777 wrote:
| That's why they demand high salaries. You are paying so much
| to convince them to build boring software instead of the
| fancy bridges and gothic temples.
| akomtu wrote:
| Rather than hiring architects as landscapers and paying
| them a lot to trash their skills, I tell candidates upfront
| that the job is to mow a lawn and the pay is appropriate
| for the job.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| That's great transparency. And I imagine you get what you
| pay for. That's honestly not a bad thing as long as it's
| a living wage. You don't always need an achitect,
| especially non-tech .
|
| But we should always keep in mind that these crazy
| salaries aren't all a result of impact software can make,
| but also as a bid to prevent other companies from hiring
| those architects. Paying someone an extra 200k/yr to
| potentially keep a new competitor from making 10m/year is
| an obvious bargain sale if you can afford it.
|
| At least, that was the gameplan back in the '10's. I
| think we're past that point and those levels of
| salariesare only reserved for director+ level people in
| 2024/5.
| fn-mote wrote:
| I respect this approach.
|
| I hope it reduces the mismatches of salary expectations
| in your hiring process. Less drama for everyone.
|
| I would never apply, but that's fine. I'm not a
| landscaper.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I don't negotiate. If I'm already working and looking for a job
| because I want more money, I know my market value and the
| percentage increase it would need to be for me to leave.
|
| I'm also at the point in my life where I know the amount of money
| I need to meet my short term and long term goals- pay bills,
| travel extensively with my wife and save for retirement. But
| after that I start optimizing for other things - fully remote,
| enough paid time off to enjoy travel, smaller company (I'll never
| work for BigTech company again), interesting work that keeps me
| up to date with technology, etc.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| In general, vertical movement in the tech sector is near zero
| these days. Thus do a search on the government published wage
| ranges for the mean/maximum listed for your region (this is what
| HR does anyway.)
|
| The mistake people make is forgetting to sum up the liabilities
| of working at some firms:
|
| 1. Commute time/costs from home at rush hour (3 hours a day is
| equivalent to a 30% to 40% pay cut)
|
| 2. Cost of both temporary and permanent housing (urban metropolis
| are economically hostile if you are paying over 27% of your
| income on your home)
|
| 3. Cost of insurance and healthcare (property crime,
| environmental disasters, and pollution)
|
| 4. Location specific risks like Crime/Violence, or Hazmat (money
| is meaningless if you are not enjoying life)
|
| 5. Never bluff in game theory... just explain the options... than
| follow through and just leave for the competition.
|
| Tip: If you compete with desperate demographics to be at the
| bottom, than your quality of life may be far lower than expected.
|
| Sometimes taking a $10k income cut makes more sense, than being a
| poser in a high tax bracket city. i.e. the amount of cash in your
| hands after taxes can actually be higher.
|
| It is complicated for sure, but employee retention is usually a
| function of location, skill uniqueness, and wage rates. Best of
| luck =3
| wrs wrote:
| Good time to direct people to the classic work in this genre:
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| I always recommend this article:
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ I think
| this topic is super important and I'm really glad I didn't follow
| advice of saying your "expected salary or expected +20%". Here my
| anecdotal SWE salary history:
|
| Worked at a startup for a bunch of years making 90k by the end
|
| Got offered a place at FAANG. Recruiter pushed me a little bit on
| expected salary but I didn't give one using all the approached
| from the linked article. They offered me 250k. I would have never
| ever assumed that I can be payed this much. Instead of accepting
| I again followed the advice and asked for time to think. I had no
| counter offers but spoke to the recruiter thanked them for the
| offer and asked if there's room for improvement. And they were
| nice and reasonable, they said yes if there are counter offers or
| you are leaving unvested stock behind. I was leaving unvested
| stock in an unprofitable startup, but I wrote the amount and
| vesting schedule and got offer bumped by 25k.
|
| After working there I considered going to trading shop. Used the
| same approach and they offered 400k. Again this number seemed
| insane at the time. So I asked for more, this time I had much
| lower counter offer. But I could use it as some form of leverage.
| They upped the offer by 150k by the end (this is sign on+
| salary+guaranteed first year bonus).
|
| I am writing this not to show off the numbers, but to show other
| engineers that your idea of how much you should be payed could be
| completely wrong. Let the employer give information first and
| don't back yourself into the corner by revealing your ignorance
| of market or minimum comp you are willing to take.
| chamomeal wrote:
| That is absolutely bonkers. The range of developer salaries is
| so huge. Congrats on moving far above 90k!!
|
| What kind of work experience would you say was most valuable in
| climbing that ladder? Open source stuff? Anything you could
| show off?
