
Totally Honest Software Engineering Negotiations - agos
http://pastebin.com/eBetxc1Q
======
joezydeco
Two things:

 _I went back to my original employer and said I had a new job offer for $70k,
and I didn 't want to negotiate, I just wanted their final, last ditch offer_

That's an incredibly awesome way to have a huge target painted on your back. A
lot of employers get really pissed at this tactic but won't say so to your
face. They will gladly give you that new salary for just enough time to get a
(cheaper) replacement on board. Then your salary is changed to $0.00.

 _I found a solid startup, _one_I_would_actually_work_at_, and tell them I
make $100k (a lie, I added $20k to my current salary)._

Welcome to the 2010s, where credit bureaus now run additional services for
employers and HR departments. My company regularly uses The Work Number from
Equifax. I pulled up my report and it has my salary history for the last 20
years on it. Perhaps working for small startups that can't afford this service
will let you fly under the radar when it comes to bluffing about salary
history (and don't get me wrong, I'm all for not letting your next employer
know what you were making before), but you gotta tread lightly here.

[https://www.theworknumber.com/](https://www.theworknumber.com/)

My opinion is that one should tell the new employer what it would take to make
you jump, and that's it. If they can't make that number then you have your
answer. That, or they need to make up the delta in other ways.

~~~
burnallofit
I tried to look myself up, and indeed they don't have my current employer (a
small startup). My guess is that only larger employers participate.

More importantly, this raises significant privacy issues. How can a current or
former employer make sensitive data like salary information easily and
publicly accessible, without permission? That ought to be illegal.

I agree that it's really wrong to lie about one's salary; the best answer is
to not disclose that, and probably to point to available information like
glassdoor, or just be honest about your expectations.

~~~
joezydeco
My take (as it was explained to me by HR) is that currently it's used as a way
to let decisionmakers (landlords, bank loan officers, court systems, etc) get
verification of employment and/or salary via mutual agreement. You, as the
wage-earner, grant an access key to a landlord for example. He then can get
quick verification of your application information without wasting HR's time.

But I trust the credit bureaus as far as I can throw them. This will certainly
morph into other uses for the data, like this:

Hiring Company: _" Did Joe Pastebin earn $100,000 last year?"_

Equifax: _" Nope."_

And out goes the bong letter.

~~~
SilasX
Then why do they require copious documentation of your wages (sorry, salaries)
when you apply for a mortgage if they can just look it up?

~~~
srtjstjsj
My mortgage lender asked me for my access code to Work Number.

What shocks me is that Work Number is legally allowed to publish data without
the individual's authorization

~~~
joezydeco
They won't release it without your authorization - thus the access code
request.

------
plesner
He's right, this post isn't about gloating. It's a story a manager tells
himself to justify screwing over his employees. He says that's what he's
doing: "I have an engineer working for me who makes $75k, who is absolutely
_critical_ to our company". But it's okay because the employee should just
swindle him right back, that's what he did right? And if he doesn't then it's
kind of his own fault that I'm underpaying him right? Right?

You're not the underdog. You're the guy screwing over the underdogs. If that
makes you feel bad then that's good, it should. Maybe that's a voice you
should listen to?

~~~
asolove
Yeah, OP is reading the wrong lesson into this. If his employees aren't bold
enough to lie/negotiate a raise, that doesn't mean he gets to pay them less.
It means some day they will just walk out and take a higher offer elsewhere
rather than experience the pain of playing hardball.

