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Don't make excuses for the CEO. He didn't forget because he's a busy guy. He straight up exploited you.

"I don't blame my boyfriend, he only beats me when I deserve it."

You learn many valuable lessons on that first job. One of them is that if they pay you cheaply initially they will almost never see you as "valuable" after that. It's just human nature. Another lesson is that the best way to get a raise is to switch jobs.

HN's patio11 has perhaps the most awesome blog post on salary negotiations. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Good luck and stay strong bro.

> You learn many valuable lessons on that first job. One of them is that if they pay you cheaply initially they will almost never see you as "valuable" after that.

I remember at my second job, I discovered that a co-worker who worked there longer, made less money than I did, and I considered myself underpaid. And that was actually a pretty nice company with decent founders. The co-worker started there as a student I think, and maybe he was never assertive enough in asking for raises, or maybe a bunch of 5% raises still don't amount to much if you start low enough.

Whatever the case, I learned through personal experience that the best way to get a raise is to switch jobs. For some reason, it seems you have more leverage with a prospective employer than with a current one.

I had the same experience except it was my 3rd job. My colleague dropped out of MIT to work there and was easily 2-3 times the coder that I was and had written all their software. I'm positive he was getting paid less than I was. (Our boss/the owner was also great.)

The good news is that when I left I they gave him a huge raise, I think they doubled his salary.

Some people think being supportive means being nice, but I think you may be legit and I need to give you some harsh feedback: 1) Don't lead with "I fucked up bad" when begging for work. It doesn't make me want to hire you and many workplaces are still require professionalism and cursing is going to mean you're not getting hired or going to be fired in pretty short order (debating the merits is pointless because you need the work and their money is green) 2) I wish you luck but I don't see how this gets you any leads. I don't know where you are and have no idea about how good you are. You are self-taught so I have to assume the worst absent a portfolio or references. Obviously you can't link to either here for reasons you mention, so it just seems unproductive. 3) You have poor people skills and you don't seem to realize it. Seriously, stop using the "fuck" at work RIGHT NOW. Full stop. Don't curse at all. You have four kids and a nonworking spouse, and being edgy is a really unwise indulgence. Also you were an intern without a degree in the field and really misjudged your leverage and value. Your exchange with the CEO after being let go was in very poor judgement and probably burned bridges that might be valuable to you now, regardless of what you think of him. 4) Why aren't you submitting resumes to every temp agency in the area? In your financial situation and given what your prior salary was, why aren't you applying for any retail job that you can? 5) The financials of your ex-job are uninteresting and irrelevant. Knowing them does nothing for your situation, and you have made it absolutely certain you will never work there again. They fired you, so it doesn't really behoove you to put them in a good light. 6) Your wife is going to find out about this so you should tell her.

edit: I wrestled with bringing this up, but you mention several times what kind of laptop you had versus what kind your coworkers had and that you bought an unaffordable laptop for a part time internship. You can usually find passable used laptops on craigslist and such that are very inexpensive. Getting by on one of those is a lot more impressive than a loaded out Macbook, so why should this have mattered to you?

If I were on a team of developers, and every new team member got a loaded Macbook Pro, and I were stuck with Ye Olde HP from 2007, I would feel pretty slighted. It's patently unfair that other devs would be seen as valuable enough to have excellent hardware, while I were consigned to the dregs. Even more so that he was expected to bring his own, rather than have tools provided by the employer, especially given that then were already doing that for every other one of his peers.

Of course, being an experienced developer, I know that the way to remedy that is not with complaints about fairness -- decision makers might not even have realized that was what I was using. Rather, pointing out the productivity benefits of having hardware similar to other devs usually seems to suffice. (Spec out a machine, propose it, etc.) It's not your machine, it's the company's, and it lets you be a more productive resource.

Maybe I misread, but I thought he bought a new computer WHILE he was interning. Not to back the company overall, but if he just bought a new computer I can understand why they might not spend the money on a new one for him when they extended the job offer - they know he just bought one, basic business sense.

You should have tried to get a new job before you asked for the salary increase. Then if he didn't give it to you, you could take the new job. OR if you couldn't find a job that paid what you thought you were worth, then you could just keep gaining valuable work experience.

Hi. Your post read like a blast from the past. I started out in a Ruby on Rails shop with an internship making $10 an hour. My laptop was an old HP, with fans that whirred (for some reason HP can't make/procure fans to save their lives). Everyone else had sleek new equipment. I built a couple great features, squashed tons of bugs, and learned a lot along the way. Near the end, I talked with the founders about raises a couple times, but it's clear what they needed was a way to save money on development for as long as possible. And what I needed was the experience of working with a real software team.

We all got what we were looking for. It's just a question of when you don't need that basic training anymore. Sounds like that time came for you around the same time it did for me. I can tell you - at that point, the only way up is out. You are much, much more employable now. Don't "beg for work" ... present yourself well and ask for market-rate. You said that's $75,000 in your area? Better yet, say you're looking for a range of $80-90k and see what they say.

I've got a question for you, and maybe an idea. Did you sign a non-compete agreement beyond just your term of employment?

Even if you did, it might not be enforceable in your state. Go to the billion-dollar rival and tell them how you've got almost a year of domain expertise under your belt working on a similar product. You're looking for that next step - full-time Software Engineer, and a chance to build on what you already know. You're able to make clear comparisons between the two offerings, and I bet you have some ideas about how theirs could be the best of both worlds. Oh, and when they ask you...

"Why did you leave your previous job?"

Don't panic. 18 story points on your last week, remember? You're a sharp web developer who rapidly rose in value - far faster than your perceived value to a CEO who forever saw you as "the cheap intern." Since you couldn't reach an agreement that met your salary requirements, you parted ways. Now you're able to devote more of your time to the search. That's all you need to say - so practice saying it with confidence.

Email real people at the target company (email is the new cover letter) or start asking questions on Twitter - don't just drop your resume in an upload. Start a conversation. Get your Team Lead and as many coworkers as possible to jump in with recommendations, when they ask for references.

My next offer after the internship was a real one, at market salary in Silicon Valley. There's light at the end of the first-job tunnel. It's tough now, but please believe me when I say it does get better.

Your ex-CEO is a liar, don't make excuses for him. I've been there a couple of times before. Bosses like that thrive on nice people giving them the benefit of the doubt. You don't have to speak ill of him, but stop protecting him for acting like a dick.