Three Ways to Get Paid (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#151

Post by sph » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

4lx87 wrote: post #80

apprentice7 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often the advice given by senior folks and I think it is somewhat similar to say that you have to "lie a bit on your CV". Still, I always wonder what would I do if I make these big promises to clients/bosses/management and I fail to deliver. Wouldn't that be worse than having said "no, I won't be able to make it in time" from the beginning? For context, I'm early in my career (3 YOE) and I don't deal with man…

Nobody wants to hear "no". The way you say "no" without saying it is by turning "no" into an option, and attaching costs to options. "no, I won't be able to make it in time" would be "I can confidently deliver in time if I have X, and we save Y and Z for later."

> Nobody wants to hear "no"

Nonsense. The client that made me a job offer as CTO listed the fact that I wasn’t afraid of saying ‘no’ to unreasonable requests or unrealistic deadlines one of the things he valued the most in my work. He had plenty of experience with contractors that would always say yes, promise anything and then find themselves unable to deliver because they underestimated the complexity of the task.

Saying no is what makes a professional so valuable. Of course you always want to offer alternative approaches.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#152

Post by xtiansimon » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #9

The "read the rest" button seems broken in Firefox on Windows... so that makes for a very short post.

No go on Safari mobile

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#153

Post by dieselgate » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #146

catgomeyow wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did this to me when I was a technical director of a mid-sized engineering consultancy (aka, a sweat shop). I learned it on the fly when they had me go to a client meeting. They showed the slide deck of all of our credentials, and I was astonished that the sales engineer took the slide I sent them and increased all my years of experience by 25%. I asked them about it later, and they said don't worry about it, eve…

I can't help but remember that dilbert... https://web.archive.org/web/20230302211534im_/https://assets...

Thanks for that I'm still laughing

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#154

Post by tombert » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

lubujackson wrote: post #147

tombert wrote: post #48

I've told this story before, but it's relevant. When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher. I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good j…

The wildest part of this is that the salary negotiations were open to a group of interviewers. Why in the world would engineers need to be a part of that?

I think it was supposed to be an "off the record" thing from the hiring manager to other engineers, and I happened to be part of that group. I don't remember the exact circumstances.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#155

Post by tombert » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

nunez wrote: post #136

tombert wrote: post #48

I've told this story before, but it's relevant. When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher. I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good j…

My guesses on why this _really_ happened: - The candidate was asking for more than what the others on the panel made, which was a no-no. - The candidate was asking for what they currently make while being younger/less tenured than the others; also a no-no. - The others on the panel had cost savings to the company as a performance target. - They had beef with you and the candidate. - They preferred another candidate,…

Not sure. I think the candidate took another offer.

I don't dispute that they probably had a beef with me; my manager's manager wasn't completely wrong to say I had an attitude problem at the time. I'm going to blame undiagnosed sleep apnea a bit, but I think there was a lack of maturity on my end as well.

The reason I blame the sleep apnea is that multiple people have commented how much nicer I see to be after I got treatment for it. I've also probably just grown up a bit since then as well.