Guess what? Finding new people and training them is expensive. Pay good people
what they're worth, work for companies that know what you're worth, and stop
playing games for stupid short-term gain.

~~~
erikb
I want to offer another point of view: What if the guy simply doesn't want
money. There are people who refuse a raise. Especially in IT I know many
people who want recognition more than money. $75k is also a decent income in
most places of this planet, even in most first world countries. You can pay
for a house and send your children to university with that. But being
appreciated by your boss for the work you do, or simply spending more time
with your family at home instead of overtime in the office, that's worth a lot
as well. I think with $75k, 32h/week and a boss that appreciates me being
there, that would be an awesome life. And I already have more drive for money
than most of my software developing peers.

------
burnallofit
OP's first mistake is only interviewing at 2 companies, which apparently both
sucked.

OP's second mistake is staying at the same company for so long despite the
fact that (a) they have to fight for decent raises (b) the company sucks.
Seriously, at the point where there are "serious problems in sales, engineers
are leaving en masse", OP doubles down. They are now a highly paid manager in
a sucky company.

OP's third and worst mistake is equivocating: "there's no harm in lying about
salary". That's delusional. Yes there is harm, they repeatedly lied, and now
who knows what else they would lie about. That proves they have no sense of
ethics. It's true other people do it. It's true the company will lay you off
the second they decide to restructure. None of that accounts for an ounce of
lost personal or professional integrity. In our world as developers, we
regularly have access to intensely personal or valuable information. What harm
could come if we fudge a little bit about how good is our security
implementation? What harm could possibly come if someone happened to offer us,
say, $100k for a little tidbit of info about user102532@gmail.com? No one will
ever know, right?

~~~
joslin01
I think the biggest problem with equivocating or lying in general is that
you're not truly owning up to your actual situation. OP didn't get offer 70k;
he got offered 65k. Maybe that's what he's better worth or maybe he did a poor
job interviewing for that job.

Regardless, he got offered 65k and that was his reality. Now instead of owning
up to it, he changed it to a nicer sounding number -- 70k. This is where
things get interesting. Why not 75k? What's the harm if you're lying anyway?
Perhap he didn't think it would be believable because he didn't think he was
worth that much. If the employer actually checked his facts, they would have
known he was lying and got annoyed. Yet it's fascinating to me that he went
for 70k -- a mere 5k more.

OP - I went from making ~100k/yr to 175k/yr because I knew I had the power in
the relationship and was probably not tricked by same things you were. I built
value in myself and in the work I was doing, and therefore when it came time
to negotiate, I shot for the stars and never backed down. I sound about your
same age and never had to do it by lying or equivocating or any of these silly
games. I did it by building value in myself. This is all you can truly do at
the end of the day and then it's about staying firm in what your value is
worth. Games will always be games and they are sprinkled with the fairy dust
of "5k more" here and another small lie there, but they will never be able to
match someone who is truly genuine through and through. These are the types
where if they're not worth 70k, they work to make themselves worth 70k
(whether thru negotiation or value-building or both). That's the difference
and that's why some people don't like to lie.

~~~
porker
> I built value in myself and in the work I was doing

More details of how you built value in yourself would be great.

------
xianshou
This is an admirable display of tactics, but a poor general strategy. His
repeated threats to leave, as well as lies about other offers, only worked
because the company in question was already struggling and needed to hold onto
him for fear of not finding a replacement. A more prominent and successful
company would have jettisoned him as soon as it found a qualified and, in all
probability, more loyal applicant.

However, the advice on initial negotiations is solid. Companies generally
allow at least 15% headroom on their initial offer for negotiations, and
potentially more for those with less industry recognition and thus less
negotiating power. I've exploited this headroom in virtually every job I've
gotten.

~~~
schneems
> A more prominent and successful company would have jettisoned him as soon as
> it found a qualified and, in all probability, more loyal applicant.

Even a successful company needs good engineers. They don't fire people just
because they're "not loyal". Sure that medium sized company might want to
replace you with a cheaper more "loyal" version, but what is their capability
to do so? Beyond loyalty is dollars and cents.

