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The Programmer Salary Taboo

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Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#261

Post by duncanj »

GavinB wrote: post #161
brooksbp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please shed some light on what would be a good strategy to follow if you were in his position talking to HR, manager, CTO? What's the best way to save yourself once you've realized you're worth nearly double, triple, or quad your current comp pkg?

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 n…

You can also use the approach suggested in "Up the Organization" where you put in your two weeks and then re-apply for your position. It's good to have, as you suggest, a best alternative to a negotiated agreement on hand (BATNA), such as a job offer from some place paying the same or more than you're getting now.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#262

Post by Tycho »

quanticle wrote: post #209
Tycho wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm... when I graduate I'd definitely take a £18000 p/a job. I mean it seems at this age getting your foot in the door, getting started and putting some 'commercial experience' on your CV is far more important than the actual salary. On the other hand, if I could make a living doing freelance web development, then I could build that up until I have an income that employers would need to match (rather than just throw…

As of 2011-04-13, 18000 pounds sterling is 29421 US dollars. Despite what you say about "getting your foot in the door", I would hesitate before taking a job that paid so poorly. For the record, my internship paid $25 per hour. That translates to $42000 per year [1]. I'm not an exceptional programmer, and my grades in school weren't that stellar either. I would strongly encourage you to negotiate before selling your…

I see ads for 'Senior developers' that want to pay £25-33k. Granted there also ones paying better but the highest advertised I've seen is £40-45k p/a. Obviously it will be higher in London though, and there are lots of ads for contractors at £300 per day.

Meanwhile I know people who finished their CS degree and never got a programming job. I know one guy who's a decent programmer, only got a couple of interviews, one only because he offered to work for 14k, but ended up working in a bank admin job for 13k for years before finally getting a secondment to an SQL/Excel position at 18k or so.

I don't know, man. Just seems there's a disconnection between the salaries you guys talk about on HN and the salaries that are realistic for me. Bearing in mind if it's a graduate job then there's going to be many gaps in your knowledge (unless you're exceptional), so it seems you should bite the hand off the first place that offers you a job and the chance to become a more complete developer (after which you'll have a much stronger negotiating position, but until then, as an unproven dev companies can justifiably look at you as a liability).

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#264

Post by billybob »

cookiecaper wrote: post #99
euroclydon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I though you were going to say: You're hiring up an engineering team. You have five slots. Four are filled at market salaries. The four people range in productivity from marginal to good-at-stuff-no-one-else-likes, but none of them are that great. You almost have to keep the four folks, because they're entrenched in deliverables and plus, they've shown their dedication to the company. In walks a candidate…

The first step should be giving some disclosure to the candidate. Say, "55k? You're so silly. We'd hire you for much more than that, we only pay fair salaries here. Let me talk to my people and see what we can make available." If the other people aren't providing a value commensurate with their compensation, you should fire them whether you have an expensive replacement on tap or not. If they are providing such a val…

I think the "surplus effect" here would also be nice. If he was willing to accept $55k and you say, "tell you what, let's make that $75k because we really like you," you're going to get a very happy employee, because he perceives that you just gave him $20k he wasn't expecting. Whereas if he just threw out $75k and you said "fine," it doesn't feel like a gift.

You could get a similar, cheaper surplus effect with all your employees by throwing in perks. "Now that we've agreed on salary, we also want to give you an extra personal day each month," or a laptop, or a trip to a conference, or a weekly lunch, or something else that's nice but not incredibly expensive.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#265

Post by iqster »

GrooveStomp wrote: post #43
joezydeco wrote: post #15

My teeth always grind when I read articles like this. Yes, you can make $100K at Google. In Mountain View, California. How does that correlate to someone doing the same job in Austin, Seattle, Chicago, or Cleveland? The cost of living swings greatly when you depart the west coast. Decent wage databases will add another variable to the position and experience axes: the geographic area where the job is offered. (Exampl…

I wonder what the difference is like between Canada and the States? It must be lower in Canada, even in Vancouver, BC with all the expenses here. Still, I'm sure I'm making well below what I should be. Well, whatever the situation, I'm happy I'm working at a fantastic place with great people and interesting work! I also make far more money than I need to live comfortably. [edit] I make far less than $100 000.

