91–100 of 467 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether I am thrilled to take a $60k TC job or my absolute minimum is $400k that doesn't change the market in that 60k is insultingly low and 400k is well above the median (cue all the folks who think FAANG is the market chiming in about $450k TC juniors).
$60k is a lot of money in other parts of the world
FWIW I did all of those things this article says not to do and ended up making close to 200% of my previous total compensation (which I'm happy with). Some recruiters didn't ask me for my compensation figures upfront. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Snap, LinkedIn, and some startup recruiters never asked me for my compensation numbers up front. The only ones that did, were to make sure neither of us were wasting each others…
The article mentions this:
> Let’s say that you currently work at a startup and make $150k in cash with some amount of equity. You go to levels.fyi or a similar site and look up Facebook’s salary bands for the role you’re targeting. Let’s say those bands for total comp are $250k-$350k. Hell, that’s way more cash than you’re making now, so you decide to share that range, thinking that if those are their bands already, it does no harm. That’s reasonable, except that let’s say Google ends up making you an offer, and it’s $400k (we’ve seen this scenario happen to a bunch of our users). Now you have to walk back what you said, in which case your recruiter will invariably ask why. And now you have to reveal, before you’re ready, that you have a Google offer, which means you’ll probably end up revealing that it’s for $400k. Now you’ve set an artificial ceiling for your Facebook counteroffer to be $400k as well, when in reality that ceiling may have been closer to $450k or even $500k.
The article is about optimizing for maximum comp, and your strategy is "sub optimal" because who knows if you could have gotten 250%+ of your previous comp had you negotiated better?
How do you avoid wasting your time doing interviews with companies that have no intention of paying you what you expect without disclosing some form of salary range upfront? I've generally taken what I want to make in the role and added 20% to it as a starting point. While this might limit me, it also keeps me from doing 100 onsite interviews only to discover their max is 2/3 of my expected comp.
The article just avoids that problem. > very few companies pay so much below market that it would be a nonstarter I don't really agree with that statement as my experiences have been different.
I don’t think there’s a single other profession with as much compensation variability as software engineer. I’ve heard it described as bimodal or trimodal, but I’m not even sure that captures it.
There was a YC company on the hacker news homepage recently looking for senior AI engineer for 60k. Even by international standards that’s absurdly cheap , but this is a YC backed company, I don’t think their head is in the sand (though I do suspect YC coaches founders to play moneyball with hiring as YC companies as a whole seem to pay far below average).
There’s many companies that consider 150-200k as “standard”.
And there’s still many companies paying 400-600k for senior engineers. I thought in the “tech recession” with the interest rates up this wouldn’t be available for a while but an acquaintance who got laid off from Twitter did the “grind interview prep and interview a dozen companies simultaneously” strategy just this summer in 2023 and got multiple competing 500k+ offers (all liquid) for staff SWE including from some companies I didn’t realize paid that much like HubSpot.
Despite many great offers he also encountered many companies that tried to lowball by claiming “salaries are going down for engineers” but that turned out to be wishful thinking and/or a bluff on the company’s part given his final result.
So basically there is no “market rate” for senior engineers but to the extent there is one a huge percentage look to massively go under it. I don’t blame them as it’s part of the game but just be aware many companies say things like “we want the best and are willing to pay for it” but then lowball and try to bluff engineers into thinking “the market” is much lower than reality. Which they do because many many engineers fall for it.
How do you avoid wasting your time doing interviews with companies that have no intention of paying you what you expect without disclosing some form of salary range upfront? I've generally taken what I want to make in the role and added 20% to it as a starting point. While this might limit me, it also keeps me from doing 100 onsite interviews only to discover their max is 2/3 of my expected comp.
The article just avoids that problem. > very few companies pay so much below market that it would be a nonstarter I don't really agree with that statement as my experiences have been different.
Obviously a silly example, but the caliber of folks is totally different. If I am a job searcher, I want to know the employer understands and is willing to pay for my caliber because otherwise our ideas of what the role is and what it should pay could be vastly off.
> Preparation and leverage means doing the work to make sure that you have multiple offers, that all your offers come in at the same time, and that you don’t tip your hand too early. Laying this foundation is 80% of the work. You’ll need to slow some companies down, speed some companies up, and hold off questions from recruiters until you’re ready to negotiate, and not before. Laying this foundation is largely unachi…
Would you work 80 hour weeks for a month or two to make an additional $5-20k per month indefinitely for the foreseeable future? I would. It's not like it's impossible, it's just more work.
I work for a Fortune 100 company. Years ago they wanted to make sure that everyone in the same job was making the same amount of money (they were especially trying to make sure women were making as much as men). So they had an outside consulting group look at everyone’s salaries and adjusted them as needed to make sure they were all the same within $1. I ended up getting a $15k bump. They review it again every year t…
You: Ok recruiter, is there a budget/range set aside for this position ?
Recruiter: Yes it is $x-$y
You: Ok I can work with that. My expectation is ideally $x+ z% Scenario 2:
Recruiter: Hey, what are your salary requirements ?
You: Ok recruiter, is there a budget/range set aside for this position ?
Recruiter: Or goes "No but I am interested in learning what is your requirement ideally" ?
You: $Market-Rate + %YOUR_IDEAL_INCREMENT
Scenario 3:
Recruiter: What is your current salary ?
You: Recruiter, I can disclose that but that wouldn't matter as I am interested in hearing if there is a fixed budget for this role already ?
Recruiter:
You: If you don't know the budget, regardless of what I make now, I wouldn't make a move unless I am making $MARKET_RATE + %INCREMENT
The point is that don't worry about being underpaid by asking first necessarily. You can ask for a number that works for YOU. Even if it was less than what they would have paid, why should you care if you are happy. Yes, do your research and know your market obviously.
How do you avoid wasting your time doing interviews with companies that have no intention of paying you what you expect without disclosing some form of salary range upfront? I've generally taken what I want to make in the role and added 20% to it as a starting point. While this might limit me, it also keeps me from doing 100 onsite interviews only to discover their max is 2/3 of my expected comp.
I recently found out that i did not know the maximum. Only multiple offers and taking some risks allowed me to find out and it was well beyond what i had assumed.
If you are doing a lot of interviews and not getting jobs - then you need more practice doing them. If you're getting so many offers its boring, look for a way to interview for more demanding positions.