I would say it's a solid tactic assuming the developer would actually go and
work at those other companies. Worst case scenario of this tactic is that you
tell them you've got a better offer and they tell you to go take it. Even
then, you could likely backtrack and explain how in your heart of hearts you
decided it wasn't the move you wanted to make. Unless you're underperforming
in some other area, I've not met a software company that can afford to toss
out good engineers.

~~~
s73v3r
"Even a successful company needs good engineers. They don't fire people just
because they're "not loyal"."

Successful companies can still have a few crappy managers in them.

------
Bahamut
I dislike this greatly, and it doesn't seem like a sustainable path - if the
market crashes, and his/her skills don't match the compensation level, then it
will backfire greatly & catch up to him/her.

I was able to boost my salary to $160k in 2 1/2 years from a starting salary
of $50k, but through tireless improvement of my craft (self-studying,
experimentation, and contributions to major open source libraries, including
taking over leading development on one 10k+ starred project on GitHub), smart
job searching, and being unafraid to walk away from offers that are too low. I
never lied about competing offers, and about compensation, although I rarely
will disclose my compensation in negotiations - if I do disclose it, then I am
not afraid of walking away if the offer does not meet my criteria. The plus
side is that this shields you more from engineering employment downturns, lets
you do good work to genuinely improve the state of engineering, and opens up
doors that are not available to most people - I get emailed about some unique
opportunities that most don't get to see. And this is not to say that I could
not have gotten more - I have turned down $300k+ positions already (took less
$ for better work-life balance & more vacation).

One friend of mine mentioned he turned down large offers in favor of 35 (!)
vacation days & a solid salary in a low cost of living area.

One does not need to be dishonest to get the salary & benefits combination one
wants - one just needs to be steadfast at attempts to deflect you from those
aims (i.e. "But you only make xxxxxx amount" or "We cannot afford to pay
that").

~~~
cpwright
Its better to make the extra cash in the meantime and then have to take a pay
cut than to not have the money at all.

I will say that by the third time he's demanding more money with another
offer; they should have said, "good luck." Matching once makes sense, matching
twice, maybe. But the third time, you should just let him go.

~~~
mixmastamyk
You may have missed the part where he was quite underpaid.

------
gue5t
This article is about salary negotiations, not software-engineering
negotiations.

I was hoping this would be about negotiating feature sets and timelines, which
would actually be relevant to the set of people working on software (rather
than being relevant to the set of people trying to make money; of course there
is overlap).

~~~
inglor
The key difference is that software engineering negotiations aren't
adversarial and no one wants you to overestimate or underestimate. There are
numerous books on estimating software time, I recommend Fred Brook's The
Mythical Man Month if you're looking for a classic.

~~~
seiji
_software engineering negotiations aren 't adversarial_

Put 4 angry software developer men with wildly different opinions on The True
Way Forward in a room and see how long it takes for the yelling and physical
altercations to start.

------
ksenzee
For women reading this post and thinking "I should negotiate more," please
make sure you've also read the research on how salary negotiation works
differently for women. There was a New Yorker article on the phenomenon last
year: "In four studies, Bowles and collaborators from Carnegie Mellon found
that people penalized women who initiated negotiations for higher compensation
more than they did men."[0]

My personal anecdotal experience suggests that women can indeed successfully
negotiate salary. We just have to be more strategic about it, and be careful
what impression we're making.

[0] [http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-
th...](http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-
for-women-who-negotiate)

~~~
Jemmeh
As a woman I do find I need to negotiate a little differently. It's a careful
balance. I can't remember where I've read it, but someone once said, "For men
you're being assertive. For women you're being bitchy." And also, "As a man,
you're assumed knowledgeable until you prove yourself stupid. As a woman,
you're assumed stupid until you prove yourself knowledgeable."

In my experience, those things are regrettably true. You have to work around
those social expectations. It's just another hurdle. From your linked article
though I think it does point at a good suggestion to countering that some:

“We’ve found that you need to offer an explanation for your demands that gives
a legitimate reason that the other side finds persuasive,” Bowles says. “You
need to signal concern for the broader organization: ‘It’s not just good for
me; it’s good for you.’

A good tip for anyone, I think, but I think it's an especially important step
for a woman to take when negotiating salary.

------
ITGleek
Management, negotiations, and money are only for the Gordon Gekkos' of the
world. Mind you, I'm humpin on 40 and have had my own stint as an IT manager
at a start-up (VERY successful one, actually) and stepped up to bat as a
Director of IT several years back - feeling cocky just as you have in your
ability to rise to the challenge. However, leadership rarely burdens the young
and I mean <30, because of a discrepency of this thing called life-experience
and human relationships. Writing software is fine, and becoming top technical
dog is another - and you _can_ and _will_ eventually make the money to match
it. HOWEVER, be weary of young management as the company grows - people follow
leaders, not managers into stressful output periods. Start-ups as time goes on
want to grow - namely 5 million to 10, 10-50, 50-100. What that brings, are
folks from OUTSIDE the company who come DOWN from those next tiers to weed out
folks who do this kind of thing. I respect your efforts, and thanks for
sharing.

