Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Salary Negotiation

kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 419 posts

Re: Salary Negotiation

#21

Post by threatofrain »

swombat wrote: post #15
brianwawok wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Importantly, we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working with us if money is their primary motivation. Are you a charity doing good work with orphans? Or are you a business trying to make as much money for the investors as possible? If the latter is true, why wouldn't someone work for you with "money as the primary motivator" ? (This is not Rhetorical, I actually know nothing about your business. B…

Neither. We're a purposeful, for-profit, founder-owned[1] company. Just because we are for-profit doesn't mean profit is our only motivation. It's a false dichotomy to suggest that because you want to make money that must be your only driver. Our view of business is that, much like humans, it can achieve and balance multiple objectives. You want to make money: does that mean you want only that to the exclusion of or…

I don't see why paying people less would lead to an improvement in love, family, being a good person, respect, transparency, etc -- unless you're saying that due to pay difference vs market, you'll also expect less work out of them.

And money is rarely the actual motivator. Often times, money is the mediator to the things that really motivate people, such as purchasing daycare and enrichment activities, splurging on medical care plans, financial security, etc.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#22

Post by android521 »

swombat wrote: post #10
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale) None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary. You say I'm worth $X.…

No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc. Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay s…

Seriously, if you can't afford a great employee, that's fine. But don't try to belittle someone because of your company's incompetence to pay. And don't stand on a morale high ground. It is disgusting.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#23

Post by gk1 »

vox_mollis wrote: post #17
jerf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers..." It seems far more likely to me that Patrick has made it such a focus for him to share this advice is that he is intensely aware of it, rather than what you said.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate his motivation, but I doubt he fully comprehends the psychology he's up against. Apologies if I come across as too un-appreciatively negative toward his efforts.

Are you aware that he was (is) a developer himself, long before he became an evangelist of charging more?

Re: Salary Negotiation

#24

Post by vox_mollis »

gk1 wrote: post #23
vox_mollis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate his motivation, but I doubt he fully comprehends the psychology he's up against. Apologies if I come across as too un-appreciatively negative toward his efforts.

Are you aware that he was (is) a developer himself, long before he became an evangelist of charging more?

Yes, I'm quite aware of this fact. But he's a socially competent developer, and my point still stands about those of us who are not.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#25

Post by mathattack »

swombat wrote: post #5

We're really trying to nail a good way to deal with salary negotiations when onboarding people, at GrantTree - one that gets out of this "gotcha" approach to salary. So far the best we've figured out is to be the first ones to name a number, and be super-transparent about how we arrived at that number. The reasoning is that "in a salary negotiation the first person to quote a number loses", so since we (as the employ…

I've struggled with this a lot. I used to believe in making it a negotiation. The more I've seen, I've switched to paying for the position. Unless hard negotiation is part of the job description, it shouldn't be rewarded. I've also found that rewarding hard negotiators pushes companies down the path of paying men more than women for the same job.

If you can't stay in business without underpaying a lot of people, your business is in trouble.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#26

Post by minsight »

vox_mollis wrote: post #9

One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers, by default, maintain a very high correlation with nonassertiveness and dearth of social skills. Those stereotypes exist for a reason. For most of us, these factors are baked into our essence from childhood, and are virtually impossible to break. In the absence of concrete interaction examples or a corpus of negotiation scripts to analyze, none of his…

His "vague advice" is very useful. It's a reminder that tech isn't the only thing that employees are selling. And that selling includes an interpersonal component. It can be ignored, but the results will be far from optimal. The best thing for an engineer who underperforms in conversation and negotiation is to realize that there is room to improve and to get moving on doing whatever it takes to have a package to offer that includes technical ability and the social ability to negotiate appropriately.

I'm not even going to touch upon the fact that the skills that a person can use to negotiate more effectively will almost certainly make them a better and more valuable employee (even if they are just a developer/engineer).

Tech workers are not islands unto themselves. The faster they learn this, the better.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#27

Post by Spooky23 »

vox_mollis wrote: post #9

One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers, by default, maintain a very high correlation with nonassertiveness and dearth of social skills. Those stereotypes exist for a reason. For most of us, these factors are baked into our essence from childhood, and are virtually impossible to break. In the absence of concrete interaction examples or a corpus of negotiation scripts to analyze, none of his…

Then treat it as an engineering problem. Or be content making less than you should.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#28

Post by baddox »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8
swombat wrote: post #5

We're really trying to nail a good way to deal with salary negotiations when onboarding people, at GrantTree - one that gets out of this "gotcha" approach to salary. So far the best we've figured out is to be the first ones to name a number, and be super-transparent about how we arrived at that number. The reasoning is that "in a salary negotiation the first person to quote a number loses", so since we (as the employ…

Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale) None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary. You say I'm worth $X.…

> You say I'm worth $X. I go get a job offer for $Y. If $Y > $X, you were mistaken.

Not necessarily. The first employer says I'm worth $X to them. The fact that I may be worth more than $X to another employer is not a contradiction.

In general, there is nothing "wrong" with a particular employer and applicant being unable to agree on a mutually satisfying salary. It doesn't necessarily mean either party made a mistake in the salary negotiation.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#29

Post by mason55 »

vox_mollis wrote: post #24
gk1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware that he was (is) a developer himself, long before he became an evangelist of charging more?

Yes, I'm quite aware of this fact. But he's a socially competent developer, and my point still stands about those of us who are not.

Did you come out of the womb knowing how to program or is it something that you spent some time on, reading, practicing, working your way through uncomfortable situations?

Social competency is a skill just like any other and requires practice and learning.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#30

Post by ohjeez »

JoshDoody wrote: post #3

Hi everyone! That's me you hear talking to Patrick ;) If you have any questions about the episode or salary negotiation in general, ask away! As you can probably tell, I love talking about this stuff!

Most discussions about salary negotiation are about postponing the money discussion until we know there's a fit. But what do you do when you-as-applicant need to be sure you're not wasting your time (or theirs)?

That is: I'm really senior in my field, with 25 years of experience, and for several years I've been commanding top dollar. (I'm worth it, too!) But often I start discussions with would-be employers (or clients), wherein the work sounds enjoyable, and they clearly are falling in love with me... and then a half hour later (or three days later) we come around to money ranges, only to discover their budget is half what I'd consider accepting.

I can end off with, "I hope you do really well, so that you can afford me sometime soon!" but I'm always saddened and frustrated by the process. Because by that point I'm imagining how cool it would be to do that job.

How do I signal to a client, "I'm expensive -- and worth it!" without saying, "Hey, can you afford me? Because otherwise let's not even talk."

Post reply on HN