
Ask HN: I’m being asked to be a team lead with no additional salary. Accept it? - volgo
I’m in my 20s working at a medium size tech coming I really love. The company has a very flat structure and doesn’t do compensation changes, even for team leads<p>I was asked recently if I want to be one. Obviously I’m flattered as I’ve never been in a leadership position before. Is it worth taking on more leadership responsibilities (and probably more bullshit) for no additional pay? Thanks
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borplk
Hard to tell without knowing more. However generally NO!

It's similar to accepting a pay reduction.

You accept more responsibilities for no additional expense to the company.
Rewarding them for bad behaviour.

It also signals a lack of commitment to the role and title.

There will be an undertone of "whatever .. that's just a title". And that will
go both ways, you will feel like a "fake" team lead and they will treat you as
"the developer with the fancy title that we blame when needed".

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ryeguy_24
I guess the question should be. Do we get paid for our current replacement
cost or the amount of work we do each day? Salaried jobs are treated
differently than hourly jobs.

If we should get paid for value, your value arguably hasn’t changed yet as you
take on this new responsibility. After you’ve done it for a while, yeah, you
are now more valuable because of your new experience, skills, confidence
gained, etc. But you don’t have those yet. So, maybe they are giving you an
opportunity to build up equity in yourself and the cost to you is more work.

That’s one angle. But the other is that you are doing more work and maybe
working more hours. If this is truly just more hours each day and not a slight
shift in priority, then maybe it makes sense to at least have the conversation
with them.

If I were you, I’d probably do the job first, do it well for 6 months and then
have the discussion. Asking for money up front may be a little aggressive. But
others may do differently and that is very important. Do what is comfortable
for you. My sister is aggressive and talks to boss about salary all the time
and she’s now making a lot of money.

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Quequau
In my experience being offered team lead with no increase in pay translated
directly into additional exposure to blame when things went wrong with
insufficient additional authority to change things to avert predictable
problems.

I personally wouldn't accept it (assuming no pay increase), with the full
understanding upfront that such an offer probably wouldn't come again and if I
wanted a better opportunity in the future I'd have to leave the company to
find it.

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rubyfan
Probably in the long run and it depends on the lead duties. Do you have actual
HR responsibility or is it leading a project or deliverables team?

The difference I’d draw is that HR is harder. People are complex and not
always rational - HR reporting responsibilities requires extra of you. Also
deciding compensation can be hard depending on the comp structure and team -
that’s extra as well.

When given new leadership opportunities you should generally not go into it
expecting to have your palm greased but you’d be right to expect marginal
increases in your competition on your annual cycle.