My next thought is around the belief that money / drive combinations can lead
to happiness. Ya, ya .. lil bit softer end of the stick, but drive to go from
$46-150K in a short period is one thing, but having a family / life / opposite
experience of work is less about how much you make, but making the balance.

I do well, and I live in a depressed market of the US (rust-belt city), and I
have a high-earning wife w/ no kids. Needless to say, my life is fantastic. I
am not going to die at 45 from stress, either.

So balance will be the longevity, and understanding how you want to "grow" in
your field is the other. It's great being ambitious, but just remember - the
higher you go, the lonelier it gets.

~~~
pm90
Great comment. I find it slightly off-putting that he would put everything
else on hold for professional development. In this industry, there is an
undeniable need for working very hard (new languages, softwares, frameworks,
design patterns etc. not to mention the amazing output that comes from
Academic research) but balance is so important. I speak anecdotally, of
course, but it feels amazing to work really hard during the week and have the
weekends off to spend time and build friendships and relationships. And to be
honest, the industry pays well enough that not to take advantage of it would
be a bigger fallacy.

------
sjcrank
I would recommend a small variation of this technique in order to maintain
good working relationships with your manager/employer.

Start with a conversation explaining why you believe you should be better
compensated, highlighting the value you add to the company, rarity of your
skills, market rates, etc.

If the request is rejected, or the increase offered is inadequate, then find
an offer at another employer and use this to negotiate (or simply accept the
offer and move on).

This approach shows good will, in that you gave your employer an opportunity
to make things right before escalating to a threat of leaving.

~~~
icedchai
Yes, the key is to never make ultimatums, as that creates too much conflict.

Just say you're "unhappy". Keep it vague. See what they do. It's tough finding
good people in this market.

~~~
Kalium
Ultimatums can be useful both for cutting the negotiation process short (to
avoid pain from inferior negotiation skills, for instance) or to show your
business understanding. If you _want_ executives to respect your business
acumen, demonstrating your skills like this is one way to go about it.

------
ChuckMcM
I strongly recommend against lying to a potential future employer. An under-
appreciated side effect is that it can become habitual. And then when you're
the new CEO of a former dot com darling, it can bite you in the backside[1]

That said, if the only way you will keep working in a job is if they will pay
you more money, then you should certainly tell your boss that. And if they
don't want to pay that much you should own it and just leave. But more
importantly if you're only metric of "happiness" in your job is what you are
making month to month, then you have bigger problems to work on.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/05/14/the-
hi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/05/14/the-high-price-
of-career-lies-2/)

------
munificent
"Totally Honest"

"(a lie, I added $14k to the original offer)"

"(a lie, I added $20k to my current salary)"

~~~
minimaxir
That's the joke.

------
methodover
There's a problem here, a tragedy of the commons.

Trust is a public good. A culture of honesty and trust is better for the
experience of each individual employee, and for the company as a whole.

Unfortunately, the OP is right about one thing -- one individual liar in a
workplace of honest people will likely get ahead. He can lie about his place
in the market, and divert more resources towards himself. He can keep the
salary of others low, and take more money for himself.

The problem is that if everyone started doing that, the public trust would be
eroded. This thing that's critical to a company's success, not to mention the
happiness of each individual employee -- _trust_ \-- starts to weaken. It
might not manifest itself obviously at first -- maybe it's just people being
more closed off, less open, less invested. It might mean your engineers care a
bit less about doing a really good job, because they don't feel as emotionally
invested in their job. It probably means the good employees leave. And it
means what you're left with are unhappy, uninvested, bad engineers.

In other words, it's probably a good individual strategy for maximizing short-
term personal gains. But it's bad for the commons -- it's bad for your fellow
employees and it's bad for your workplace.

And honestly, it's probably bad for YOU; your personal inner life. Once you
become okay with lying, you start to treat other people differently. It
affects your entire personality. I can't imagine that OP only lies in his
workplace; most likely his deceptive habits have seeped into the rest of his
life too. Maybe the OP is a sociopath and doesn't feel empathy for others --
but if he's a regular person, it erodes at your soul.

