
I was underpaid for years and I didn't know it - limedaring
http://www.limedaring.com/articles/talkpay-and-being-underpaid
======
drawkbox
The system does take advantage of nice people that are bad negotiators.

I guess don't hate the player hate the game as it is all game theory in the
end and the complainers or negotiators will always tip in their favor. You can
be a team player and get your worth but you have to speak up and be aware.

I think it is better to be fair at salaries even though you could pay the
great developer you have lower than the good one that knows the market and is
a negotiator. If you don't and they find out they are gone as happened in this
instance. Open salaries might even be a good idea with bonuses for
performance.

~~~
zem
nope, "don't hate the player, hate the game" is a massive cop-out, and excuses
people who perpetrate broken systems because they benefit from them. there is
no abstract "the game" written into the fundamental nature of human
psychology; there is only the collective behaviour of all the players, some of
whom end up influencing the game more than others.

~~~
vonklaus
> massive cop-out, and excuses people who perpetrate broken systems because
> they benefit from them

> there is only the collective behaviour of all the players, some of whom end
> up influencing the game more than others

You drew the wrong conclusion from your own example. The sum of all of the
players actions is the game, and it delivers results similar to the Nash
Equilibrium. Everyone works in their own best interest and the system is
actually not "broken". This is the system working. If you would work for half
what another employer might pay you, fine. Obviously, I weight the benefits of
saving money on your salary, with the negative (and likely outcome) that when
you find out, you may leave taking talent away. Some employers pay well to
prevent this (google, yahoo, amazon come to mind), and thus their talent is
largely safe from financial poaching.

This is how the system works, and how the world works. It isn't equitable and
it isn't a fairytale. However, it is true.

~~~
pyre
> Everyone works in their own best interest and the system is actually not
> "broken".

You assume that all actors are rational. It ignores things like office
politics, people building fiefdoms, people holding grudges, the idea that you
aren't a "team player" if you're asking for more money, the idea that one
should be "loyal" to the company (but that the company can be "cold and
calculating" when it comes to you), gender/racial/whatever discrimination,
etc...

People often do _not_ work in their own best interest. Or maybe they work in
their best short-term interest while ignore their medium- and/or long-term
interests.

------
throwaway879168
I own a small but quite successful software business and struggle with how
much to pay people. Our developers are all quite happy with their jobs and (as
far as I know) compensation. Several of them have spontaneously told me it's
the best job they've ever had. When hiring, I will ask if there's a level of
compensation they have in mind, but I don't press if they don't want to state
a number. However, any who have stated a number tend to quote ranges which I
find quite reasonable. (In the 60k range for intermediate to senior people.)
We're not in an expensive area, and those ranges line up with average to above
average from what I can tell on Payscale and such.

So, I end up paying people around, or even slightly over, the top of the range
they quote. It's certainly within our means, and being well paid should allow
them to focus on the work and not worry too much about compensation. (From my
own past experience, normally if you say you're looking for $X to $Y, the
employer hears $X.)

So far, so good. I certainly wouldn't want to pay less. However, our profits
are still very healthy. In other words, _I_ effectively still make
considerably more than my developers. Of course, I would expect to make more
given the time I've put in and the risk I've taken. It's just a job to them.
And they're happy with what they're making, and it IS market level. But... I
still feel awkward about how much the company is making compared to their
salaries. I wonder how they would feel if they knew the exact numbers.
(Although I imagine they could estimate it fairly closely if they wanted to.)
I wonder if I'm being greedy watching my savings rapidly grow while my
employees make good but not fantastic money. But at the same time, I have
trouble with the idea of voluntarily paying everyone considerably more than
they a) are happy with and b) asked for, given that I know the rates we're
paying are already competitive and we have no trouble hiring.

~~~
Osiris
Why not have the employees participate in a profit sharing program? On a
quarterly or annual basis, any profits over a minimum level get split so a
percentage gets put into a pool and distributed to employees as a bonus. This
distribution could be based on salary or just an even split.

The advantage here is that employees are 1) rewarded for the work they do, and
2) shows that the company understands the value that they bring, 3) the
employees become invested in the success of the business because they benefit
directly from it (as opposed to a flat "10% bonus based on salary").

As an employee myself, it's hard to look at companies that make massive
profits but don't reward those responsible for helping make that happen (the
labor force). One could argue "anyone could do that job", or "if it wasn't him
it would be someone else", but that doesn't matter. Just because you CAN take
all the profits for yourself doesn't mean that you should.

