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Salary Negotiation

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Re: Salary Negotiation

#401

Post by mangahero »

mavelikara wrote: post #374
xviia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without salary negotiation, the company gets to choose the price. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has shown that it is willing to collude to keep that price down. Therefore, when companies argue that they're banning salary negotiation to "promote equality", you should assume that this equality is merely a gimmick to hide the true purpose: lower wages. If there really is a difference in negotiating ability between women…

> When companies like Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies agree [..], and threaten to replace tech workers in the US with less-expensive H1B visas [..] When did these Silicon Valley companies threaten to hire less-expensive H1B visas? Do you have any citation on this? Are the H1Bs working for these companies paid less than non-H1Bs? Looking at the publicly available salary data for these companies - Ama…

The reason is that psychologically, humans already account for the fact that women have it easier in life.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#402

Post by BuckRogers »

swombat wrote: post #389
BuckRogers wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do you think that would be "profiteering as your main motivator" to have as a general principle that as you scale your work you also scale your salary? I'm not sure how that follows. I'm in 100% agreement with you. So you do pay less to those who work 4 days a week. That's fine and it makes sense. Just confirming. Then I don't even need to ask: you're also saying that for every hour over 8 hours staff is paid ov…

No, we don't pay overtime. There hasn't been a recent decision about that, so it's more a historical artefact at this point, but my rationale for not paying overtime (apart from the fact that it's uncommon to get overtime pay as a full time employee in the UK) is that I don't think overtime should be encouraged in any way. For the same reason we don't allow people to sell their (30 days) yearly paid holiday allowance…

I commend the decision to not encourage overtime, and in the UK that probably doesn't take much pleading for you to achieve. I've lived and worked in France and worked closely with most nations around the world including the UK.

Ultimately from your description it sounds like the increased non-profiteering wages would not come out of company profits. Thus in the end it's just like all the other businesses then. No need for all the flowery language about how there's other priorities than making money. If you had to ditch everyone and go to Malaysia to "be competitive" then you'd do it.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#403

Post by home_boi »

dlubarov wrote: post #301
teen wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 4/6 year ones are way too high unless you're going for some sort of specific role they need. like if you specialize in robotics or machine learning

The 4 year number is mostly from my own experience. I interviewed recently, and my highest offers (after significant negotiation) were ~316k from a public company 290k~350k from a private company, depending on which valuation you use (409a vs preferred) Again, this is including equity, expected cash bonuses, etc. I have 4~5 years experience and no unique skills. The key is to get at least 2-3 offers around the same t…

Are these numbers before or after pitting competing companies against each other?

Re: Salary Negotiation

#404

Post by Spooky23 »

tamana wrote: post #356
ryanSrich wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly never understood the notion of not naming a number first (that is if you know what you're worth). Take the number you want to make, add 15%, and they'll likely negotiate down to the actual number you want. It's really not that hard. Take this as an example: Say you currently make $80k and you want a 10% bump. So you're looking for $88k. Take that number and add 15%. Your ask is now around $100k. They may s…

Your example numbers show how you lastly underestimate what tech jobs pay, and you are inviting an employer to low ball and you won't even know

Not everyone works at Google. The average salary of my team of about 25 software and Senior IT people is around $90k. Other compensation is about 40% of salary.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#405

Post by Spooky23 »

prutschman wrote: post #223
xviia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without salary negotiation, the company gets to choose the price. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has shown that it is willing to collude to keep that price down. Therefore, when companies argue that they're banning salary negotiation to "promote equality", you should assume that this equality is merely a gimmick to hide the true purpose: lower wages. If there really is a difference in negotiating ability between women…

Women can get (possibly unintentionally, possibly not) punished for exhibiting negotiation and leadership traits that are valued in men. A friend recently had an offer, ready to sign, but the salary was lower than she wanted. She wrote back asking if there was room to move upward. She had the offer withdrawn .

Sometimes it's worse than that -- women are seen as a cheap ticket.

I remember one of my first colleagues as a professional in this industry had to fight and fight to eke out a lousy 3% raise, despite being s superstar employee.

Later I found out that she was making 30% less than me, and They had just threw a ton of equity at me to try and keep me from leaving.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#406

Post by iumtuip2001 »

cerrelio wrote: post #391
iumtuip2001 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to bring a request like that to the table, early in the hiring process. And whether or not they "throw your resume in the bin" will depend on how you frame the question. - "Are you guys open to the idea of a lower salary, in favor of an extra day off? I'd love to work on my wood working, and spend time with my kids... Time is more valuable than money right now". v.s. - "I'll take that salary, and I w…

Better to phrase it as: "Are you open to the idea of a 4-day work week for me? How would that affect my overall compensation?" I think it's unwise to reveal your willingness to be paid less. Mostly because you should never reveal your willingness to be paid less. Never leave money on the table.