------
mkaziz
Wow I would not want to work for or with this guy. Someone who blatantly lies
like that will hardly make a good teammate or a boss.

~~~
jschwartzi
In the course of a salary negotiation if anyone asks you what you're making
now it's just a transparent attempt to low-ball you.

------
arenaninja
Well, I'm pretty much in awe. Personally, it took me a little more than two
years to break six-figure salary, and I did it by jumping ship. But every jump
was a double digits percent increase.

Personally, I feel that threatening to quit is a more adversarial process, but
it's clearly working for whoever wrote this. Me, I don't threaten, I inform.
"I'm leaving on X/Y/Z, thank you for the opportunity and you're all great."
Granted, I've not always jumped strictly because of salary.

------
zkhalique
_Totally Honest Software Engineering Negotiations_

 _(a lie, I added $14k to the original offer)_

See... it's hard to be "totally honest" in sales, even of your own time,
because of the red queen effect.

This was an integral step in the process of raising your salary. If you
volunteer all information honestly, I am pretty sure that most players in the
system will not have an obvious path to increasing your salary. Otherwise it
would represent an arbitrage opportunity for everyone.

~~~
swang
I think he?/she? means being upfront with the reader (us) about his
negotiations, and not how he was completely honest in his approach.

------
codingdave
So the author now knows only one software product, after 5 years in the field,
and has a 150K salary and stock. Sounds like he worked his way into golden
handcuffs at a very young age.

------
icedchai
Yep, this is what you have to do. I know a guy, smart developer, not even a
college graduate who had dropped out of community college, who clawed his way
from 60k to 150 in less than 6 years using similar tactics. You need a decent
safety net, brass balls, and willingness to actually walk away of it doesn't
go your way.

~~~
ITGleek
No doubt. I actually stepped away, because the upward trajectory, means your
performance has to match the pay. As said before in the thread, asking OVER
the top - simply means HR finds your replacement faster. Appeasement is what
started Hitler's demise. Those who do not learn from the past, will repeat the
failures in the future. However, its like a skill of knowing the timing of
things - how I got this far, myself.

~~~
monknomo
I think the dirty secret is that the 150k jobs aren't really always harder
than the 60k jobs, and sometimes they even treat you better because your
social status is greater

~~~
Bamafan
_ding ding ding_

------
pbz
How do you guys estimate your market value? For example, if you go to
salary.com there are many levels of software engineering (I, II, III, IV,
etc). The description for each is quite vague and the difference between them
is very small (or hard to notice) while the pay rate delta can be big.

~~~
bankim
Use this site. [http://data.jobsintech.io/](http://data.jobsintech.io/) It's
based on public data required for H1B/employer-sponsored visa. So typically
will include not very senior engineers.

------
anon349
This. 100% this. You are selling the only resource that you have a limited
supply of - your time. Asking for more money in exchange is a GOOD THING.

I have NEVER had a raise offered to me. I've been a software engineer for 15
years now. I have always received raises though, because I asked for them,
with leverage. I have climbed my way from getting hired to a 120 person
company with a below median salary to making probably more than anyone in 6
months, by being good at what I do and asking or more in return.

Employee/employer relations are always a fight for survival. Be the lion.

------
alain94040
A more ethical version of this method: [https://medium.com/@colunchers/how-to-
negotiate-a-raise-9166...](https://medium.com/@colunchers/how-to-negotiate-a-
raise-9166c977645a)

Basically, competition is what drives prices up, but you can do it ethically
without lying about your current compensation. And make sure you your attitude
remains positive, don't act like a mercenary who'll quit the day he gets an
extra dollar elsewhere. Happiness at your current job does matter.

------
umbs
The general tone of comments on this thread is not to follow this path. I
completely agree. On a personal level (for me), it's unethical, and more
importantly, it is a very very dangerous compensation culture they are
encouraging in that company. Sooner or later, it will percolate in to other
aspects of the company.

I, recently, switched jobs from one big company to another. I was seeking
opinions from friends (managers) in 2nd company. Their general advise on
salary is: Negotiate as high as possible as I can _leverage_ my existing
position. I have nothing to loose. So far, I understand. Then they gave
examples of good engineers who were fresh grads, or were let go at other jobs
and have no backup offers. In those instances, managers tried to low-ball or
drive down salary. This attitude is not at all healthy. The 2nd company is not
doing well at all (my group is doing great). This is not at all healthy for
employee morale.