From an economic perspective, funds going to employees are turned around in
the economy and generate more economic activity that money sitting in your
bank account.

~~~
throwaway879168
Certainly if I did decide to start paying considerably above-market rate, I
would do it in the form of profit sharing, because anything else would be
taking a considerable risk should profits decline. However, there's still the
question of whether that's the thing to do. I mean, certainly it would be a
_nice_ thing to do. But so would giving more to charity, or to my parents. Or
lowering the price of our product for that matter. The only difference is
that, as you say, the employees help generate those profits. But only to a
point; the first developer I hired was after the company was profitable, and
she's actually moved on to her own startup. So it would be more about sharing
the current wealth than rewarding people for getting us where we are.

Still, obviously it's something I'm considering, or I wouldn't have posted.
And I guess it doesn't have to be all or nothing; I can obviously choose to
share any amount of the profits.

Really don't follow the last argument. I would hope if my employees got a
sudden large raise, they would put most of that money into their own
retirement savings, rather than just increasing their spending. But even if
they didn't, by your argument the best thing I could do would be to just blow
the profits myself buying cars or whatever. I think the money does the economy
just fine in an investment account, providing capital to public companies and
the government.

~~~
Osiris
The last argument was really more of a macro view. Economists have shown that
reducing wealth inequality actually increases economic output more.

For example, for someone that makes $10k a year, give them an extra $10k, that
whole $10k is going back into the economy as an increase in demand. For
someone making $100k, maybe 50% of an extra $10k goes back into circulation
through spending, for someone making $1m/yr, the extra $10k does nothing to
increase demand.

Economic activity = spending. The more wealth that's concentrated in
investments and saving, the less is available for increasing economic output.

This type of argument is used to explain how an increase in the minimum wage
would actually make the economy better for _everyone_ , not just those that
get the pay increase.

Simple supply and demand. Increase demand (higher income for laborers)
increases supply (which increases employment by requiring more workers).

Think of it another way, would $10k make a bigger difference to your employee
or to yourself?

------
ajays
I'm a guy, and I was underpaid for many years at $LARGE_CO. I finally found
this out when the CEO gave "normalizing" raises to narrow the spread of
salaries at the same position, and I got a nice raise. That left a bitter
taste in my mouth, and I left shortly after.

Some of us (men and women) are just not cut out to play this salary game. :-(

~~~
r00fus
There are two sides to this coin - if you are getting valuable experience or
you really love your job, then you need to factor in the fact that you may get
more elsewhere, but the working conditions or culture may not suit you.

It never hurts to keep tabs on the market by doing interviews outside. In
fact, I'm pretty sure I know many folks that got promotions/raises simply
because they bothered to look elsewhere.

Keeping in mind, of course, that monetary compensation is only one aspect of a
rewarding job.

~~~
pincubator
I experienced the two sides of the coin first hand. Right after college, I
started to work at a start-up; everything was just awesome, people were cool,
job was interesting, I was extremely happy. 3 months into the job, after I
talked to my colleagues, I realized that I was severely underpaid. I asked for
a raise, got something like 5%. After 2 weeks, I switch to a job paying me
exactly x 2 of my salary.

Worst decision of my life, and I still regret it to this day. But knowing the
fact that my old job was taking advantage of me just because I am a new-
graduate, I couldn't return back there. But sometimes money isn't really worth
comparing to being absolutely happy at work.

~~~
nosefrog
> Worst decision of my life, and I still regret it to this day.

Interesting framing. The way I see it, you were successful in determining that
you're worth more, but you landed at the wrong place. Like, the issue isn't
that jobs that are awesome AND that pay well don't exist, the problem was you
just didn't land in one.

------
ffn
Seriously, unless you're deeply passionate about the vision of the company
you're working for, it's super important to keep tabs on the market and leave
companies that are (for lack of a better term) taking advantage of you.
Unscrupulous employers, especially traditional scrooge-mcduck-business-
entrepreneurs, will try to squeeze you as hard as they can while paying you as
little as they can (a good rule of thumb for spotting these men and women is
that they're in their business just to make money, not to chase some "nobler"
vision). So it's critical that you get out as soon as you can not only because
it'll be better for your financial and emotional well-being, but also so that
you don't lower the market wage average of your profession and wind up hurting
all the other people in your industry.

