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

Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 269 posts

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#71

Post by grandmczeb »

smnrchrds wrote: post #52
grandmczeb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider government benefits too, there are "cliffs"[1] at low incomes where an increase in income can result in less take home. But probably not at the salaries a typical developer would get. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kM6yxab.png

That's a fascinating chart. I would like to reference it in the future, but I cannot find a source for the data. Did you compile it yourself? Have you written your data and methodology somewhere?

It's from this presentation[1], but you can find similar analysis for lots of different places if you Google around (e.g. this one[2] for Illinois or this one[3] for Georgia).

[1] https://www.slideshare.net/kevinkmac/welfare-failure

[2] http://nebula.wsimg.com/92d8ac7d5aaf3b2df9d4dfaaddcde435?Acc...

[3] https://georgiaopportunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/GC...

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#72

Post by PascLeRasc »

shuckles wrote: post #54
legerdemain wrote: post #43

> Virtually any amount of money available to you personally is > mouse droppings to your prospective employer. > They will not feel offended if you ask for it. Two comments. (a) I interviewed with Wealthfront last year. They offered $160K, which was lower cash comp than any of my other offers. I tried to open the door to negotiation. The recruiter and the dev lead then got on the phone with me to awkwardly explain th…

In the case of Wealthfront, it may be a cultural matter as their CEO specifically believes that negotiating your offer is a negative indicator: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130708151000-56725-offer-co...

I don't know about the first negotiation anecdote, but I can kinda see what Andy means here. I don't think pay is the primary thing I get out of a job, they'll all basically pay enough to live really well. Feeling good about what I do at work, learning new skills for the sake of learning, having a positive environment are all far more important to me. I've met a lot of people in school and at work who are just there to make as much money as possible, and I've always found that incredibly depressing. I think both our views can be valid at once, but I don't think they're a good culture fit together.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#73

Post by smnrchrds »

grandmczeb wrote: post #71
smnrchrds wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fascinating chart. I would like to reference it in the future, but I cannot find a source for the data. Did you compile it yourself? Have you written your data and methodology somewhere?

It's from this presentation[1], but you can find similar analysis for lots of different places if you Google around (e.g. this one[2] for Illinois or this one[3] for Georgia). [1] https://www.slideshare.net/kevinkmac/welfare-failure [2] http://nebula.wsimg.com/92d8ac7d5aaf3b2df9d4dfaaddcde435?Acc... [3] https://georgiaopportunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/GC...

Thank you.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#74

Post by pavlov »

nullsense wrote: post #18
shajznnckfke wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole reason software is so productive (economically speaking) is that you can leverage software written by others. Depending on your mindset, you could call that “just plumbing”, but a more positive way to describe it is “using the best tool for the job”. The person who wrote the tool you are using could also think they are “just plumbing”. There’s always layers below you and often layers above you too.…

>Nobody wrote their own stack top to bottom other than the TempleOS guy. He was the greatest programmer that ever lived.

He passed? I’m genuinely sorry to learn this. His work was a welcome reminder of unexplored possibilities.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#75

Post by srtjstjsj »

bruckie wrote: post #34
cbsks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California based firms are required to give you a salary range if you ask for it I didn't know that! Do you know what the actual law says? Are employers required to give the salary range for any open position on request? Or is it more limited than that?

After you've interviewed. Here's the text (from https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... ): "432.3. (a) An employer shall not rely on the salary history information of an applicant for employment as a factor in determining whether to offer employment to an applicant or what salary to offer an applicant. (b) An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary…

Why haven't all the big company pay scales leaked yet?

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#76

Post by 6510 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #56
awinder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are talking about vastly different things on re-reading your post. I’m keying in, along with the parent, on offers being negotiated at figures like less than 5% on base salary (sometimes far less. talking 5-10k range)

> I’m keying in, along with the parent, on offers being negotiated at figures like less than 5% on base salary (sometimes far less. talking 5-10k range) Right, but remember that you're not pivoting around the initial offer number. The hiring manager is pivoting around their budgeted range for the position. If they already offered 20% more than expected to hire someone and that person comes back requesting an addition…

In my experience the focus is often on the budget and the potential employee but one overpriced employee can demotivate everyone doing the same work for [far] less. I think my current employer lost 50+ people worth of productivity by hiring a single lazy guy for 150%. The team spirit just evaporated then the effect propagated to other locations.

(what theptip said below)

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#77

Post by geodel »

rsynnott wrote: post #31
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #3

most of my bosses have made me feel petty when asking for an extra $10k/yr i've found that when working for corporations, it's all about the number you ask for up front. after that, it takes quite a bit to get more than the average 3-5% merit pay bump. how FANG companies work with the $500k/yr total comp for average engineers, i have no clue... i think from what i've seen from levels.fyi the most common salaries are…

> how sustainable is programming? $75/hr to basically just write SQL tables and APIs that are advanced CRUD wrappers with light business logic on them? seems ripe for automation. The end of programming has been breathlessly predicted for at least the last 30 years (particularly with the whole 4GL thing). I'll believe it when I see it.

One can see the hiring trends at most major IT companies. Employee numbers growth rate have fallen drastically. When I cut down the bullshit about growth around 'machine learning', 'AI', 'analytics' etc it is very clear to me that plain boring automation along with cloud computing has eliminated very large number of software/related jobs.

Yes for now it does seems like jobs which have 'admin' title in them are getting eliminated. But the way hundreds of micro service at my workplace being developed, they are roughly 80 percent auto generated with 20% business specific logic. I admit there may be workplaces where developers are allowed to circlejerk about programing languages and the likes. However from what I see it is 1-2 enterprise mandated frameworks that are used and tens of thousands line of code is shoved in CI/CD pipeline every week with some automated tools doing basic quality checks. The point is it may not be custom written high quality code with an artisan feel to it but it is good enough to keep 100K employee company running and keep generating revenues.

My own team had about dozen people in 2010 for a portfolio of about ten applications of various size. In 2020 we are left with 5-6 people out of which at least 2 are very junior despite what their years and skills on their CV say. And our portfolio of application is roughly doubled. So it is 3 engineers for 20 services.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#78

Post by srtjstjsj »

throwarayes wrote: post #61

I spent several years underpaid at a lifestyle company as a specialist. I didn't want the golden handcuffs, I didn't want the pressure. I've learned this was a big mistake If you're paid at market value for your particular set of skills, your employer is making a commitment to use them. When they underpay you, you won't get to do the awesome thing that you do as much. So by being paid more there's incentive for the e…

But most people's job isn't making money, it's making something that someone else monetizes. Profitability is extremely weakly correlated to the work. Adtech pays better than research despite being easier and boringer.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#79

Post by srtjstjsj »

SPBS wrote: post #62

Forget about letting employers come up with a number first, in Singapore it's a common practice for HR/Recruiters to directly ask for your last drawn salary (so that they can match it/bump it up by a fixed amount). It's not illegal to refuse to answer, but it's also not illegal for them to ask in the first place. Companies legitimately view last drawn salary as a way to assess a candidate's market value here.

That's why you need a competing offer. Otherwise your previous job is your BATNA.
Post reply on HN