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Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

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Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#141

Post by sanderjd »

OJFord wrote: post #135
westoque wrote: post #65

Disclaimer, I'm a CTO. Here's how I evaluate this if I was evaluating you: 1. I already have a salary budget already allocated for this role based on industry average for position and location (but location _could_ be irrelevant depending on skill mostly). 2. I look at your skillset and put you at the bucket for the position where you are at: low-med-high 3. I make my offer based on my evaluation. 4. If you are "wort…

'disclaimer', pet peeve coming up. > Disclaimer, I'm a CTO. That's not a disclaimer, it's.. a claim . It's not even a 'disclosure' (which is what people saying 'disclaimer' often mean) really, it's more like a 'source', or just.. remove the word?: > I'm a CTO, here's how I evaluate [...] Sorry, just bugs me.

Seems like "full disclosure" is a perfectly good way to say what they were trying to say. Your version is ok too, but does not have the same implication of "I have a particular bias here, so I am disclosing that so that you read my comment through that lens".

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#142

Post by qris »

senko wrote: post #121
mcnamaratw wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what industry is offering roughly minimum wage (30k) to programmers in the US?

$30k is far beyond minimum wage in most of the world.

Looking at the list of countries by minimum wage [1] containing data for 201 countries:

* only 5 countries have nominal, effective minimum wage above $30k (Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland)

* when accounting for Purchasing Power Parity no country has minimum wage allowing to buy more than $30k in US (obviously ignoring Argentina, as it data is not reliable)

Additionally earning $34,000 in 2012 made you into the richest 1 percent globally [2]. So we may guess that today $30k easily lands you in the richest 5 percent globally.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w...

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#143

Post by mcnamaratw »

woodpanel wrote: post #132
senko wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30k is far beyond minimum wage in most of the world.

Yup. German minimun wage is 19.968 € (~ 24.353 $) Interestingly a couple of high-wage countries that come to mind don't have a minimum wage at all: Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden.

20 Euros per hour is a lot better than $30k per year.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#144

Post by ErrantX »

SergeAx wrote: post #116
ErrantX wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an add-on to this; whatever they offer first is likely below what they are willing to pay. So even if they do offer the 30 you'd be happy with, still negotiate. The outcome can only be happier for you.

On the contrary: on today's candidate market company is interested to give the best offer it can afford, to close the position with suitable engineer.

That doesn't make sense for the same reason individuals should negotiate.

The market is currently incredibly hot, which drives up average wages. But a good company will make a sensible offer on the low boundary with a willingness to go up. Then if someone offers you 4k more at least that sets me a marker.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#145

Post by BeetleB »

llaolleh wrote: post #109
BeetleB wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible book that has some gems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21769264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25309966

A lot of these comments are not fond of the author's arrogance... Which seems to be a little nitpicky. The techniques won't work if you use them verbatim because someone else who has read the book will recognize it. He simplifies things to a set of rules, but it's up to you to be judicious on when to use them and to do your homework on what the underlying principles are.

> A lot of these comments are not fond of the author's arrogance... Which seems to be a little nitpicky.

Arrogance is one thing. Outright misleading/lying about what other books say is another.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#146

Post by BeetleB »

openandshut wrote: post #106
BeetleB wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible book that has some gems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21769264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25309966

I see you recommended a few books and also said that 'a good book on negotiations will differentiate between strategies where the relationship is important and where it isn't'. What is one such book? I'm new to negotiations, having been avoidant my whole life. I've started with GTY and Chris Voss's masterclass, but I know there's more out there. Someone here on HN mentioned once that 'salience models' are the now the…

> 'a good book on negotiations will differentiate between strategies where the relationship is important and where it isn't'. What is one such book?

Bargaining for Advantage does this. I expect most "academic" books do it.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#147

Post by ErrantX »

rubicon33 wrote: post #67
Buttons840 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question might be something like: I know you need to pay me less than the value I create, because this needs to be a mutually profitable arrangement. How much value do you expect I can bring to the company? Or maybe the more open ended question is better? I do like Never Split the Difference, great book. The most common complaint against it is that the author is a bit arrogant, but having read a couple other…

> I know you need to pay me less than the value I create, because this needs to be a mutually profitable arrangement. This is the most awkward thing you could say.

And unless you are doing something very specifically tied to revenue generation (so, sales basically) impossible to answer sensibly.

Like, what value does an SRE engineer bring? Or a cyber person? For a large company; basically nothing on average, until you save them from a major incident, then potentially loads.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#148

Post by crackercrews »

Your location probably will be one factor in the offer you receive. They will assume that your other options may not be as good as someone who is located in more expensive areas. Ideally you would show your hourly rate for past projects or other offers you have now.

That will show that they can't pay you based on your living situation. Instead they have to pay you on the rate you can otherwise get in the market.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#149

Post by BeetleB »

kqr wrote: post #93
BeetleB wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your question resonates a bit with the "Never Split the Difference" method of asking an open ended question immediately after receiving an offer. "Can you explain how you came to this number?" While the general advice of open ended questions is sound, this question rarely works with companies. They'll simply respond with a vague answer. "We did market research and determined that this is a competitive rate for your…

Sure, the follow-up to "how did you get to this number?" is -- whether or not they actually reply in detail -- always "See, I did it this way, and I ended up with this other number. What do you think causes the difference?"

> whether or not they actually reply in detail

In my experience, they never do (if they're a decent sized company).

> "See, I did it this way, and I ended up with this other number. What do you think causes the difference?"

This does work at times to increase your pay, so I recommend it. However, when it doesn't, they are not going to respond to your question. It will be another "We're sorry, but our data suggests otherwise. We aim to be competitive."

Of course, if you're a very senior position and they really want to, they will have a conversation. In the remaining 99% of cases, they'll adjust the salary to an extent, and then you'll hit a wall. That's when you start negotiating on non-salary stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#150

Post by BeetleB »

busterarm wrote: post #101
BeetleB wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say is true but provides no actual tactic to get the employer to offer a higher pay. > I am in the business of providing value. That's what you pay me for and it's commensurate with the amount of value that I can provide. "I can get the same value as you provide from someone else in your city/country for cheaper than you ask for." When you go shop for products, will you pay more for a product made in a…

The services are not of equivalent value. And while I'm not saying you can't have a distributed remote team, the approach of outsourcing software labour to cheaper markets has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not work. Unfortunately, few people in this field have the career longevity and experience to have seen this play out. Remote work works when you've expanded your talent pool to get _better_ talent. And whil…

> And while I'm not saying you can't have a distributed remote team, the approach of outsourcing software labour to cheaper markets has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not work.

If your goal is primarily to cut costs, yes. If your goal is to hire good engineers and you want to access a global market, the data likely shows the opposite.

2 jobs ago, we had teams in 4 different countries. The top performing team was in a 3rd world country. The US based team (which was the "home" team) was 3rd in terms of performance. All teams worked 40 hours a week or so.

When you can pay above market wages in a cheaper country, you can get pretty good talent. They couldn't afford to pay above market in the US, and frankly, it didn't matter. Most jobs will not benefit from having everyone be outstanding. This wasn't a startup or a FAANG level position. Hiring people in a poorer country was a win-win.

Even if we start going to FAANG companies, they have teams in other countries. I guarantee they are paying them less than what they pay in the Bay area. And I'm pretty sure that "it does work" for them.

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