Ask HN: Well paid, but under-valued. Next steps?

[logcounter]

I am a frontend developer at a consumer startup (~40 employees) in the Bay Area. Our company consists of three frontend teams and a backend team powering the frontend clients. Lately I have been feeling that I do not capture enough of the value that I provide.

My team is responsible for implementing all product specs before the other two frontend teams. As a result, I have a more accelerated timeline for all features and spend more time iterating the product (whereas following teams implement the last version). In addition to this pressure and accountability, I end up troubleshooting problems with the product/design specs as well as missing APIs or bugs in the backend.

Throughout the day I field questions from the backend team regarding what APIs I will need, and questions from the frontend teams regarding how I implemented features and what backend APIs to use. This guidance in addition to the troubleshooting I do are orthogonal to the deliverables I am responsible for.

I am young and paid fairly well, but having an accelerated timeline in addition to doing work that other teams should be doing, as well as guiding other developers, has started to make me feel undervalued. My title is "software developer" and my options comprise 1/500 of the company, with a large gap between me and the leadership team.

For the amount of hours, attention, and energy I put in, I feel that I could be earning more. I can write backend code in addition to my frontend code, follow the commits and progress of the other teams, and never need guidance or oversight. Even with my timelines, I always deliver.

Where do I go from here, or what is the accurate title for what I am doing at my company? Do I need to start my own company to capture more of the value I am creating? Do I need to ask for a significant change in position and be willing to walk away?

[RogerL]

I don't know your value, so, a counter argument to consider.

A company is not going to pay more than they have to. So, are you easily replaceable at your current compensation package? Then they really have little incentive to pay you more than that. Okay, it is hard to hire, and it is hard to have somebody walk away, but as an employer we are already used to revolving doors, so you know, we'll try to keep you, but not try too hard. "I'm making $150K and think I am worth $220K". "okay, I'll hire somebody else at $150K".

Not saying that is the position you are in, but if you walk in to negotiate a raise you need to understand what your replacement cost is, not just how much value you contribute. If your contribution is worth $10M/year, but a replacement can be hired for $50K (exaggerating to make a point), don't expect an ask for $750K to be honored even if that is 'cheap' compared to the value you add.

If you are contributing at the level you say you are, you should be able to make a strong case ("replacing me will cost you 2x my current salary").

[logcounter → RogerL]

Thank you for the counter argument.

Regarding making a strong case, I of course know that this is a business, but how can someone go about negotiating an extremely large raise without damaging the relationship? How does an employee get around the anchoring of their current salary?

[artmageddon → logcounter]

One of two ways:

Come up with very very compelling reasons that you deserve said big raise by demonstrating what value your accomplishments for the company, and even if you have very very good justification, you could simply be told "Well we'd LIKE to, gee that'd be great, but sorry it's not in the budget."

... or ...

Move. Go somewhere else. Get a different job. If you feel like you're not being valued enough, there may not be a whole lot you can really do, and sometimes it simply isn't worth your trouble to wait for the next quarterly/semi-annual/annual review to talk about your accomplishments / compensation.

I'll share some of my personal experience-last year I was in the same position in which I was really growing to dislike my work. In the fall, I had started looking for new jobs, and by some stroke of luck, I pulled off a hat trick by having three job offers simultaneously. One was offering a 15% raise, the other a 25% raise, and the other a 47% raise. I didn't take the first one because the other two made me feel greedy, but I didn't take the other two because it would've meant too much time away from home with travel. At the end of the year, the company I stayed at only gave me a a 1% raise(yes, one percent)(I didn't have a good performance review, but even in past years with good reviews I only got 2.5% at best). I had gotten another offer in January 22% raise, but given a long commute and meager vacation time, I declined. Fast forward to late April, the company then laid off 20-something people, including myself. Luckily, I was just able to secure a new job that I'm starting on Monday, with a 19% raise(not including the 10% bonus, to boot), no change in commute, and 4 weeks off.

Be proactive and look out for yourself. Go out and interview, keep your options open. Never assume they have your best interest at heart.

[Bahamut → artmageddon]

This comment is spot on - I'd like to add that you have to be ready to potentially switch jobs if you are in this situation.

To add to this, I thought I would be at one company for years - I did interview around at one point to test the market, and found that I could easily make at least $50k more than I was. One day, I was all of the sudden fired for a mistake that was exposed from bad QA and bugfixing process. At that time, I had already started testing the waters again because I started to be dissatisfied with the processes and the lack of interest in fixing the fundamental problems.

The things I learned is to not get complacent and that employers truly are not loyal to their employees.

