Salary negotiations for techies (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#71

Post by Jacqued » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:33 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #32

as a business owner/operator involved in everything from sales to hiring to vendor purchasing, here's the most important thing: if you can't walk away from a negotiation, it's not really a negotiation. if you feel, at any point, compelled to stay even though your interests are not being met in a reasonable matter, you're going to get screwed - and it's your fault, not the other person's. in a true negotiation both pa…

That's a very enlightening bit, especially for people who are not used to negotiate stuff all year round.

For me it boils down to this : I try to be as comfortable walking away as I would be accepting an offer. Otherwise I just don't enter any negotiation phase. Also when expressing salary expectations, I try to aim high enough to be sure they will not accept my initial demand. If they did that'd be a sign I just left something on the table.

However, it can be most difficult to put oneself in a position to leave the table. Developers are in a very privileged position in this regard. For most employees walking away could mean being out of a job for several months and employers know this.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#72

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:40 PM UTC

No1 wrote: post #40

The main tenet of this blog post is that you should argue for your compensation based on the amount of value you add to the company. That's nice in theory, but the techies' dilemma is that it's often difficult or impossible to put a hard number on the value they have added. How many customers were retained because you decreased response times by 100ms? How many customers were gained because of that slick UI you creat…

The subtle point that's lost in so many of these blog posts is that value-based pricing is a model for consultants. Employees are not consultants.

Consultants are typically brought in to solve specific problems that are perceived to be high-value. If a company hires a consultant to sustainably reduce hosting costs by $15,000/month, a good consultant will probably have no problem pricing the engagement as a not insignificant percentage of the savings over a reasonable period of time. Good luck trying this as a rank-and-file employee. If you're that good and are serious about maximizing your earnings, become a consultant.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#73

Post by dustingetz » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:44 PM UTC

here's an idea:

The market for developers is a lemon's market.

That means, if you have 100 good cars selling at $2000, and 100 lemon cars selling at $1000, all the lemons will sell first, because the people making purchasing decisions aren't expert enough to tell the difference.

So it is very rare to be paid based on value, because why would a [CEO|CTO|hiring manager|whatever] pay $1M for this guy, when he can pay $150k for that guy, and he can't really tell the difference between them?

Just an idea, I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, what do you guys think?

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#74

Post by aplummer » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #73

here's an idea: The market for developers is a lemon's market. That means, if you have 100 good cars selling at $2000, and 100 lemon cars selling at $1000, all the lemons will sell first, because the people making purchasing decisions aren't expert enough to tell the difference. So it is very rare to be paid based on value, because why would a [CEO|CTO|hiring manager|whatever] pay $1M for this guy, when he can pay $1…

I dont think the CEO should be doing the hiring... it should really be the tech lead -> CEO later to confirm?

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#75

Post by grogers » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:49 PM UTC

montz1 wrote: post #68

If you want to know what companies offer as base salaries check this website I made that uses H1B wage data. The tech companies have a very wide range for negotiation at each level and it's important to know that when you go into salary negotiations. Although this is H1B data, for top companies these are the same base salaries that US residents are also making, and they are pretty damn high....Look at google for exam…

Looking through the pages for "software engineer" I see mostly in the range of $90k - $135k with a few outliers. This is pretty reasonable for a big software company in my experience. There are some that are $200k or more, but these are probably very specialized roles.

Even searching through all companies there are some down lower around $70k, but most of these are companies I've never heard of, in locations that are likely cheaper than New York, SF bay area, etc where Google has offices.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#76

Post by ddingus » Sun, Jan 18, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #69

First, know things and people are worth what others will pay for them As a floor, you need to fund a modest life, and that means retirement, healthcare, personal improvemwnt, food, home, etc... Add some small margin onto that for quality of life. Second, get business minded. It helps to take an interest in the company, know it's financials, and it's goals. This helps you position your value in direct, meaningful term…

One other thing. When you reach a goal, share that and how it motivates you to continue.

This plants the seeds for future discussions.

Frame this stuff in ways that make them feel good about your comp, not negative.

A cycle or two of this makes things easier and more rewarding fo everyone

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#77

Post by montz1 » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 12:04 AM UTC

grogers wrote: post #75

montz1 wrote: post #68

If you want to know what companies offer as base salaries check this website I made that uses H1B wage data. The tech companies have a very wide range for negotiation at each level and it's important to know that when you go into salary negotiations. Although this is H1B data, for top companies these are the same base salaries that US residents are also making, and they are pretty damn high....Look at google for exam…

Looking through the pages for "software engineer" I see mostly in the range of $90k - $135k with a few outliers. This is pretty reasonable for a big software company in my experience. There are some that are $200k or more, but these are probably very specialized roles. Even searching through all companies there are some down lower around $70k, but most of these are companies I've never heard of, in locations that are…

Thanks for the observation. Yes, averaging over all companies will give you those results. Remember that is a comprehensive list over all companies in the USA. If you're targeting companies like Google, sort by descending order in wage, and then scroll through the first 50 records, about 40 of those are software engineers with salaries way above 200K. I think that's phenomenal.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#78

Post by zupa-hu » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

In (my) theory your salary is between the company's best alternative (hiring someone else for X) and your best alternative (go work for other company for Y).

Companies do well as they interview many candidates. Developers generally do worse as they go to less interviews - obviously due to resource constrains.

If you are shit hot good, both X and Y go up. The black magic of negotiating is a rounding error compared to how great & unique you are.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#79

Post by cat9 » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 12:19 AM UTC

No1 wrote: post #40

The main tenet of this blog post is that you should argue for your compensation based on the amount of value you add to the company. That's nice in theory, but the techies' dilemma is that it's often difficult or impossible to put a hard number on the value they have added. How many customers were retained because you decreased response times by 100ms? How many customers were gained because of that slick UI you creat…

You can address most of those concerns with algebra, some light research, and Fermi estimates.

This is not a problem where you need precision, just a reasonable level of accuracy and a well-presented argument.

Re: Salary negotiations for techies (2011)

#80

Post by benihana » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 12:24 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #12

Free food is such a no-brainer, if you're a manager. For £5 of pizza you can get £50-100 of work, easy, and the workers think they're getting the better deal...

I feel like this is something that only inexperienced people fall for though. It's nice to get food, but perks like agency, autonomy, and trust are so much more important than free soda and pizza. Especially when I can get paid more and buy the kind of snacks I like.