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Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

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Re: Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

#21

You dont ask for a raise. You get exactly what you deserve. Hear me out: No one ever gets a raise before they start doing the extra work. It is always a case of "wow, we better give Alice a raise since she's doing so much and it would suck to try and replace her with someone else at her current pay".

Oh, please. Have you even read anything that OP wrote?

The OP specifically said that he feels like leading the projects and adding a lot of value. 32k in euros before taxes is awful. No one will give you anything unless you ask for it. Exploiting VISA workers is a common thing - he is afraid he is being exploited.

It is always a case of "wow, Alice is working like a superwoman for that shitty salary, thank God we have her on the team, because other people would have been a lot more expensive".

Re: Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

#22

You have no leverage. You need to find and accept another (much better) offer.

I agree. Eg suppose you try to negotiate for a raise with your employer and they refuse to play along. What are you gonna do?

Probably better results to spend all your effort cultivating alternative options- who else would give you a job? How much would they pay you?

It's trickier if your visa is tied to your employer. Stating the obvious: that's not a great position to be in if it makes it much harder for you to switch jobs.

edit: it might also be useful to read about negotiation

e.g. the book "getting to yes"

"The Art of Letting Other People Have Your Way: Negotiating Secrets from Chris Voss" -- https://www.fs.blog/2018/01/chris-voss/

Re: Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

#23

You dont ask for a raise. You get exactly what you deserve. Hear me out: No one ever gets a raise before they start doing the extra work. It is always a case of "wow, we better give Alice a raise since she's doing so much and it would suck to try and replace her with someone else at her current pay".

I disagree with this, if you start going above and beyond on your work consistently people/co-workers/the company will get used to this and it becomes your baseline. Why pay more for someone already doing the work?

Achieving above your pay grade for a long period can also place you in the tricky situation of management agreeing to a raise if you up X/Y/Z, if you're already performing to a high level without monetary recognition then you're in a tough spot.

All this leads into why lots of engineers struggle to get raises within the same company and then with a few career hops will instead double/triple their salary.

The cost of the lost productivity from domain knowledge within companies leaving with engineers who can't get raises must be far higher, especially as going out into the current hiring market means you'll probably have to pay equal or more for a similarly skilled but without domain knowledge engineer.

Re: Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

#24
OP here, this thread has probably died, but I thought I'd inform you how it went.

Last night, I had my yearly meeting with my boss. I talked about all the progress I have made, my critical contributions to the project I'm in, and kind of hinted that the client would be stuck if I left the team in a short notice.

He straight away gave a number of 37K, I took it.

Re: Ask HN: How to ask for a raise?

#25

OP here, this thread has probably died, but I thought I'd inform you how it went. Last night, I had my yearly meeting with my boss. I talked about all the progress I have made, my critical contributions to the project I'm in, and kind of hinted that the client would be stuck if I left the team in a short notice. He straight away gave a number of 37K, I took it.

That probably means he could have gone to 40k with a bit of huffing and puffing :) but it’s still a pretty good yoy raise.
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