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| I think what made the difference in both places is that I had
| good projects I could talk about and the tell a good story of
| this is the business problem, this is what we did, this is
| how I contributed, this is the result. I know this is not
| super helpful and sounds like standard STAR stuff. I was
| lucky because I was given a chance to deliver large and
| important projects and I think this is what they liked. This
| comp is high but once you get into l7 and above or get senior
| roles in trading firms numbers become even more crazy.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think the main thing his experience showed is that if you
| want to make a lot of money, you need to position yourself to
| move into industries that can pay a lot. For software
| engineers that means 3 major options:
|
| 1. The US tech giants (the "FAANGs"). These companies are so
| insanely profitable and they can afford to pay a lot, though
| they all have become more cost conscious in the past couple
| years.
|
| 2. Finance. Again, they've got a lot of money, and especially
| for trading firms it's usually more straightforward to assign
| value to individual developers than in other areas.
|
| 3. Currently there is a big desire for AI talent, so if
| that's your industry one of the big startups (OpenAI,
| Anthropic) or one of the smaller well-funded ones should be
| able to pay you well.
|
| So I would say this person didn't so much "climb the ladder"
| as opposed to position themselves well to get hired at other
| companies that would pay them a lot more. And I think this
| person did it in perfect order, i.e. it's been said a lot on
| HN how "the startup deal" (i.e lower salary but more equity)
| is hardly ever worth it for IC software developers these days
| if you can also get a FAANG job, but it _can_ be a great
| stepping stone to getting experience that leads to a better
| paying job at companies that can afford to do so.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| For a real world anecdote:
|
| I was leading enterprise app dev + AWS projects at a small
| startup making $x. I got a remote job working at AWS
| (Professional Services) as a mid level (full time direct
| hire) consultant making $x + 65K working remotely.
|
| I got Amazoned and a year later, now I'm a "staff"
| consultant (full time) at a smaller consulting company
| making the same as I made as a mid level consultant at AWS.
|
| If I were to work at GCP as a "senior" (one level down) I
| would be making $150k - $200K more than I am making now.
| But even that department has a return to office mandate.
| _Maybe_ I would try it after getting a few more years under
| my belt working at this level
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > to show other engineers that your idea of how much you should
| be payed could be completely wrong.
|
| Defintiely could be. But not in this economy. I'll take what I
| can get.
|
| But in general, it really is a matter of knowing your worth and
| what they could pay. IF you have a certain noteriety in a
| community of a domain and you get an offer, understand how much
| leverage you have vs. yet another front end web dev. Let alone
| 99% of students out of college.
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| Notice I'm not suggesting that people go for "hard"
| negotiation. You don't loose anything by not revealing comp
| early. Worst case you will get offer that's too low. But best
| case you get offered above what you expected.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> You don't loose anything by not revealing comp early._
|
| The benefit is, if they can't pay you enough to join them,
| you don't have to waste your time going through some six-
| interview multiday gauntlet.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I think another factor I didn't talk about was pay
| transparency. My state has it and it's slowly expanding so
| outside of like, Netflix's "100-600k" range you don't
| really have to play many games here. Know your worth and
| pick in that range internally. Go above if you really feel
| you can.
|
| I do want to emphasize being careful with current times,
| though. I've heard of very mild negotiations (were talking
| a 5k counter offer or an extra week of vacation time)
| leading to rescindings in 2023. Which is unheard of from
| 2022 or before. They'd at least hold firm in the worst
| case. But we're still in the middle of this circus that is
| probably going well into 2025.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I see "know your worth" advice pretty frequently, and I
| tend to think it is pretty bad advice for software
| developers. "Your worth" is completely dependent on the
| business the employer is in, and then of course a lot of
| that "worth" can be due to the employer already having a
| huge market (e.g. I've seen small decisions result in
| multiple millions of additional revenue, but those
| multiple millions were only possible because the employer
| was already pulling in billions).