Agreed. That's a better way of saying it.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#407

Post by timv »

solotronics wrote: post #79
swombat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc. Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay s…

Money is the primary motivation to work. Would you be upset at an employee for working on their own project or for a different company during business hours? If you would not allow this then money is your primary motivation. You are giving money to the employee for ONE reason, you are buying their time to produce something of value for your company. Saying you aren't interested in people who are primarily motivated b…

> Money is the primary motivation to work

For the overwhelming majority of people, the decisions about work are a balance of competing interests.

I could go out and get a part time job working on weekends, and make more (overall) money, but I don't because the money I make in 5 days is enough, and I place some value on my free time.

But the reverse it true, I could probably convince my employer to let me work 4 days a week for a 20% pay cut (or 0 days a week for a 100% pay cut), but that would drop my pay below the level I want/need in order to support my family and be able to do things on the weekends.

I could quit my current job and go back to working in finance for more money than I make now. I don't want to. I've done that, and I prefer the work I'm doing now, even if I'm paid 20% less.

I could quit my current job and go work for a charity and make 50% less than I do now. I don't want to take that sort of pay cut.

It's because of these balances that we have some well educated, highly employable people making a (relative) pittance as school teachers. And why some people spend their evenings doing open source "work" instead of taking on a second job.

Very few professionals in western countries have money as the single primary motivation to work. Once you can afford to pay your bills and maintain a comfortable lifestyle, you become quite willing to trade off the extra money to increase your overall enjoyment of life, whether that means more leisure time, or more interesting work, etc.

It is quite reasonable for for-profit companies to aim to provide a compelling work environment through factors other than pure financial reward.

It's also quite reasonable for workers to select job opportunities based entirely on the financial reward (though I think that's actually relatively rare).

That company and that worker are probably not a good fit for each other.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#408

Post by gricardo99 »

dionidium wrote: post #145
gricardo99 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's that assumption based on? I would assume the opposite, that the employer negotiates in their self-interests, and tend to quote lower numbers.

Right, but even then, you're in a position to counter their initial offer and move up from there. If you name the number first, then it only has one direction to move (and it's not the good direction).

That rationale contradicts negotiation approaches that I've read about in a few places, specifically the idea of "anchoring." (Other commenters have also mentioned this) I'm not sure how much data there is to support either approach.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

Re: Salary Negotiation

#409

Post by timv »

runT1ME wrote: post #281
swombat wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. We are in a highly competitive market, and have a number of interesting projects going on to disrupt that market that won't pay off immediately. If we don't manage our costs reasonably well we won't stay in business. Money is like rocket fuel. If you're accumulating it for its own sake, rather than to get somewhere, I'd say you're doing it wrong - but that's just my opinion...

If you are not paying top of market wages, one or more of the following has to be true: 1. You don't believe top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that FB/Goog/Amzn/ and many other SV companies pay, that it's not a net win for the company to have top talent. 2. You think that you don't need top developers, that really you're just going to be fine recruiting a bunch of B players, and it's some other 'thi…

Note: I'm not the parent poster.

> 1. You don't believe top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that FB/Goog/Amzn/ and many other SV companies pay, that it's not a net win for the company to have top talent.

You're conflating two things here.

I don't think that "top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that [[..]] SV companies pay" (emphasis mine).

There is nothing intrinsic about a developer's value. A developer's value to their company is some proportion (Their value to FB is unrelated to their value to XYZ Corp.

> it's not a net win for the company to have top talent

That does not follow from a view on the intrinsic value of developers. I know that it is a net win to have top talent, but:

a) They might not be "worth" (to me) what FB etc will pay them.

b)I might not think that I have to compete on salary to get top talent. I may have a method of convincing talent to work here based on non-financial incentives.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#410

Post by xentronium »

phamilton wrote: post #359
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to name some numbers? Ideally with context. I'd like to know how high is high in SV. Especially for junior positions.

I'm a young Senior Engineer. I'm low on the tenure side, but I've run successful teams and have deep technical knowledge. I say $220k total comp and that I will count equity but if it's not liquid it won't be worth much. I base that off of what I would get at Google or Facebook (including equity). I've asked around and most companies take it seriously. For junior engineers, I would say $160k. For mid, $180k - $200k.…

160k for junior and 220k for senior? Doesn't make any sense to me.
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