
Ask HN: What's your #1 pain point when asking for a raise? - mgadams3
I&#x27;m creating a &quot;stress-free&quot; guide to salary negotiation for software engineers, and I&#x27;d love to know what those in this community feel has been the biggest pain in the butt or burning question when it comes to getting a raise.<p>I&#x27;ll reply with advice to your questions here as well (I&#x27;ve helped hundreds of SEs already, but want to do more research), thanks for taking the time to help me out!
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Apreche
I get a raise every year without asking. I frequently get offers from other
companies that are willing to pay me much more than I currently make. The
biggest stress is that I don't want a raise.

What I want is to work less. I currently work slightly less than 40 hours a
week, and have a few weeks of vacation. Ideally I would like to work 4 or
fewer days per week and have 5+ weeks of vacation time per year. I have
attempted to negotiate this with my current employer as well as potential
ones. I have never been successful. Everyone wants me to waste my life away
sitting at a desk in their office.

TL;DR: How do I successfully negotiate more time off instead of more money?

~~~
osullivj
Become an independent consultant/contractor.

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Apreche
Does that come with health insurance and a 401k? I'm very risk averse.

~~~
mgadams3
No, you can usually increase your billable rate to make up for that
difference. If for example your current salary would be $100k/2080 (work hours
in a year) you'd be getting paid $48/hr. You'd likely set your contracting
rate at at least $60/hr to make up for the difference or no PTO, insurance,
401k, etc.

~~~
jdmichal
Also in the US, tack on an additional 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare
taxes that would normally be paid by the employer, which is now technically
yourself.

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azth
> Social Security and Medicare taxes

Why do they show up as being deducted from your salary in your statements
then?

~~~
mgadams3
Because as a W2 employee you pay half and your employer pays half. As a W9
employee (contractor), you pay both.

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drglitch
"I really appreciate the work you do and think you do deserve a 20% bump, but
I am confident HR will shut this down becase of [budget/end of year/upcoming
org changes/bad lunch yesterday]. We'll do our best and get back to you
[soon/never]."

Another big one is the "We are locked by HR on base comp, but we'll be sure to
make you whole at year end!". When year end comes you dont get paid anyway (if
they know you won't leave).

Would love to find a stress free counter to these :)

EDIT: Ultimately, IMO, you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise.
Otherwise you won't get anything material.

~~~
elcct
> you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise

This. Otherwise they can say any sad story or excuse and make you stay forever
without a raise...

~~~
mgadams3
In smaller companies where decision makers are usually more empathetic towards
the employee, there are various other ways you can get them to move without
having to use an external offer as leverage. At bigger companies that are more
restricted by process, they do this for a reason and ultimately data speaks
louder than words. Assuming you've exhausted the usual strategy of
establishing your value that is not fully compensated and they're just not
moving, if you have a competing offer for $20k more, they now have no choice
but to increase the urgency with how they approach you up the chain.

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rjv
I'm not sure if this is addressing the question precisely, but I think it's
relevant. One of the main things I've learned over the years is that _you_
have to be your own advocate when it comes to raises/promotions. I've known a
lot of developers who became disgruntled over years because they didn't think
the company was taking the initiative and giving them what they thought
they're worth.