I would not encourage this culture.

------
nautical
I dislike this to the core ! .. People like these are the reason "real startup
enthusiasts" leave MNCs and work for startups and if these people start coming
to startup world , it can even lead to failure of companies .

------
schneems
This is by far the best talk I've ever seen on the topic "Negotiations for
Hackers"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icuSn3k9Euk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icuSn3k9Euk)

------
kdamken
I'm always blown away by how people lowball themselves. See how much you're
worth, then ask for more. The worst they can say is no, the best they can say
is yes, and somewhere in the middle is still pretty good.

~~~
ryandrake
The "see how much you're worth" part is the tricky one. Unless you are
directly generating revenue (e.g. in sales), it's hard to quantify what you're
worth is to a company, or in the broader market. There doesn't appear to be a
credible, accessible source of data out there. However your employer knows
what everyone is making, and knows where you stand vs. the average. Employers
obviously have a huge advantage from this information asymmetry.

Every time I read someone talking about their salary on HN, it seems
astronomically high, but then again it's obviously biased, as the people who
are not making as much are not going to brag about it. The same is likely true
for crowdsourced sites like Glassdoor where people self-report.

~~~
kdamken
Yea it's a bit tougher when you're not in sales. Still, you can look up market
value for your role in the area you're in.

------
minimaxir
via Reddit, with discussions at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3l9nzs/totally...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3l9nzs/totally_honest_software_engineering_negotiations/)
and
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/3l9mtv/t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/3l9mtv/totally_honest_software_engineering_negotiations/)

------
fractalsea
> know your worth

How?