~~~
seanp2k2
Genuinely curious how this works in the financial sector. Is it hard to find
passionate employers who want to do more than get rich?

~~~
ffn
Actually, the finance sector has this figured out better than most other
sectors imo (just consider how much bonus they pay even their lowly analysts
after working them to death). A good boss / company there ought to be more
about earning money than having money, and so should spare no expenses
rewarding employees who bring a lot of value to the corporation... So my point
is you want an employer who has the character to reward everyone in the
company (including him/herself) based upon some open and fair system of value
contributed / need without being prompted, rather than someone who will pay
you what he can get away paying you.

But deciding that most inner quality of character is difficult (since it's an
hidden attribute on people), so it makes sense to look for various outward
expressions of that hidden trait... one of which I postulate to be the
question of whether your boss is in it for money, or in it for a vision. In
the finance sector, where it's only about money, my postulate admittedly
breaks down.

------
chasing
If you're going to sell something, you need to have some sense of what it's
worth or you run the risk of being taken advantage of.

One of the most valuable things you will ever sell is your time and work
energy. That's a sale worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year,
every year.

It is incumbent upon you to understand the value of what you're selling, or
else someone will lowball you and take advantage of the situation when you say
"yes."

Maybe that's unfair. But it's just how things work.

~~~
task_queue
This is true.

This is also a reason unions exist, such that a fairer negotiation can happen
where both sides come from a more even footing.

In other industries not experiencing our current boom, desperation and a deep
applicant pool can make things more difficult.

Always know where you stand in negotiations, you are the only advocate your
worth has.

------
monk_e_boy
How did it take this poor lady so long to figure out she was being paid too
little? Me and my fellow coders are very aware of who is paying what. It's a
daily conversation, what with linkedin and recruiters spamming us with job
adverts.

I've always found that switching jobs is easier than getting a proper pay
rise. Asking your boss for +10% and getting offered 2.5%. Go to some
interviews, accept, hand in notice. Boss offers +15% for me to stay... wtf.
Poor communication skills from both me and my boss I guess.

~~~
byoung2
_I 've always found that switching jobs is easier than getting a proper pay
rise._

I have found that to be the case as well. Using a combination of skillful
salary negotiation, leveraging counteroffers (use sparingly), and hopping
between companies, I have averaged 19.5% yearly salary increases for the past
10 years. Obviously this is not sustainable, since my current salary level
limits the number of positions I can take without taking a pay cut.

For those who are curious, it took 6 companies over those 10 years, with 1
career change from teacher/manager to programmer. During that time, the
largest year to year jump was 38% (2nd was 37%), the longest time spent at a
company was 3 years, the shortest was 3 months. I used the counteroffer trick
twice, once quitting and once staying.

~~~
rupert_murdaaa
Yep, I'm in the same boat. I've left two jobs over the past 3 years and have
gotten a +25% "raise" both times, as well as a jump in job titles.

After seeing how difficult it is at any company with an HR department to
approve raises or approve title changes, I'm not even going to bother in the
future with trying to do that. Do a good job somewhere for 1-2 years, accept
offer at new company, rinse, repeat.

~~~
byoung2
Big companies seem to have it written in their DNA that 3-5% is a standard
raise, and 10% is the theoretical maximum anyone could ever get. I've made it
a mission to prove them wrong, even if it means switching companies every
other year on average. The idea was to get all my raises upfront, instead of
spread over 40 years.

------
elevensies
This is a document that shows salary ranges for lots of IT positions and has
geographical adjustment as well :
[http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_2015_salar...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_2015_salary-
guide.pdf)

(anyone with other documentation that could easily be referenced in a salary
negotiation?)

Another thing: I have an easy copy-paste response to recruiter cold contacts
on linkedin where I say basically: I'm committed to my current company, but
I'm always interested in real salary information, if you have something you
can share I'd be happy to keep you in mind in the future. ... sometimes that
gets me a number.

Having accurate information that you trust is half the battle IMO.

~~~
wyldfire
Thanks for sharing!

