
How to negotiate salary in the software development market of 2019 - freework
https://medium.com/@nbvfour/how-to-negotiate-salary-in-the-software-development-market-of-2019-fa890684c6dd
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boblebricoleur
My experience is exactly the opposite. In the market I've prospected (France)
the applicants have leverage because there is more positions than candidates.
Even if there is a lot of candidates, there is a lot more positions. There is
even more discrepancies beetween available positions and qualified candidates.

Even if there was not, once a company has eliminated 99% of the candidates and
put their mind to hiring you there is a good chance you have a little leverage
at negotiating your salary.

I don't think the author work the same jobs than I do.

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fr1tkot
I think it's nonsense to present this as a general truth the way the author
does. There are likely plenty of geographical locations, skillsets and
business domains where the opposite is true. If he's writing for the US, it's
most likely not even generally true for the US.

~~~
pwinnski
In Dallas, there are many, many, many more open positions than there are
reasonable candidates for those positions.

In any case, the article is foolish, because really good candidates can always
negotiate. This isn't fast food, where it barely matter which body you stick
in which role.

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trilila
Spoiler: Don't believe everything you read.

"But these days that doesn’t work because the market is oversaturated." \-
Literally all companies I know of struggle with finding candidates.

"When they’ve rejected 99% of applicants, they’ll offer a job to the last
remaining candidate." \- If the role is for one person, then they will reject
all others except the one they deem suitable, obviously.

But hey, if it's posted on the internets it must be true.

I'm flagging this post as it is an utter waste of time and highly inaccurate.

Edit: After reading the author's other posts, I see there is some frustration
related to job seeking. Perhaps there is some advice we can give or experience
to share to help? The tech job market is as good as it gets, but it can vary
depending on languages, tooling, industry and so on. A bit more context might
help for this article to be relevant. I un-flagged the post hoping there is
something positive that can come out of this.

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Dannymetconan
The market is "oversaturated" if you take all the candidates completing these
bootcamp type courses. Some are fantastic but many I have encountered still
have a lot to learn.

Just because there are a large number of candidates does not mean that a large
number of them are at all qualified. There is a huge variance of quality
across the development market from that I have experienced. No real proof of
any of these claims here.

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freework
> No real proof of any of these claims here.

The proof is my own personal experience. If programmers were truly scarce,
then every time a programmer passes a programming puzzle interview, then
they'd be offered a job. I can't tell you how many interviews I've aced over
the years only to be ghosted afterwards. If ghosting existed (which is very
much does, and is quite common), then that means the market is oversaturated.

~~~
stefanfisk
have you asked for feedback when this happens, and if so what responses have
you gotten?

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freework
They usually either ignore me after telling me they won't hire me, or they'll
say something like "We've received many qualified applicants, and have
unfortunately decided to go with other candidates"

~~~
Dannymetconan
I'm really sorry to hear that. I imagine you are looking for your first job
out of college?

Even as a quality candidate there might be a lot of way that you are going
wrong. I would advise you try and get your CV looked at. This can make a big
difference. I'm sure there is lots of advice out there. What market are you
looking in?

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underyx
Any proof to back this up? I just interviewed at places in various Western
European countries and when I rejected offers I was being asked what they
could do to keep me. Sounds like the article says the exact opposite.

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sudhirj
The great leverager that isn't mentioned or discussed generally is domain
knowledge. The company has leverage if the cost of replacing you is low, and
if your focus is React or Go or whatever, then the cost of replacing you is
the cost of the next programmer who can answer the same interview questions
you were asked, or write similar code to what you write.

If your skills also include valuable knowledge in the domain that you work in,
or expertise in getting things done in that particular environment (or even in
that company) you're well on your way to being priceless. And that
pricelessness is what puts things back in your favour.

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freework
Domain knowledge can only be leverage if your domain knowledge is rare. The
examples you cited (React and Go) and not rare.

~~~
loco5niner
I think you misread the comment.

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kochikame
Is the market really "oversaturated" as the writer claims though?

IDK about the Bay Area, but in plenty of other places there just aren't enough
developers to fill all the roles available.

Sounds like "leverage" to me

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thedevelopnik
Yeah to echo others in the Denver area it’s extremely hard to hire and devs
can bounce around between places every year or so getting a decent raise each
time as employers compete for labor.

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ronilan
_The only programmers that have leverage these days are celebrity developers
like Linus Torvalds and Guido Van Rossum._

Them, and that streaking Greek dude. Archimedes.

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peteretep
> because the market is oversaturated

lol but no. In London, anyway, the market has a tiny number of devs, and mid-
level NodeJS devs are asking for £100,000, which is definitely a sign of the
apocalypse.