|
| Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I think better advice is
| to simply do a lot of research on what comparable
| salaries are for the position you're looking for. There
| are tons of information sources online now that can give
| good info on accurate salaries, including breakdown of
| cash, bonus, equity, etc.
|
| To your last point, you better be aware of who has the
| leverage when you start negotiating. If there are a
| hundred other qualified candidates, and you really need
| the job, going into "battle mode" over 2-3 percent is not
| a good idea. On the flip side, if you really are that
| "purple squirrel" for which there are few if any
| compliments, go for all you can get.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I think we're in general agreement. I say that's what
| "know your worth" is about. If you choose a web dev
| position, you're probably less vital than someone who
| works deep down in compilers.
|
| Your worth is a mixture of (but not limited to) your
| expertise and how you sell yourself, the supply and
| health of the market, and what markets are offering vs.
| What they can potentially pay. Too many factors to give
| universal advice. So you'll need to fill in the variables
| based on your current experiences.
|
| Right now the market is horrible and I'm not a purple
| squirrel. So I want to take what I can get for now and
| just focusing on relieving short term debt over long term
| plans to improve myself.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Your "worth" is completely dependent on where you work.
| That startup is never going to pay you as much as BigTech
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Sure. that's part of "what they could potentially pay
| you". Startups don't have money for 400k engineers
| without crazy VC money and a ton of confidence. For the
| rest, they offer equity.
|
| If that's what you seek or think is your worth is an
| entirely different discussion.
| em-bee wrote:
| at least one third if not half of the job applications i
| have come across have a required form field for expected
| compensation. initially i just wrote 0 or something
| obviously bogus, but i got concerned that this was used as
| a filter. so now i am not sure what to do. for european
| companies it is probably ok to just write something as they
| are unlikely to have a much higher range anyways. it really
| helps though if they actually post their range.
| ewuhic wrote:
| Ah, the United States of America, this is hardly possible in
| Europe, especially Germany.
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| This is UK
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| ouch ... that hurt
| 2024user wrote:
| ...are you hiring? :)
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| If you are serious then I think trading firms are
| actively hiring. There's a bunch of them in London jump,
| Jane etc. comp will be very high there. I think faang
| hiring is slower now, but not sure
| 2024user wrote:
| I was mostly joking but might start looking in the new
| year. I'll keep trading firms on my radar, cheers!
| petters wrote:
| This is why we Europeans like working at American companies
| (in Europe)
| ewuhic wrote:
| Now the question is where to find American companies
| willing to do B2B/freelance contract without location-
| adjusted bs.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| Nowhere in Europe unless you want to never have free time
| during daytime. If they don't location adjust, they
| expect you to be available in their timezone.
|
| If you're OK with that, just visit the US and make some
| friends. Go to meetups and conferences. You will
| definitely find something much better than any EU offer
| (while still wildly underpaid in California) - that's
| your starting point. Do a good job, underpromise and
| overdeliver, and ask for referrals.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| What you call "location adjusted bs" is actually just
| supply and demand.
|
| The supply of good, experienced software developers
| willing to work for $100k in the Bay Area is practically
| non-existent when "normal", nothing-special suburban
| houses there can go for a couple million. There are a
| much higher supply of developers willing to work for that
| in Poland because the CoL is so much lower.
|
| Similarly, a gigantic reason American companies hire
| overseas in the first place is because wages are lower
| outside the US. Without that wage differential most of
| those jobs wouldn't exist.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Not with that attitude
| x2tyfi wrote:
| I've had similar excited experiences. On one FAANG offer in
| 2020, I asked for time to think, as you mention. I already had
| awareness of pay bands and an idea of the range for this
| particular role from levels.fyi.
|
| When I came back to the recruiter, I asked how much room she
| had to negotiate, and asked if she could put me "in the middle
| of the band". She immediately said yes and it resulted in a
| bump of $75k/yr or so.