> Software Engineer 2015 $ 96,000 - $147,250

Uh...really‽ Is that range like [new grad - experienced]? Should I expect the
same range from a software engineer at a device manufacturer not-on-one-of-
the-coasts?

~~~
elevensies
The doc. is published by a staffing agency, so they are on the sell side
rather than the buy side, which means the numbers are higher, which is one of
the reasons I like it as a reference!

------
digitalzombie
Um... her conclusion is decent but she didn't learn much or gave much advice
on how to find your worth. OP, had to date a cs dude and that dude pointed it
out.

How to find out what you're worth without dating a programmer:

1\. Save your vacation days. Apply for jobs, take vacation days for interviews
and see how much your worth. You don't have to take the job but you're more
than welcome to practice your interview skills, negotiation skills, and find
out what you're worth (via how much they're willing to offer you before they
tell you to screw off). Make mistakes in those interviews and learned from
them.

2\. Network with people and talk to them you might get an idea of what you're
worth too.

3\. Use sites like Indeed.com and search your particular title or skill set.
They might give you an idea.

4\. Talk to your head hunters. They might spam the crap out of you, but ask
them about the position they're giving you and what their successful candidate
got as salary. Remember job recruiters get paid via percentage of the
negotiated salary. If they hired me for 80k and the recruiter contract with
employer is 20% of the salary then they get 20% of 80k from the employer (NOT
I, or out of my pocket).

~~~
mahranch
And I really hate to be cynical since as you say, her conclusion is decent,
but where she says:

> " _PS: I left that job a few months later — one of the best decisions I 've
> ever made!_"

I would bet my first born and my entire life savings that she didn't leave
voluntarily.

A good portion of my previous job was doing salary negotiations and personnel
management. What I would bet the farm on, and would do so without hesitation,
is that they gave her the raise, then _immediately_ began looking for her
replacement. Once they found a suitable candidate, they either canned her or
found reasons to ding her on performance reviews, being late, etc, which would
be justification to fire her with cause. I know because it's pretty much the
operating manual for anyone who was in my position. Why pay someone double
when you can find another sucker to work for half the pay? Even if it was 3/4
pay, it's still a savings and when we're talking tens of thousands of dollars,
it's enough.

She was fired from her job and/or shown the door after asking for (and
getting) her raise. I guarantee it.

~~~
duggan
Your glee in the baseless speculation that a woman was a) naive and b) lying
to cover up some perceived indiscretion, is unsettling.

It's another example of the challenge women face in our industry, not to
mention the overall culture of shame around firings.

~~~
zizee
Did the parent poster change their post? I ask because nothing in their post
indicated to me that they were focussed on this person being a woman, that
they were naive or that there was a suggestion of an indiscretion.

That is not to say that the parent poster and their employer/company does not
sound sociopathic, just that we needn't bring sex warfare into this.

I have to say though, if the parent is being truthful (i.e. not trolling), it
is a pretty sad state of affairs and pretty disappointing. If you ever find
yourself working with/for such actors, start looking elsewhere. There are
plenty of great employers/people in the world that you needn't waste your time
working with scrooge-like caricatures.

------
Aoyagi
Isn't this why the artificial "my wage is my secret business" thing is around?

~~~
task_queue
Yes. It's an attitude promoted by management to keep people ignorant, divided
and too paranoid to demand their fair market compensation from their employer.

[http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-
policies...](http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at-
work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood)

~~~
mikekchar
You can try this experiment if you own some seriously effective asbestos
underwear. Grab a random sampling of people at your office. Sit them down in a
room and tell them that you want to try a game to see if they can select their
own salary. Get some poker chips or monopoly money, or something like that --
maybe 10 per person. Put all the tokens in the middle of the table and ask
them to decide amongst themselves how to split the pot based on their value to
the business. In the likely event that the people don't agree to split the pot
evenly, the person who wishes to make more money has to explain why they are
justified in doing so by comparing their performance to the other people who
would make less. Allow the other people to respond if they wish.

As organizer, you get a bonus if you manage to come to a consensus without
having to call the police (and honestly, you are wasting your time as a
programmer if you have such amazing people skills).

The current situation sucks. In an ideal world, management would say, "Here is
how we ranked people. I'm sorry if it doesn't match your expectation. If you
wish to move up in the rankings, come and see us and we will work together
with you to create a plan for doing that."

In an ideal world, people upon hearing this would say, "Awesome! I'm going to
work super, super hard to make sure that I do more of what my management
values and less of what they don't. And if it turns out that I'm limited by a
lack of talent, I will feel good about myself because I tried my best".