It wasn't until it sunk into my head that, generally speaking, there's an
inherent conflict of interest between employer and employee. The employer
wants to get the best bang for their buck; have talented people work for them
at the lowest reasonable price. On the opposite end, the employee obviously
wants to get paid the most they can get. It's because of this that (most of
the time) an employer won't proactively seek out reasons to pay you more. Once
I truly realized this, I became a stronger advocate for myself (because nobody
else will be). This is usually the advice I give to younger developers who are
working their way up the latter.. aside from saying that you should actually
build your case for why a raise/promotion is appropriate. Do the work - do
more than is expected of you - and be your own advocate.

~~~
a-priori
Yes, this conflict exists. On the other hand, if a large gap appears between
an employees' salaries and their market rate, that increases the company's
turnover.

Turnover is very expensive, somewhere between 6 months and 2 years of salary
per employee that turns over. So an employer should proactively offer raises
to keep their employees' salaries near market rate and help avoid turnover
costs.

It's short-sighted to keep salaries low. That's not to say companies don't do
short-sighted things though...

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ed_blackburn
True story. I was earning £50,000 in London ~ 6 years ago. I asked for a £10K
raise after I'd been given more responsibilities and had taken up mentoring
duties too. I was given a £5K bonus and told to wait until year end for a £5K
salary rise. I wasn't satisfied but was informed that HR had overruled the dev
manager. I was offered a lucrative contract as a freelancer, so I resigned. I
was immediately offered £70K, another bonus and an improved benefits package,
because HR has called my bluff and got it wrong. I walked. Never looked back.
Process. It's a killer.

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kasey_junk
I need "real" salary data for my area. Both as someone who asks for raises &
gives them.

~~~
ryanSrich
[https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm](https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm) and
[https://www.onetonline.org](https://www.onetonline.org) have always been
reliable data points. I do find that they are typically 10% lower than what
I've been offered for various positions and 20% lower than what I was able to
negotiate for.

~~~
jchendy
Last time I was looking into it, Glassdoor didn't seem to do a good job of
covering bonuses and stock grants, which are very important factors.

~~~
ryanSrich
That's true for larger companies like Facebook and Google that grant stock and
other forms of comp. But for most companies you're primarily compensated
through a salary.

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edoceo
As a person who decides salary and raise and bonus I would like to hear about
your impact. Many requests are because "you need it" or its what's paid
elsewhere.

Open with: I built the good thing that saves us $5k/mo. My design is clean and
easy for a new guy to maintain. My work-product is obviously valuable and from
that I deserve financial recognition.

When I used to negotiate my own salary I used that approach. one time (in
2001) it worked to take my salary up by $3k/mo - I had only been there 3
months.

Be prepared to walk. Remember that recruiters can get you a new gig in weeks.
Hold that for 6mo while finding the right one

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lxfontes
I think "having to ask" is the #1 pain point.

Money is usually not a topic people are comfortable talking about.

~~~
pinkunicorn
This is bang on. Anyone here willing to share how you convince yourself to ask
for a pay raise?

~~~
my_username_is_
Know that you deserve it. I keep an up to date LinkedIn profile, and when
recruiters contact me I ask them if the position they're hiring for will pay
more than a certain figure (my benchmark is usually 50% more than my current
annual salary). Your benchmark value may be higher or lower, but either way it
should help you gauge market conditions.

Also when you're taking a broader market into consideration, be sure to
consider quality of life. Yes I may get more money somewhere, but it might be
a miserable product/team/culture which reduces the value of that position. Or
I might have a shorter commute, fewer hours or more vacation, which would add
to the value of the other position.

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dayk995
Here is my current situation. I don't know if it'll help much.

I got a job about 4 years ago as a software engineer which required my wife
and I to move to a new state (away from family). I actually wanted to move out
of state which is why I applied for the job in the first place. We had no
commitments. We lived in a small modest apartment. The first two years I
received a raise and a bonus without me having to negotiate at all.

Within the past two years however, we bought our first house and had our first
child. I have not received a raise or bonus these past two years. Now is the
time I actually need it.

I fell into the trap. They were willing to pay to keep me here but now that
I'm stuck here, they don't need to offer me an incentive to stay. I've lost my
leverage when I bought a house and had a kid.

~~~
elcct
If you are good at what you are doing, make sure you have saved money for at
least 3 months of living. That is your leverage back. Then ask for a raise -
if they keep saying "it's not the best time for the company" and other bs,
just quit. Go to a nice vacation, refresh your mind and start looking for
something new. If you don't feel secure about finding a new job start looking
now, before you even ask for a raise. That should make you more confident.