I think this wouldn't be so hard if you are in the valley (or other large tech
cities in the US), or targeting large companies (Glassdoor). But how do you do
this if you are in a different situation?

~~~
vellum
In addition to Glassdoor, try data.jobsintech.io (H1B) or angel.co (startups)
for salary information. Go on indeed.com, and look for companies around your
area to see if any are in those dbs.

After a while, you should start seeing some common ranges between regular
software engineers and senior engineers. Use those as a starting point in
negotiations. Interview at enough places (10+), and you should see what your
market value is.

------
zaif
A lot of people attacking him for his lack of integrity and lying, and I too
feel a little disgusted by the behavior. However, what ethical negotiation
strategy would you use in his place?

------
markbnj
So they finally got back at you by making you a manager?

Seriously, though, the pay curve you experienced isn't that atypical for young
developers entering the market. Someone just out of college can always be had
cheaply (except in a few unusual circumstances). For the most part they are an
unknown quantity. If they come in and excel for a year they are suddenly worth
a lot more, and that's just the way it works. My own pay curve looked very
similar in the first three or four years of professional work... but it was
twenty years ago. :)

Also thanks for your kind words about senior engineers in their 50's. We
agree!

------
daxfohl
Thank you Donald Trump for your insights. See you on the next episode of "What
Would 'The Donald' Do".

------
JoshDoody
This is a really good story, and it drives home the famous @patio11 mantra:
Charge more! (Even when you're an employee who charges a company a salary for
your work.) This is an amazing success story that drives home the importance
of knowing your value and using that knowledge to get paid what you're worth.
Very cool :)

Some more thoughts...

 _Aggression_

Your tactics are _very_ strong and aggressive. If you're truly indispensable,
this level of aggression can pay off in a big way. Two factors go into
figuring out how aggressive you can/should be:

1\. How badly the company needs you. 2\. How badly you need them.

This seems obvious, but I think a lot of people overlook the relationship
between those two things and your ability to negotiate aggressively.

The more they need you, and the less you need them, the more aggressive you
can be. In this case, it sounds like you knew they needed you _badly_ and you
had many other options and little loyalty to the company, so you didn't need
them very much. This is a situation where strong aggression is merited.

 _Knowing your market value_

I especially like that you went and got _real_ offers from other companies.
This is the best way to estimate your market value—a key step to complete
_before_ jumping into a salary negotiation. If you can find out what other
companies pay for your skill set and experience, and if you can determine what
your current company will pay for your skill set and experience, you know how
hard you can push.

 _Knowing your minimum acceptable salary_

You didn't mention this, but I think it's implicit: It's also important to set
your minimum acceptable salary before the negotiation. What's the absolute
minimum you will accept in order to take the job or stay with the company?
This is your "walk away" number, and it can be a very, very potent tool when
you're negotiating. Pre-deciding this number gives you total control over your
situation and helps avoid any knee-jerk decisions that you may regret later.
Knowing your market value can help set this number accounting for more than
personal feelings.

Here are a few more thoughts on things I might recommend doing differently
(since I know a lot of people will read your post and hope to emulate your
success).

 _I recommend witholding your desired salary_

When you were looking elsewhere for opportunities, you said, "They asked me
what my other company offered, and I said $60k (a lie, I added $14k to the
original offer). They offered me $58k plus a $7k performance bonus, for a
theoretical $65k package." It is not a coincidence that the company's offer
was _slightly_ less than the number you told them.

And again when you tell your employer about your other offer: "I went back to
my original employer and said I had a new job offer for $70k, and I didn't
want to negotiate, I just wanted their final, last ditch offer. This removed
any potential for skilled negotiators to outwit me. Later that night they
emailed me an offer for $66k and a few thousand more shares." Again, it's not
a coincidence that they offered _slightly_ less than the offer you had on the
table.

Rather than telling them your desired salary, or what other offers you had on
the table, I recommend simply kindly refusing to disclose these numbers. You
very likely would have been better off using one of my favorite lines: "I want
this move to be a big step forward in terms of both responsibility and
compensation."

In fact, your story sort of bears this out. They obviously had a LOT more
headroom for salary, and yet the salary you got was always _slightly_ less
than you had requested.

 _I don 't recommend lying_

A few times, you determined your market value by getting offers at other
companies, then went back to your employer and lied about those offers at your
company. This worked out for you, but seems pretty risky. Why lie? If they
fact-check you at all, you'll be in a pretty awkward position of explaining
the lies.

Instead, just don't tell them the numbers at all :)

If you were going to demand their best-possible offer _anyway_ , why not just
demand their best offer without giving them an anchor?

 _I think yours was a special case, but is still illustrative_

As I mentioned above, you were _very_ aggressive here, demanding a raise and
threatening to leave multiple times. Most people probably cannot get away with
this sort of aggression and will end up either leaving or having their bluff
called pretty often. (I don't think you were bluffing here, which is why you
could be so aggressive as I mentioned above.) I just point this out so those
who may want to emulate your succes are aware that yours were _very_
aggressive tactics that may often result in separation from the company or bad
blood within the company if managers feel that you will constantly demand
raises under threat of leaving.

I'm publishing a book on salary negotiation very soon. You can check it out
here:
[http://FearlessSalaryNegotiation.com](http://FearlessSalaryNegotiation.com)

------
tschellenbach
This is a great post about realizing growth in a dysfunctional company.

Alternatively you could simply join a company where they value your expertise
and progress :) We're hiring in Boulder and Amsterdam: angel.co/stream

------
draw_down
This all seems pretty straightforward to me, though I don't pull the "I'm
leaving" tactic, I just leave. Overall I agree, engineers are too timid about
this and you have to grow some balls.

It would be worth expounding a bit on the manager who was a skilled
negotiator. What did that person do, how did you end up being glad with just
an offer? I've read a lot about this subject but maybe others have not.

Is this in the Bay Area? (Edit: guessing Boston or that region based on the
New England college)

------
notNow
So, his strategy basically boils down to "My way or the highway".

Well buddy, not all managers are spineless like the ones you have in that
startup and if you tried to pull this trick on them and to strongarm them into
submission, they'd kick you out the door in a heartbeat esp. when you're a
lousy junior dev who's learning on the job according to your statement.

I've been very critic of employers and business owners when they describe that
some employees have a mercenary attitude when it comes to the workplace and
I'd always feel offended by that but when you read an account like this where
certain jerks boast about their ability to bluff people and fleece them of
their money in that disgusting manner, you come to realize that they might
have a valid reason behind their worries and reservations.