I really, really, really wish I lived in that world, but I suspect the current
crappy situation is likely to persist for some time to come.

~~~
task_queue
In an ideal world, people would be paid their fair market value compensation
for their labor.

In a practical world, collective bargaining provides a front for fairer
negotiations such that a compensation that's closer to what a free market
would bear is met for the individual.

------
ericclemmons
It's true that your best shot for a 15% raise is switching jobs, but there's
no way that's sustainable (for a comparable position).

I think each year people should evaluate how they're expertise and duties
differ from the previous year.

Many people I know inadvertently become team leads, head up projects, mentor
others, or change roles entirely and wait for their old position's performance
review to address it.

That's a mistake.

As a manager, I've had the best success with getting better comp for my team
when giving a new title + bump around 4 months before review.

That way, the discussion with execs is closer to "what eould we pay for a new
hire for this position?" and the upcoming review allows for minor comp
tweaking.

------
nedwin
Kind of related: Ellen Pao has said she has ended salary negotiations at
Reddit to try to prevent gender bias.

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-
ban...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-bans-salary-
negotiations/)

~~~
refurb
You can clearly see who benefits from that policy... the company.

~~~
Goladus
In the short run. In the long run this will just increase their turnover rate
until an equilibrium is reached.

~~~
refurb
That's assuming everyone has knowledge of their true worth. You can certainly
find out, but some people only find out after years and others never do.

I've worked in companies that paid 1/3 less than others (management
consulting), many people knew they were paid less, but few people left. Jobs
can often be sticky.

------
robbyking
As an employee, I think it's important to remember that your manager isn't
going to withdraw his initial offer just because you make a counter offer.

The worst thing that can happen is you'll be told "no" and you'll have the
same raise (or job offer) that you had before.

------
nedwin
My girlfriend was in a similar position. Her company knew it and knew that she
knew it and eventually came through with a 55% promotion. Too little, too
late.

She then took that confidence boost and changed companies with a further 30%
salary boost!

Unfortunately you don't get what you don't ask for.

------
refurb
My brother did this at a small business. He worked there for a year or so and
realized that out of the folks he worked with (his level and the next level
up) he pretty much knew the most and actually did the most.

He went into his boss' office and said "It think I deserve a promotion" and
his boss said "ok, I'm promoting you to X" and he said "no, I deserve two
promotions to Y". His boss thought about it for a minute then said "you got
it".

------
deegles
If your company has H1B workers, you can get an idea of what the base salary
range is for a position by looking at sites like h1bdata.info. Unfortunately
there's no information on stock and other benefits. The data comes from the US
Department of Labor.

~~~
cerberusss
Sites like GlassDoor are nice too.

------
vpeters25
> I said that I reviewed other salaries for my level, and I felt that I
> deserved a raise to $85,000. At the last moment I panicked and lowered my
> ask from the planned $90k.

I suggest my friends to figure out how much they want and ask for 10 more (10k
more/year, $10 more/hr). Best case they might not even flinch and pay it (it
has happened to me a couple times), worst case they will counter-offer down to
somewhere higher to what you originally wanted.

------
Blackthorn
Question: If you find yourself being chronically underpaid like she was, is
there any reason not to immediately demand an _above_ market salary, rather
than an _at_ market salary? Call it a retroactive "correction", or something.

~~~
fsk
No, because market salary is all you can get by switching. You won't get an
above-market salary by switching.

The fact that you were underpaid for a year is a sunk cost. That time is gone
and wasted.

However, considering the costs of employee turnover, and the fact that top
programmers are more productive than average, it probably does make sense to
pay above-market. Plus, if you aim to only pay market, you'll be lagging due
to inflation and rising salaries and the fact that your employees gain
experience.

~~~
Blackthorn
Makes sense. I'm assuming the company is interested in retaining you; if they
aren't, well, then you get stuck in the market boat.

~~~
fsk
They really only need to pay you market to keep you. (But if your performance
is above-average they should pay you above-average.) It is hard for an above-
average employee to get an above-market salary when switching, because most
employers don't have their interview process set up for that.