|
| The thing to remember is that recruiters key metrics are about
| hires. They desperately want to get people in the door,
| especially after going through all of the effort to schedule
| interviews. They will happily help you out within reason.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This just seems incredible to me, to the point where I almost
| can't believe it. Throughout my 25+ year career, I've 1. never
| been positively surprised by the number I got, and 2. never had
| a company increase from their starting offer. It's always very
| close (within ~10-20%) to what I'm already expecting, plus
| "Take it or leave it. There's a line of 50 behind you willing
| to take that compensation." What are the exact mystical words
| you are saying to get these kind of results? Not that it really
| matters at this point. I'm pretty much at the tail end of my
| career and making a small fraction of the numbers you're
| posting.
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| You can check levels.fyi large faang l6 and above get those
| numbers. I think there is a massive gap between faang and
| similar and smaller places. When I got the recent crazy offer
| I interviewed in what I thought were good smaller companies
| and several offered me below my current salary. And a couple
| were in 110k range with absolutely no room for negotiation.
| vitus wrote:
| One other thing to have in your back pocket:
|
| In certain jurisdictions, it's actually against the law for
| employers to ask you for your current salary during the interview
| process (pre-offer), as that can perpetuate wage discrimination.
| (This is different from asking about salary expectations.)
|
| It looks like 17 US states have a ban that applies to all
| employers: https://www.hrdive.com/news/salary-history-ban-states-
| list/5...
|
| (The relevant laws in DC, NC, PA, VA only apply to local
| government, and AL's law is somewhat weaker in that it only
| prohibits rejecting a candidate based on not providing salary
| history.)
|
| Notably, many of these laws are worded as a prohibition on
| seeking salary history, and do not differentiate between asking
| the candidate directly and querying third-party databases like
| The Work Number.
| sklivvz1971 wrote:
| Here's the thing:
|
| - the candidate has a range of salary they expect or need
|
| - the company has a range of salaries that they can pay
|
| If these don't overlap there's no point going forward unless the
| range of the company is higher.
|
| If these do overlap, it's worthwhile proceeding. Then it's a
| matter of skill. If you apply and ask for the top range in my
| salary band, and you are truly exceptional, I'll do my best to
| match it. But the ask needs to be commensurate to the skills you
| demonstrate in the interviews. The higher the ask, the stricter
| the criteria to match.
|
| If you get to the end of the process without disclosing the
| salary, and you pass all interviews, I'll offer you for what I
| think you are worth. If you have an ask and did not disclose it,
| you might have just wasted everybody's time.
|
| Believe it or not, negotiating a salary higher than your worth is
| a terrible idea. It might sound good, but it sets you up for
| failure.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Nothing is more insulting to someone than knowing in advance
| that their expectations are far beyond your own, putting them
| through hours of interviews, then offering half the salary they
| asked for plus funny money equity.
|
| I try to be as up front as possible with my expectations, but
| I've also got the seniority / experience to match what I'm
| asking for. Yet, people still try to low ball me as if I'm
| making up numbers.
|
| I made the mistake once of taking a job after they low balled
| me, then met my asking salary after I flatly said no.
|
| If you ask for a specific number or a range, and they offer you
| below that range, just walk away. Even if they come back with
| what you wanted, they'll resent your salary and have inflated
| expectations above reality. They've already demonstrated they
| didn't take you seriously. Just walk away.
| em-bee wrote:
| _Even if they come back with what you wanted, they 'll resent
| your salary and have inflated expectations above reality_
|
| that is something i worry about when i see a high offer. in
| part it's imposter syndrome, but also a lot of job
| descriptions are like we want the best, and you are super
| fast and an excellent this and perfect that, able to work in
| a high pressure environment, etc.
|
| these claims are so meaningless. they don't tell me anything
| about what it is really like to work there.
|
| who really wants to work in a high pressure environment with
| the expectation to be a rock star developer?
| bitfilped wrote:
| The premise of this isn't really true is it, at least in the US?
| Don't most companies have your Equifax Work Number during the
| interview process?