When I visited Vancouver, the locals mentioned some ridiculously high rents/condo prices for places in downtown near Stanley park (and I'm from the Bay area). I thought the city was gorgeous but couldn't figure out any high paying employers (100K+). What gives? How can a developer afford this?

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#266

Post by watty »

michaelochurch wrote: post #122
jRoden wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm...what? The first person just picks a number, there's no RNG involved, no need to tell anyone a range. I know we're taught to plan for edge cases, but I find this pretty silly. edit: Nevermind the second point, I basically echoed what run4yourlives said - I think the averaging somewhat defeats the purpose. "Political stability" is the whole reason they ask not to disclose salaries in the first place.

I'd be more comfortable with a real random (at least pseudorandom) number. Humans are terrible at generating random numbers and information could be given away on account of this. For example, people tend to favor 5s and 6s when generating "random" large numbers.

Ok, I picked a fake random number with my terrible human random number generator. I added my salary and got 65419563.

It's easier to guess someones salary than it is to guess the random number they generated (in order to figure out their salary).

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#267

Post by jinushaun »

masterzora wrote: post #242
icedpulleys wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a considerable difference between having a sense of entitlement and being rational.

Clearly. And this difference is exactly what we're seeing a lot of here. Rational: "I am unhappy with $60,000 because it does not meet my needs." Entitlement: "I was happy with $60,000 until I found out Fred was making $61,000."

Exactly my point.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#268

Post by iqster »

dezwald wrote: post #224

I find that in canada (toronto, ontario) programmers are not paid near the amounts of programmers in the US. 5 years ago i started at 40K (working in Hamilton). Now living in toronto, and i find that newly graduate programmers start around 50K-60K, and senior programmers make anywhere between 80K-100K. I feel that living toronto/ontario, programmers are utilized as tradesmen, where they service the industry (corporat…

Absolutely correct. I ended up leaving Toronto after I realized this. I'm not sure if it was a good decision or bad. I ended up getting fantastic work experience and a higher number salary. However, my quality of life wasn't the same (because I left behind family and friends, and miss Canada in general). Also, I realized that the salary number doesn't mean much when you live in ridiculously expensive places.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#269

Post by danssig »

arghnoname wrote: post #185
jrockway wrote: post #2

I've always wanted to write exactly this blog post. Keeping your salary confidential is great for big companies, but it benefits you in no way. You should be making what your coworkers make. If you make less, you're being fucked, plain and simple. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can remedy the situation. Sadly, some people go their whole careers without doing so. FWIW, my first programming job only paid $…

For my first programming job I asked for $50k and got $40,000. I always resented that, as I thought I was giving them a break in the first place, but I had just moved to the area (DC) and didn't have time to look very hard. So 6 months later I got them to raise it to 50, and a few months later they they fired the other programmer (my boss, who was making $85k) and expected me to do the work of both he and I, which I…

>Companies that do this deserve no loyalty.

No company deserves "loyalty". You need to get that dinosaur of a concept out of your thought process. We're free market entities now. We act completely within our own interest and the "invisible hand" makes sure everything turns out alright in the end. [1] Loyalty is for family and friends.

[1] Of course your own interest isn't a simple amount question. If another company offers me 5k/yr more I wouldn't drop what I'm doing at the current company and move for that. My reputation is part of my market value so I have to avoid angering my "customers" as much as possible (within reason, but the best choice is to just not take customers that will likely end up hating you later). Ideally, when I leave they'll all hope I come back some day.

Re: The Programmer Salary Taboo

#270

Post by danssig »

sceaj wrote: post #222

So, I'm most certain that I'm being given the shaft by my employer. A coworker recently quit, because he felt underpaid (his previous job paid him over 10% more). Negotiations with HR got him nowhere, so he left. The coworker and I had identical jobs, and we did them in the same capacity, with very similar skill levels. When he left, he disclosed everything to me. Despite being underpaid, he was still being paid sign…

If you have no other options then that decreases your market value. The good news is: you now know of the problem and you know what is standing in the way of fixing it.

I've always heard that a degree is worth 5 years experience.

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