Remember that switching jobs is also risky for the employee, so switching for
the same salary doesn't make sense unless your current environment is
bad/toxic. I've had the old bait-and-switch a couple of times, where a job
didn't turn out to be what I thought it would be. I've also had jobs where my
boss wasn't the person I thought it would be when I was interviewing, and then
my actual boss decided he didn't want to work with me.

~~~
regularfry
The key is that if you're above-average for a given market, you're average in
a higher-valued market. All you need is a single job offer in that higher
market to force your current employer's hand one way or the other. When _you_
are the product on offer, the employer doesn't get to define what markets
you're available to; they have to play the hand you deal.

This applies geographically, as well - if an employer says "Well, they might
be paying that rate in SV, but round here..." then you need to be applying for
remote positions. They don't get to opt out of that market either.

------
fmax30
This post really does strike a chord.

The thing is that if you ask for a raise like that, you will either be

1\. Shown the door

2\. Offered the money but your subsequent appraisals will take a hit. Oh and
once their crunch period is over they will try to get rid of you.

And i am too afraid to lose the job i currently have because i don't think
i'll find a better culture anywhere else in the country that i live in.

------
bovermyer
My current employer doesn't give raises, for understandable reasons. The only
way to get a pay raise is to get a promotion, or leave the company.

I am given great freedom to explore and learn, and my higher-ups are very
willing to try new technologies and techniques if I suggest them. My peers are
intelligent and have different areas of expertise, meaning I have plenty of
learning opportunities and exposure to new ideas.

Would I change jobs if offered a higher salary? No, not unless the culture
shift was also worth it.

I've hit that level of salary where increases are nice, but it's the other
perks that make the job ideal. For those curious, it's $83,000 a year, in the
Twin Cities region. I have nearly ten years of experience. I'm not a bad
negotiator, and I know roughly what I'm worth (somewhere around $95-105k, for
this geographic area).

Sometimes culture really does trump raw numbers.

~~~
AdamTReineke
Not even to match inflation?

~~~
fsk
There is a point where it's a no-brainer to switch.

For example, suppose you were offered 3X more for a job with a worse
environment. If you kept your living expenses the same, you could save up the
extra money and then, for each year worked in the lousy job, you could take 2
years off to do whatever you wanted.

------
egonschiele
This is why we all need to start talking about how much we make! Otherwise
companies have hundreds of data points on average salaries, and engineers only
have a handful. I talk about how much I make with people I am close to, and we
get a better idea of our market worths.

------
noonespecial
The correct response to "company policy only allows for a raise of single-
digit% per year" is _always_ "then I guess we'd better keep it a secret".

------
at-fates-hands
I have a great experience which taught me a lot in negotiating for salary and
keeping an eye on your check.

I worked at a telecom startup. Was given a beefy salary ($45K) plus
commission. As a young sales guy, I had a blast. Then I scored a huge account,
just as the company was about to go under. They paid me, then sent me a letter
demanding I give back the commission check because they were going under and
needed it to pay their attorneys and would file a lawsuit against me for a
"fraudulent" sale.

I went back and started looking at my checks and realized they were only
paying me $35K instead of the agreed upon $45. I sent them a letter stating if
they wanted to give me my back pay (almost twice as much as the commission
check) I'd be happy to send the commission check back.

Never heard from them again.

Just goes to show, you not only need to negotiate your raise or your salary,
but always make sure the company does not pull a fast one and short change
your paycheck.

------
ryan-allen
This is so common, I helped my sister negotiate from 55 to 90 as well in one
of her jobs. They also didn't blink, and that she's been able to keep her
salary around that range even when moving companies.

It had me wonder if there was a gap for having professionals negotiate on your
behalf as a service come these one to one reviews.

------
kangman
A lot of the tips on this thread look to echo tips from this book from Andy
Lester

[http://www.amazon.com/Land-Tech-Love-Pragmatic-
Life/dp/19343...](http://www.amazon.com/Land-Tech-Love-Pragmatic-
Life/dp/1934356263)

Really helped me out navigating the whole salary process.

------
StavrosK
I remember asking Tracy for a website design quote back in the day, because I
loved her designs, and she quoted me something like $2,000 for the whole
thing, which was really cheap. I was surprised at how cheap it was, and I
guess now I know why.

~~~
bovermyer
$2,000!?! Jeez.

I wonder if we, as an industry, need to learn to talk to each other better.
We're very good at getting things done, but we rarely talk to each other about
the hard economics of what we do.

I hate to be trite, but... is there an app for that?

~~~
StavrosK
Well, Americans (and probably nations) don't like to talk to each other about
how much they make, and this information asymmetry benefits employers... Just
be more open about how much you make, people will likely reciprocate, and it
will go a long way towards being more informed of market rates.

Here in Greece, it's pretty common for us to ask "oh, hey, you got a new job?
That's great, where is it/what will you be doing/how much does it pay?" as the
usual, accepted questions of someone getting a new job. You're always happy
for your friends if they are well-paid, after all.

~~~
kyberias
And has that common attitude perhaps inflated the salaries in your country?