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pmargam
Not sure where this is supposed to be. Definitely not my experience in western
europe (Ireland, Spain and Germany). Companies are _desperate_ to find
competent developers, markets like Dublin or Berlin are complete saturated
with demand and little offer. Companies are now embracing remote developers
out of desperation, the talent pools are depleted. It's definitely a GREAT
time to be a developer and if you're decent you have leverage. Tons of
leverage.

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hardwaresofton
> But these days that doesn’t work because the market is oversaturated.
> Companies put up a job ad, and within minutes get 100 qualified applicants.
> They then reject 50% of them right off the bat, and then interview the rest,
> rejecting anyone who doesn’t completely ace every single interview question.
> When they’ve rejected 99% of applicants, they’ll offer a job to the last
> remaining candidate. In that scenario, the applicant has absolutely no
> leverage.

At first I was going to harp on whether the market was oversaturated or not,
but there's an even bigger mistake -- as far as I can tell this situation _can
increase_ leverage for prospective employees who make it through the process.
If you _know_ that the company just spent 10/100s of hours reviewing,
interviewing, and culling lots of applicants, but you made it through their
obstacle course and they want to hire you, this means it's _very likely_ a
good fit -- that's rare. This would only be bad if the market happened to be
saturated with _high quality_ devs, but prices would drop.

This article seems like well-intentioned bad advice -- always negotiate.
Analysis of perceived leverage is great, but in the end, if you get an offer
you don't think is what your time is worth, then counter it. Politely but
firmly ask for compensation in line with what you value your time at like
"thanks so much for giving me a chance to join the team -- I'd love to accept
the offer but I was really expecting

> The only programmers that have leverage these days are celebrity developers
> like Linus Torvalds and Guido Van Rossum.

???? This is just plain wrong -- if you are good at your job, you are going to
produce a lot of value for a company depending on how they use you -- you
don't have to be a celebrity developer to bring value to a company -- you
could lack 100% of the technical or leadership skills of _either_ of those
people and simply by suggesting "why don't we just use google sheets" and save
the company possibly 100s of thousands of dollars (in pricey subscription fees
to data platform du jour).

IMO the real problem is information asymmetry -- companies have (obviously)
way more information on what they're willing to pay, and not having any data
points on what they're _willing_ to pay makes it hard to search for the right
companies (to begin with), and negotiate with advantage (at the end).

Sites like levels.fyi and early glassdoor did the most to help engineers
reduce their disadvantage when negotiating -- if you want to get better at
negotiating, get more information.

~~~
freework
> If you know that the company just spent 10/100s of hours reviewing,
> interviewing, and culling lots of applicants, but you made it through their
> obstacle course and they want to hire you, this means it's very likely a
> good fit -- that's rare

It's not rare. It's very common for people to pass the interview process only
to get ghosted after spending hours solving puzzles and answering screening
questions. If you're the _only_ person to pass, then that does give you
leverage, but you're not likely the only person to pass. I pass interviews all
the damn time, and get rejected all the time too.

> if you are good at your job, you are going to produce a lot of value for a
> company depending on how they use you -- you don't have to be a celebrity
> developer to bring value to a company

Being able to provide value to a company doesn't necessarily give you
leverage, especially if there are many other people who are also able to
provide value to the company.

> Politely but firmly ask for compensation in line with what you value your
> time at like "thanks so much for giving me a chance to join the team -- I'd
> love to accept the offer but I was really expecting

Just because you want to make lots of money doesn't mean you will make lots of
money. If someone else will work for less, then the company is not obliged to
pay you more just because you politely ask for it.

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sadness2
What terrible advice. Everyday engineers with a mite of talent have plenty of
leverage and should always negotiate. Retaining staff is cost efficient, and
real talent is harder to come by than seat fillers.

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otalp
Depending on the location and profile of the company, I would venture most
companies aren't rejecting "99% of qualified candidates"

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sadness2
And the thing is, the question of whether to negotiate only comes up if you
find yourself in the 1% who get to that stage. It's very expensive for a
company to find that 1%, and once they have they don't want to go back to the
drawing board, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of your leverage at that
point. Of course you should negotiate. What have you got to lose?

~~~
freework
> It's very expensive for a company to find that 1%

Not if the market is oversaturated. They may get multiple people to reach that
1% stage. Then none of them have much leverage.

~~~
sadness2
It doesn't matter how saturated the market is. It's takes time to filter out
all the candidates. Labour and opportunity cost via delays and distraction

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mdekkers
Nothing in this article applies if you are looking for quality staff
(developers or not). I can get "bums on seats" in record time, and feel good
about having negotiated all of them down significantly. Quality staff is a
different ballgame.

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sys_64738
My own experience is that companies will try to meet your demands if they’re
reasonable but every position has a budget. My hiring experience is that
python developers are in great demand.

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Nursie
This could do with a location attached to it. It's not true everywhere.

