The Programmer Salary Taboo

The easiest way is to just find another offer from another company. You're not "worth" double your current comp if you can't find it somewhere. Then you let them know that you have another offer but would prefer to stay if they can match the other offer.

Keep in mind that this happens all the time and is standard procedure in most American and European companies. As long as you act honestly, your boss will probably not hate your forever or start looking for your replacement. If your employer can't deal with negotiating over salary, you should probably just take that other offer . . .

The other option is to say that you're going to leave to go consulting. This is a harder sell because they'll think you're bluffing. You have to be ready to actually do it.

That's "only" for social security and medicare. You still pay federal income tax on top of that.

I didn't say "peers" (plural). I said "peer." It's one thing to take your peers as a whole and say you're better than them (and I'd agree that, by definition, if most people make that determination, they're wrong), but a very different thing to take a single peer and believe that you're better. You may still be wrong, but it's easier to semi-objectively evaluate differences between your skills and a single other person's.

Of course everyone is biased to some extent, but the bottom line is that some people will correctly assess as skills difference. If you have 10 people of varying ability (even only slightly varying), all making the same amount, 5 of them will be equal or better than the average of all of them.

> who just implement fully spec'd code

If the spec is really complete then why don't they just compile and run that? Put another way: Is there such a thing anymore as a programmer who just implements fully specced code?

Sounds like a Google story.

But regardless, some people define 'winning' as getting more out of you than you get out of them. Sometimes those people get into management positions, and when they do their groups seem to develop really wide pay ranges for the same amount of work. If you're a senior manager and one of your managers is trying to get points because "I can convince him to join for half what the last guy cost." then you need to jump on that problem right away.

Managers have the challenge when they pay someone $X but they aren't doing the same level or quality of work of someone making $X - $Y. As a manager you have three choices: 1) Bring the lower paid person up to an equivalent level 2) Fire the guy making "too much" and replace with someone who is more calibrated to your organization. 3) Engage in a potentially unsuccessful campaign to bring the contribution up of the under performer.

Of the three #1 is the "easy" one (giving people raises is always pretty easy), #2 is the "quick" one (especially if you're in a place where turn over is expected) and #3 is perhaps the biggest gamble (both the opportunity cost of not having the guy perform and the possibility he may never get there). It's one of those things that is different about being a manager vs being an individual contributor.

Things are weirder in pre-IPO + post-IPO worlds where people assume that if they are throwing around a bunch of money its because they got it from stock or something. It can be psychologically difficult on someone who has a lot of money due to an IPO but is doing the same "level" of work as someone who joined later and got post IPO stock. Harder to manage and harder to deal with morale issues if they start 'resting and vesting'.

Google was famous for having a 'personal multiplier' which would adjust your bonus and a 'median salary' for your pay grade but they wouldn't tell you either of those numbers (they made it a policy not too) so it was impossible to back check to see whether or not your bonus reflected your work or was just a beauty contest. When the company won't tell you what the median salary is for your pay grade that should be a red flag. But not sharing individual points across the spectrum I can see the argument for that.