~~~
Kalium
From what he's said, it's less that the managers were spineless and more that
he made himself very valuable.

Personally, I don't see a problem with a mercenary attitude. It's simple, it's
clear, and you always know where you stand with a mercenary. It's easy to work
with, if you're willing to meet them on their terms. It brings the clarity of
a transaction to what is ultimately a transaction anyway.

~~~
notNow
Nothing wrong with putting you and your family or loved ones first and
foremost before anything and I don't believe in loyalty for the company either
esp. when it's a one way street where the employee is expected to fawn and
suck up to his superiors to show his love and loyalty for the company to get
ahead but to adopt a mercenary attitude at the expense of everything else no
matter what is very questionable ethically and harmful to the morale of the
company or the culture esp. when the place becomes full of those egomaniacs
and ruthless selfish individuals.

~~~
Kalium
Being mercenary is not even slightly the same as being an egomaniac. Or even
being ruthless or selfish. Why are you conflating a series of different traits
into one?

~~~
notNow
What attributes or traits do you ascribe to these people who only care about
themselves and want to have things their way at the expense of the team, the
organization and everything else?

~~~
Kalium
The common definition of being mercenary is not the same as wanting to have
only your way at the expense of the team, the organization, and everything
else.

You may be operating under a different understanding. How do you define being
mercenary?

------
avitzurel
As an employer and an employee I know this much.

Never ever use another offer as leverage, both the employer and the employee
need to come to the table with good intentions.

Asking for more money is usual business, both for employers and employees, but
with more money you are asking you need to explain why you are worth more
money, why I as your employer need to pay you more.

For most part, when someone goes after other offers, even if you give him a
raise, he/she will leave after since it's a symptom of not being happy and
being confused that more money will make you happy, but it doesn't.

If an employee used another offer as leverage with me, I would probably 1) not
give him a raise, 2) give him notice.

Lot of people come into those negotiations stressed out and assume that
there's some magic behind it, there isn't, be honest, completely honest, state
your case and more often than not you will get what you want.

As a rule, I never lie to my employer and I expect the same from my employees,
same with people interviewing. I think it's wrong asking "how much are you
making now in your current company?" during an interview, but if I was asked
that I would be honest and I would not even say 1$ more than what I was
making. You can explain why you think you deserve more, but never lie about
how much you are making during an interview.

~~~
logfromblammo
If I were taking an offer in hand to my current employer, it would probably
only be to help explain why I'm leaving, if asked. If I asked for anything at
all, it would be on behalf of those who are remaining. I already made the
decision to leave when I started looking for other jobs.

I also refuse to give out my salary history in interviews. I think it just
obscures the main issue. The employer needs to pay the employee the market
value of their labor, whether it is in the offer letter or after the 10th year
of performance reviews. Just because gas is $2/gallon today doesn't mean it
won't be $3/gallon tomorrow. And I have never had to report at the pump what I
paid for my last 10 fill-ups before learning the price I will have to pay for
the current one.

If you get a better offer, don't ask for a competing offer. Just leave. You
shouldn't really even be volunteering to them what the offer is, or with whom.
If your current employer offers a raise in a bid to keep you, let your soon-
to-be-former co-workers know what they might want to ask for, and leave
anyway.

The fact that you have a new offer in hand means that you were already
dissatisfied enough to start looking for alternatives in the first place.
Remember that? Spitting out extra money only after you reveal you haven't been
happy does not alter the fact that the company has not been making proactive
efforts to keep you satisfied.

Honestly, I don't want to have to ask for a raise. If I am forced to ask at
all, don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm only going to ask my current
employer. I'm going to be asking all of its competitors first.

It may be mercenary, but I think it well warranted by the current conditions
in the job markets.

~~~
Amezarak
> The fact that you have a new offer in hand means that you were already
> dissatisfied enough to start looking for alternatives in the first place.
> Remember that? Spitting out extra money only after you reveal you haven't
> been happy does not alter the fact that the company has not been making
> proactive efforts to keep you satisfied.

Not always. Sometimes it is just about the money.

I left a job I loved very much because another job essentially landed in my
lap offering 25k more. It's a lot less challenging, the skills aren't really
transferable, and the work environment kind of sucks, but 25k is 25k.