[artmageddon → Bahamut]

Agreed. I stayed at my first job for 6.5 years, and only saw my salary go from $54K fresh out of college to $67K. Granted, a few years of that were during the 2008 financial crisis, but this was at a major investment bank, which to me felt absolutely ridiculous. Also, agreed on the not getting complacent. Companies/recruiters love to tell you that they want someone who sticks around and doesn't job hop, but they tend not to provide you with incentives(i.e. steady growth in pay, extra vacation time, etc.) at a rate that could be gotten by switching companies.

[jkyle]

The answer is simple. It doesn't really matter if you're under or over appreciated. What matters is you think you are under valued. That never leads to a satisfying work week and often leads to less than your best output. So it's not good for anyone.

You should go out and interview. This is a good policy to do regularly regardless. Particularly if you're at a startup. You never know when it'll fail and it's good to keep your skills sharp and your options open.

But more importantly, if you get offers they could serve as a reality check or leverage to renegotiate your terms with your current employers. An employer shows their appreciation and how much they value you through money and benefits. If your'e not sure if those are sufficient, go out there and find out.

As far as whether you should start your own company. That's a completely orthogonal question that only you can answer.

[gerschlemben]

You will never be paid what you are worth. That is why your employer hired you.

If you want to earn more, your best shot is to move. Get a couple offers from GoogBook and enjoy earning 200k in your twenties.

If you want to make this feeling go away, that's a tough road. That means being a founder. The expected value is lower than GoogBook, but if it's bugging you in the right way, that doesn't matter.

[chambo622 → gerschlemben]

How realistic is it to earn 200k in your twenties? I'm familiar with the starting numbers at companies like Google and Facebook, which are very competitive but pretty far from 200k even with stock and bonuses.

[artmageddon → chambo622]

That'll depend on your location, skills, experience, and perhaps most important of all, your ability to convince someone that you're worth paying $200k. A great friend of mine was the sole(not just figuratively, literally) IT/developer at a pharma company for a good portion of his 20's, making ~$50k with slow incremental raises. Finally after several years of being undervalued, he had enough, and gave his company an ultimatum that he found another job(one with a massive raise). He agreed to consult part time to them to help train the replacement, but no one could get up to speed well enough on the complexities of the system in use there. After several months, the company was in dire need of him to come back, and he agreed on the condition that the company let him consult there for $100/hr.

I'd say he's the exception, in most cases you're probably not pulling that kind of money unless you're at an early stage of a startup. Not too likely, but not impossible either.

[eshvk → chambo622]

There are many people in their twenties clearing > 200K at Google/FB/Apple. A lot of them don't call themselves [JS/ML/Scala] engineers and build systems that scale well, have good leadership abilities, and can have a good sense for politics and product.

[sliverstorm]

All of this will be colored by how long you have actually been there and the work you actually do, but-

I wonder if you are ready for more responsibility? As the scope of your work naturally broadens, and you get better at what you do, that can be an opportunity to move to working on bigger, harder problems that intrinsically have greater scope.

Also, don't forget that while it may feel like you are working your butt off, that doesn't mean your work is necessarily irreplaceable or core to the business's success. You put in tons of hours, attention, and energy, yes, but that alone does not make the work you do highly valuable.

[logcounter → sliverstorm]

Part of my belief now is that I have all of the work without the responsibility. If I was tasked next week with architecting code for the other teams, it would not be a huge shift.

How do employees usually transition up into roles such as architect, vp, etc etc?

[skylark → logcounter]

You prove that you're capable of doing the job by simply doing the job without having the job title. Then when a position opens up (someone leaves or is promoted) you're sucked into the position because you're essentially already doing it and have proved yourself.

If you don't want to play the waiting game, you dust off your resume and find a place with the role that you desire.

Whatever the case, if your goal is to get a promotion, you should really be discussing strategy with your manager. Part of your manager's job is to ensure your success within the organization - they'll have the best insight into what's possible, what you need to do to optimally position yourself, and possible timelines.

[skadamat]

I highly recommend this book, which provides a super good framework to think about the situation you're in: http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912...

(Not related to author / book at all, just read it recently and found it very useful)

[fsk]

You're probably going to have to switch jobs to get anything better.

You can try your own startup, but that also is hard.

1/500 options are nothing. When they raise money, you will be diluted. So if you have 0.5% now, you might have only 0.1% or less when they cash out. So if they sell for $100M, 0.1% is only $100k. When you consider 4 year vesting, that's only $25k/year.

[mavelikara]

Off topic, but why are the other two frontend teams replicating your work? Is it for other target platforms?

[logcounter → mavelikara]

Sorry I didn't make that clear: yes, they are for other platforms