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-
will-n...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-will-need-to-
tap-2-billion-from-public-funds-to-pay-its-civil-service-workers-at-the-end-
of-the-month-10186486.html)

~~~
StavrosK
Compared to the almost nonexistent salaries of Silicon Valley, I guess our
6000/yr does seem inflated, and not shying away from talking about salaries
seems the only reasonable explanation for the phenomenon.

Less charitably, it seems to me that you saw the word Greece and figured you'd
chime in with a cliché.

------
Falkon1313
\- Raises and bonuses go to sales and management, not developers and
designers. A creative or infrastructure person's value is not seen until they
leave or are replaced with someone cheaper.

\- Domain experience and company-specific experience (and loyalty) are
extremely valuable, but those tend to be completely overlooked in salary/raise
computation. Unless you can specify dollar amounts (like sales) or acronyms
(which management and HR love), the value of experience seems to be 0 or even
negative (loyal employee won't leave if we skimp on their raise, and we paid
for their training, so they owe us).

\- If your initial salary was good, (you were able to pay down debts and save)
and you haven't changed your lifestyle but now you're having trouble paying
your bills (due to increased costs of living), then the company hasn't taken
care of you. Their raises/bonuses have failed. You should not be as well off
as you were when you started: having gained experience, you should be better
off. If not, it will probably get worse.

\- Raise = +1-5% (if you're lucky). New job = +20-50% + risk of being less
pleasant. Your choice.

\- If you're in the design/development industry, there's an ENORMOUS price
range. Few people can readily tell the difference between a $12/hour developer
and a $125/hour developer. Some of them have been bitten badly by guessing
wrong. Expect to get some offers that are half what others are offering or
less.

\- If you ask a little higher than you believe you can get, and do it
confidently (brand yourself as premium), people will tend to believe that you
can get it elsewhere (or have got it) and offer much more than if you seem
desperate and willing to take anything. That factor alone makes a huge
difference, although it has nothing to do with skills, experience, or ability.

These things combined make switching much more profitable for the employee
than sticking around, albeit risky. Perversely, they may also make it more
profitable for employers to replace employees than give a decent raise, albeit
at a risk. That's not really good for employers or employees - everyone's
gambling while vast amounts of experience are being lost to churn. But that
seems to be how the market's working.

------
blazespin
Asking for a raise is not how its done. You just find another job and you'll
get paid right. You can ask your current to match,but generally I'd just move.

------
will_work4tears
My first job out of college was starting at 15/hr. I did that for three years,
getting a $1/hr raise every year until I landed a "sweet" job for 55k/yr. It
wasn't until a couple years after that I realized I was still underpaid. I'm
not a ninja programmer, and I'm doing mainly web development, but I'm outside
of the Seattle area, and there are places hiring jobs with my experience level
paying 100k+.

------
Confusion
In the end, this is also bad for the employer. Once someone discovers they've
been underpaid for so long, the trust is gone. As in the article, a raise to
an appropriate salary doesn't change that. You're going to lose that employee,
who has proven for years to be valuable, has knowledge of all workings, etc.
Training a new inexperienced employee is always more expensive.

------
megablast
People need to talk more about their wages, the only reason this person found
out is they felt comfortable talking to their spouse.

------
qhoc
You did the right thing. This is a flaw in the system and also the most
efficient way on how it works. They did save a lot of money on you over many
years though. So their $82K offer was to save you for a few months because
they know that YOU know and they only have a few months left having you
around.

------
Yhippa
I am not an HR wizard but in general, why don't companies like paying market
value for people? If they underpay you're more likely to be disgruntled and
leave right? Or worst case you get a rep for lowballing.

~~~
Goladus
I would not be surprised if the difficulty relevant to scenarios like the OP
is the nature of _re-negotiation_.

She started at what was likely a quite reasonable $40,000 salary for an
unproven undergraduate. Then was hired on shortly after at that rate because
it was convenient for everyone.

The problem is that her performance (value) busted the curve and quickly out-
paced the percentage-based raise system. Some companies do "corrections" every
so often, in fact I have benefited twice from that sort of thing.

It's probably safe to say though, that you probably don't want to sit around
waiting for "market corrections" if you're being underpaid.

~~~
eropple
Man...c'mon. Nobody goes from forty to eighty because they're an "unproven
undergraduate." They go from forty to eighty when somebody's screwing them and
gets called on it.

~~~
Goladus
What part of this sentence do you fail to grasp?

