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Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

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Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#41

Post by derefr »

nemomarx wrote: post #37
derefr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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”. They're trying to get your help in decreasing their tax burden, without explicitly saying that that's what they're doing. (Dunno why people are so coy about this; tax minimization is not il…

more money solves that in the end doesn't it? Just ask for enough to cover the tax burden

The problem comes with progressive taxation, especially in vaguely-socialist countries.

When you're in a high-enough tax bracket (in taxation regimes where such high tax-brackets exist), adding a marginal dollar to your net income becomes impractically expensive for the company, compared to basically anything else the company could offer you.

For some people, in some places, getting an extra $20k/yr tacked onto your net income, would cost your employer more than just, say, hiring you a well-paid full-time personal assistant, with the skills necessary to do enough of your job that you go from "overworked" to "takes off early most days to go play golf."

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#42

Post by credit_guy »

Just today a recruiter called me and told me about a job that I think could be a good fit for me, and I do intend to interview for that.

I hate negotiations. So I'll be frank. I was already frank with the recruiter today: I love my current job, on Mondays I can't wait to get to work. Moving to another company entails risk. I need to be compensated for that risk, so I don't intend to even interview if they can't offer me at least a 20% raise. Many think that this becomes the ceiling rather than the floor. But if I get the offer, I'll simply tell the guys that I am an honest person, and I don't play games, and I would appreciate them not playing games either. More precisely, I tell them that I am not interviewing with them in order to get leverage for a raise at my current job (lots of people do that). But, if my current company will make me a counteroffer, I will accept it and I stop there. I do not want to be the subject of a bidding war ( * ). In other words, they have only one opportunity to make an offer. The should think twice about making a low-ball offer.

That's it. That's my non-negotiation tactic.

( * ) Why not let people bid on your compensation? Because word leaks out. The new colleagues at the new company will think "who does this guy think he is?". I need to work with these guys, and I don't want to start from this position. The colleagues at the old company will think "what a prima donna". Plus, I think it's a better position from a game theory point of view, a-la Thomas Shelling. I did not study game theory, so I have no idea if this is true, but it's not impossible. More importantly, I just find the idea quite distateful. Other people might find it flattering, but to me it's just gross.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#43

Post by eastbound »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #23

The most important part of negotiation: Having an offer in the first place. Unfortunately, I and a dozen other software devs (all of whom I know personally, and all of whom are amazing) are not getting any interviews, much less offers. None of us have ever experienced a drought like this before, either. So... ??? Thankfully, we're all still currently employed.

I’m from France where the market is still tense, so I have hard times understanding whether it’s a general trend or a local problem:

- How do you know it’s not just your surroundings (technologies, skills, area) which are dry?

- Are you maybe getting aged? (The programmer market is very ageist, hopefully I’m not turning the knife into the wound, but I’m not young either) and maybe you are experiencing the dry part of life for the first time?

- Or did you take the $500k+ post-Covid market as the norm? Here in France, beginners are at 38k€ gross annually, and the high end was 85k€ during Covid, but historically the high-end had been capped around 65k€ until Covid.

All in all, developers aren’t magicians. We deserve a high engineer pay, but look at electrical engineers, they have shit pay. We’ve been getting far too much money, for far too long. In normal office jobs, it takes a lifetime of sacrifices to get to higher pay grade. And this is the 3-year experience mark for a developer.

So, are you expecting Facebook-level pay, or higher-engineer-office-worker kind of pay?

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#44

Post by nick3443 »

joezydeco wrote: post #14
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Feels intentional by recruiters as a part of the hiring meta-game tbh

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#45

Post by eastbound »

neltnerb wrote: post #24
__mharrison__ wrote: post #13

Your most powerful tool in negotiation is the ability to say no. That comes when you have competing offers.

The "when it rains, it pours" phenomena I think most of us (anectodtally obviously) think we've seen is especially amusing in this context. They're really shooting themselves in the foot by only hiring people everyone wants already instead of finding people who they can train for two weeks and bring up to speed.

Can I hire you and fire you in two weeks if you’re not a senior React+Java dev? Because most candidates who say that, ask for the senior price, while not being trained in the tech we’re asking.

There’s a lot of value in getting someone who has already done some React. Or some Typescript. Or some Java. There’s a triple-your-salary kind of value, and everyone asks for the tripled salary.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#47

Post by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #23

The most important part of negotiation: Having an offer in the first place. Unfortunately, I and a dozen other software devs (all of whom I know personally, and all of whom are amazing) are not getting any interviews, much less offers. None of us have ever experienced a drought like this before, either. So... ??? Thankfully, we're all still currently employed.

Any thoughts on root cause from your perspective?

I've been on the other side of the table recently, and I agree it feels like a buyer's market. But it still took a while to find good candidates, and a lot of candidates showed up to interviews weirdly unprepared on even the basics.

If it's a drought for you, then I'd have to add: It seems like an especially weird drought, as well. Supply and demand seem to be doing odd things.

(And, for the spectators of this comment thread, I can confirm: Yes, 2 people with 3 anecdotes each is enough to speculate wildly about an entire industry.)

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#48

Post by neltnerb »

eastbound wrote: post #45
neltnerb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "when it rains, it pours" phenomena I think most of us (anectodtally obviously) think we've seen is especially amusing in this context. They're really shooting themselves in the foot by only hiring people everyone wants already instead of finding people who they can train for two weeks and bring up to speed.

Can I hire you and fire you in two weeks if you’re not a senior React+Java dev? Because most candidates who say that, ask for the senior price, while not being trained in the tech we’re asking. There’s a lot of value in getting someone who has already done some React. Or some Typescript. Or some Java. There’s a triple-your-salary kind of value, and everyone asks for the tripled salary.

Senior people that need years of training in a specific tool are the exception that proves the rule.

A ton of people basically know enough to do a new role with a few weeks or months of mentorship. Remember orgs are a pyramid, for every senior person there are many many people who aren't, or who have entirely support roles like answering phones. People underestimate how many mid-level skills are easily transferable.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#49

Post by srockets »

gruez wrote: post #40
nemomarx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more money solves that in the end doesn't it? Just ask for enough to cover the tax burden

But isn't it better to find a tax avoidance strategy that's mutually beneficial to both sides? Sure, you can ask for an extra $10k that gets taxed down to $5k, but if you can find a creative workaround to get $8k instead for the same $10k, isn't that better than trying to ask them for a $16k raise to make up for the taxes?

That $8k may cost another $5k to implement: current systems used by the would be employer may not be geared up to handle that non-standard asks.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#50

Post by downrightmike »

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #10

Not sure but if Trump wins and turns H1B visas on its head again, we might see a reversal.

They got you distracted with H1b, when the real problem is outsourcing. Companies want to make dollars here, but they don't want to keep the dollar circulating. And then we end up in a situation where they run out of customers and need a bailout.
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