| lethologica wrote:
| This whole game is so stupid to me. It really feels like the
| employer is trying to screw over the potential employee before
| they've even joined.
|
| My default answer to these questions is now "what's your budget?"
| And if they return with a non answer, or try and push me to give
| a number without giving one themselves, I walk.
|
| I can't think of anywhere else where the seller (in this case the
| employer "selling" a position) of something hides the price and
| expects the buyer (the potential employee) to magically come up
| with number that meets their criteria.
|
| What a dumb game we've developed for ourselves.
| aster0id wrote:
| It's a dumb game, sure. But I'd say it arises from opposing
| incentives, not necessarily from a real desire on the company's
| part to screw you over.
|
| How important is feeling "not screwed over" at the beginning of
| an employment important for you? Does it trump a great work
| environment and interesting things to work on? How sure are you
| that your subjective feelings during negotiations match how the
| employer actually is objectively?
|
| It would seem intuitively obvious that there must be
| correlations between being screwed over in the beginning and
| then having a bad experience later on during the actual job as
| well. But I'm personally wary of blindly following intuitions
| in matters that relate to money.
|
| Being able to just "walk away" from decidedly some of the
| highest paying jobs in the world (irrespective of the feeling
| of being low balled) is a privilege too.
|
| Anyway, in my own personal experience, I was screwed over
| during the offer phase of a previous job, and the job was not
| great either - terrible wlb and politics, but I did learn a lot
| and became very efficient at my work. As a bonus I stopped
| caring about my work outside of being necessary for paying my
| bills, while still maintaining decently high quality output.
|
| I had the opposite experience with my latest job - the
| recruiter was professional and empathetic, and I had a great
| offer experience. The job itself is great as well.
|
| So yeah, maybe there are correlations, but I'm still just one
| data point and so I'm not keen to generalize yet.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > It really feels like the employer is trying to screw over the
| potential employee before they've even joined.
|
| I mean, on the flip side, the employee wants to get as much
| salary as possible. You say this is a "dumb game" that we've
| developed, but nearly all negotiations work this way, and a lot
| of it is fundamentally dependent on leverage: how much does the
| company really want to hire the person, and how much does the
| person need the job.
|
| I will say, having hired a lot of software engineers in my
| time, that I never see it as a bad thing if a potential
| employee gives a very high number. Similarly, I think it's
| totally reasonable for an employee to ask "what's the salary
| range for this position" and to expect an honest answer. But I
| have seen employees "negotiate themselves out of a job" because
| they've read too many "principles of negotiating" books and
| somehow act like we're negotiating over the end to the Ukraine
| War. Basically, if folks are going to be a total pain in the
| ass before the job has even started, I'm pretty sure I don't
| want to work with you (and every single time I've "overridden
| my gut" and thought "well, maybe this person won't be so bad,
| after all they're great technically", I e come to regret it).
| As you point out, the employee is obviously free to walk as
| well - in my opinion, it's probably better for everyone if
| things reach a "hmm, someone is going to be unhappy with this
| decision" moment that folks walk away.
| hinkley wrote:
| One of the places I applied to had a required field with salary
| expectation. I almost backed out of the whole process.
|
| I don't think it was an accident that it was the very last field
| in the submission process. I forgot to write down which one it
| was in my notes. So that's less data I'll have if they call me
| back.
| em-bee wrote:
| from the applications i looked at at least one third if not
| half of them had such a field
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm sure as my sense of urgency and my sense of selectivity
| head in opposite directions I will think back to this
| comment. So far I've been picky and have seen more like 10%
| and most of that in the last couple weeks.
|
| It may also depend which job site or application tool you're
| using.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| if submissions like these make you feel like a loser. i'm in
| germany and make 65k. and yet i can still look myself in the eyes
| in front of the mirror every morning. so, don't let this drag you
| down.
| comprev wrote:
| FAANG salaries for developers are often double, if not treble,
| those of upper management where I work.
|
| There's absolutely no reason to feel like a loser on EUR65k.
|
| In tech it's easy to forget just how lucky we are with
| salaries.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| this article feels like ancient history from the dark ages.
|
| what job post today doesn't include salary range?!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-10 23:01 UTC)