~~~
sologoub
Why burn an income when the situation doesn't seem dire yet? Take the
vacation, come back refreshed, if things are still not good enough, start
looking, but keep your paycheck.

Many people assume that not being local to the company is a non-starter. My
experience has been that companies will make a lot of things happen for the
right fit. Network, talk to people and see if you can fill the need that
company has.

~~~
elcct
Of course you can do that, but in my opinion that just delays the change. If
your company hesitate to give you a raise I doubt you will increase your
chances by taking holidays.

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lojack
Do I openly say that I've been interviewing, received job offers, etc?

~~~
drglitch
Although i would argue that asking for a raise should always come first,
before interviewing. If it doesn't happen you do interview and leave the
company.

It is also good to interview occasionally to simply know your current market
rate. If you're already got offers though, it sounds like you know it as is.

~~~
mgadams3
Exactly. You don't want them to feel like you're overly mercinary and didn't
even give them a chance to fix the problem by just being open about how you
feel you're not being paid what you're worth. There is a LOT that goes into
that first conversation being an effective one and even more that goes into
the follow up. But absent progress, ultimately highest leverage way to get
them to move is to objectively establish your value with a competing offer.
The largest raises I've ever seen have come on the heels of informing your
company about another offer, but that's only valuable to you in THIS job if
you're wanderlust hasn't already taken full root.

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foolinaround
\- Just like a job interview, you need to anticipate the questions /
objections that might be brought up, and prepare to pre-empt them.

could be something random where you dropped the ball on something in the past
year, and you almost forgot about it, but it would be brought in the review
process.

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zaphar
It's something I've long since learned to get past but when I was first
starting out the biggest pain point was learning that I _am_ worth getting the
top end of the market salary for what I do not the low or mid range of the
market salary.

It didn't really get better till I learned that if necessary I could always
get a raise by switching companies.

If I could sum it up I would say the biggest pain point was knowing my own
worth in the market.

~~~
pinkunicorn
How did you figure out which salary bracket you fit into?

~~~
zaphar
I picked the bracket that was 1 higher than the one I "felt" like I was in.
Human Beings tend to lowball ourselves. After a few times of doing this and
seeing them meet your price though you start to get a sense of your own worth.

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matt_morgan
I have worked mainly at nonprofits. Some of them with lots of money, some with
hardly any, but salaries are always taken from a relatively fixed budget. I've
been fortunate that I've rarely had to ask for raises, but my eagerness to ask
for more has absolutely been suppressed by the knowledge that if I got it,
someone else wouldn't. (Sometimes my salary is coming from the same pool as my
team's, even).

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jld89
How can I negotiate a salary raise if my Manager isn't the person who decides
whether to make the raise or not?

He only makes recommendations and more often than not those recommendations
are not listened to by central HQ. Should I ask to talk with the section
director? What is a viable strategy in this case? I am preparing a viable
BATNA at the moment.

In any case I'm very interested in those recommendations!!

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jrs235
Knowing what other companies are actually offering for compensation without
actually pursuing an offer. Sites like salary.com and glassdoor are helpful
but I don't have a ton of faith in their numbers.

EDIT: I want to be certain what I think and claim is market rate is in fact
market rate.

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lfender6445
for me, its the realization that if i don't get what I want, i risk feeling
disheartened about my job in the future - especially if its a job i enjoy.

there is a risk/reward benefit that one enters by asking for a raise, where if
all things were to stay the same, I could walk away relatively unscathed.

this could change depending on whether or not you were asking for a raise
because you feel you deserve it, financial necessity, or both.

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anOwl
Great initiative mate, looking forward to this :).

~~~
mgadams3
Thanks. Until the party gets started, I wrote a blog post on this a while ago
that people seemed to like that you can check out here. :)

[http://www.mgadams.com/2015/06/30/the-software-engineers-
gui...](http://www.mgadams.com/2015/06/30/the-software-engineers-guide-to-
negotiating-a-raise/)

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aprdm
> you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise

that's so true...

