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Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

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Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#161

Post by benhurmarcel »

onion2k wrote: post #15
yewenjie wrote: post #9

I have a similar question - If I am applying for a remote position, is it justifiable to ask for the average salary of the country the company is incorporated at, even if living cost in current country is much cheaper? I know that some remote first companies (such as Gitlab) has a complex salary calculator which takes into account all sorts of things, while some companies (like oxide.computer) pays a flat compensatio…

Working for a company where the salary is based on location means when you eventually go to meet up (at a retreat, a conference, etc) you will know that you're paid much less than your colleagues for the same work. That will suck. Avoid those companies.

It's the norm in international companies.

I'm in Europe and work daily with colleagues doing exactly the same work, with the same bosses, but located in a different country (like Germany, the US…). Everybody perfectly knows that they are paid much more than us. Some people also worked there for a while and accepted a large pay cut to move where they wanted.

Well if we're not happy with that, we can try to find a job over there. Honestly I don't think most people feel bad about it.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#162

Post by ElectricMind »

I am thinking this strategy. If anyone thinks, this is horrible please let me know.

1) I will create my bare minimum number below which I will not accept for X company.

2) I will ask company after successful interview : "What is the maximum you can give - final number?"

3) If that is number is less than 1) , end of discussion. I find another job. Not wasting any time

4) If 2 is slightly greater than 1, I will try to get better number by medium negotiation

5) If 2 is way greater than 1, I accept offer. Done

Did I miss something?

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#164

Post by jrockway »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #160
jrockway wrote: post #136

I feel like the comments are fixated on a particular number. It's true, $30/hour is insultingly low for a software engineer. But, it's a data point. That's your current value, because that's what someone is willing to pay. You can say "yes" and start getting $30 every hour, right now. Writing this HN post, $0/hour. Reading this HN post, $0/hour. Saying yes to that offer, $30/hour! Regardless of whether you accept, yo…

> It's true, $30/hour is insultingly low for a software engineer. It's dependent on location. It's low for the US, but it's high for most of the world. Even in western Europe that's what engineers with 5 years experience make, and that's not a low cost of living area.

I presume the OP is going to be hired as a contractor, so out of that $30 comes payroll taxes, health insurance, office space, computer equipment, software tools, ongoing training, conferences, etc. If you work as a traditional employee, then the employer is paying for all (or most) of that, and it's not cheap.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#165

Post by Trias11 »

US employers value reliability, communication, discipline and willingness to accomodate US time zones.

You may say that lower rate developers will give them lower quality of above. Which is true.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#166

Post by dcyphernull »

The fact that you accept means you don’t value yourself. You know they pay $85 in the USA and the only reason they’re going to South Asia is they know you have no balls to stand up for yourself with. So not only do you screw over an American taking that pathetically low salary, you screw yourself by letting them keep an extra $50 for every hour you work, just because Asia... wtf?

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#167

Post by warwizard »

schoolornot wrote: post #77
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…

You’re a CTO so I imagine you’re hiring mostly directors and VPs and it comes down to whether you like the candidate or not. At a lot of companies you just have to be noticeably better than everyone else because after 5+ employees interviewing 5+ candidates, most managers have had enough with the time the team has sunk into that process. As a candidate, if you can find out how long the role has been open, you can rea…

Depends on company size. I am in a Even in larger groups, I wouldn't be surprised if the CTO participated deeper than you might at first assume.

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#168

Post by grumpitron »

joshgachnang wrote: post #117
mcnamaratw wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

FWIW, that's double the federal minimum wage. I'm mostly pointing out how absolutely absurd our minimum wage is.

I believe the US federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/minimumwage

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#169

Post by croisillon »

misiti3780 wrote: post #48
croisillon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i understand the psychology behind it but it's also a bit dangerous: where i work (europe) we don't even engage when the candidates claim a much higher rate than what we would agree on

Presumably you're probably filtering out extremely talented engineers that know what they are worth then?

Aren't we all underpaid? I for one :)

Re: Ask HN: Negotiating Salary

#170

Post by kypro »

In my experience it's very unlikely you'll lose the offer for negotiating a higher salary, although to be clear I'm basing this on my experience with applying for positions here in the UK.

In the past I've just been very clear about what I'm looking for because the reality is if you don't get what you're looking for you're likely to look elsewhere eventually and if they like you enough to want to bring you onboard presumably they don't want you to leave in 12 months because you can get slightly extra pay elsewhere. Recruiting is expensive for companies. If they're sensible they won't mind paying slightly more to ensure you're fully commited.

If you applied through a recruitor they are normally willing to help you negociate the best salary, but I'd advice against doing this where you can. In my experience recruitors are quite good at negociating salary, but I prefer doing it myself to avoid miscommunication.

Personally I would just tell them that you feel $30/hour is a fair wage and that this is what you be able to get elsewhere. In the past I've framed it like this:

   "I really want to work for this company, but from experience I know without a competetive salary I'm more likely to move on if something else comes along. If you can go to $30/hour, or at least agree to a pay review in [X] months I feel I would be fully committed to this role."
They won't always agree to what you're asking, but in my experience they will always at least counter offer. Sometimes larger companies simply don't have authority to go as high you would like because of pay brackets and in these cases they may try to offer other incentives like a work laptop, remote working, etc. If they're unwilling to negociate or reassure you that they will continue to reassess your pay I'd consider this a red flag.
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