 _The problem is that her performance (value) busted the curve and quickly
out-paced the percentage-based raise system._

I figure it was implied that either no one noticed or had the willingness to
take any personal risks to circumvent the system to fix her salary.

~~~
eropple
It isn't what I fail to grasp, it's that I reject the idea that one's
performance can break such a curve in a _developer job_ unless the person in
question was underpaid to begin with.

That doesn't happen unless the deck is stacked. It just does not.

------
MichaelCrawford
I have found from hard experience that when I lowball my asking pay, I am
treated with profound disrespect.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as the usual reason I do so is
not to get an offer, but to help out my potential employer, for example by
enabling them to hire other people as well.

The actual result is that I get kicked in the teeth. Because of that I ask for
what others of my expertise can command, despite that amount of money being
far more than what I really require to be happy.

~~~
Mithaldu
I've had the same thing happen. I went as a (relatively inexperienced)
freelancer to heise (a large and old conservative company in germany) to a job
interview and they asked me what i used to take (20$/hour remote internet
work) and then told me they wouldn't even consider any freelancer below 60$
per hour.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
a friend was a project manager for an early dot-com boom era web design firm.
They flatly refused to accept contracts for less than $250k.

I mean for like a homepage: $250k. Oh those were the days.

So whenever they would turn away work, my friend would anonymously solicit the
work himself.

------
hyperliner
Women, here is the deal: unless you are at the C-level, in which case I cannot
offer help one way or another and have no data, ASSUME YOU ARE BEING
UNDERPAID.

The bias is too powerful. It's like people saying "they are not racist."
Almost everybody is! Same thing with salaries.

Always come up with something more aggressive than your original "feeling."
Also, make friend with us guys. We can help you. Don't simply ask your
girlfriends how much they are making or how much you should ask for. It's a
vicious cycle! Ask the guys!

It amazes me when I have hired females how little they ask for, and the
surprise when I tell them the range I am hiring them for.

~~~
Goladus
> Women, here is the deal: unless you are at the C-level, in which case I
> cannot offer help one way or another and have no data, ASSUME YOU ARE BEING
> UNDERPAID.

I agree but only to a point: another poster said it better when you really do
need to have some idea what you are worth (which is very difficult I know).

Because if you are in a decent situation making decent money and benefits for
satisfactory performance, hardball negotiation tactics can absolutely
backfire.

------
ashurbanipal
$40,000 initial starting salary * 1.10^3 = $53,240. Therefore, she was at her
company for the first 3 years after college until asking for this raise after
her third year. She characterizes this period as "many years" \- this seems
disingenuous to me. She took a $40,000 offer right after college, this is
close to the median starting undergrad salary - therefore she was not
underpaid for the first year. This limits the period of underpayment to about
2 years. Which is definitionally the shortest period of time it can be while
still being described as "years of underpayment".

And still, it is very common for recent grads to endure 2 or 3 years right out
of college at their starting plus a meager raise until they get that second
job which requires education + experience. While I agree that employees should
negotiate, this particular woman's plight is totally and massively overblown.

~~~
eropple
I was paid eighty grand my first year out of college and ninety-five my
second. And I wasn't (yet) any good, even. She was _real_ underpaid, and your
post strikes me as tremendously weird in its attempts to discount reality.

And "this woman"\--she has a name, you read her blog, don't be a jerk.

~~~
ashurbanipal
I'm sorry if you found my post to be tremendously weird, and congratulations
for making so much more than the average undergraduate upon graduation. Was my
math wrong?

I actually employ a large number of undergraduates (in non-developer roles)
and it is really typical to pay them somewhere around $50k for the first 2 or
3 years (depending on geography + what year it is), the good ones are kept on
and get substantial raises to low 6 figures. This is pretty typical across
many companies. Her experience is pretty typical for recent graduates, not a
special burden to bear.

~~~
tomjen3
That is non-developer roles. The lady is question was a developer. We get
payed more, because we produce value. No most other positions don't.

But I guess given your username I wouldn't want you as a boss either.

~~~
eropple
Exactly. It doesn't matter what the average college grad makes, what matters
is what eke average _developer_ college grad makes. And "this woman" was
getting screwed, so the attempts to disregard that are real hollow.

~~~
eropple
Note: "exactly" to the first part, not the weird and problematic second part.
I glossed over it the first time, and only caught it on a second look.

------
jwinkle
This story is boring. Another person complaining that he's underpaid, because
he didn't negotiate. The fact that he had a job makes him lucky enough. He
should be happy. Nevertheless, we've all been underpaid before, it happens to
lots of people.

