Ask HN: How do you know you're getting paid enough? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you know you're getting paid enough?

11 pointsisthisreal16 comments

There's a discrepancy in the payroll at my current workplace. I've come to this conclusion by finding out how much another employee gets paid, and the tricky thing is that he's a junior and I've been responsible for the project for some time, while he's been under my lead and supervision. He's always hasty, makes mistakes and simply cannot handle all the things implied with the project, while I am getting all the stress and often clean up after him. With that, I do not get paid significantly more than he does. Is it because my self-marketing skills suck and I should asses myself better in light of that, or because the guy who writes the check thought that the guy deserves more than he really does?

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You know if you are paid enough by learning what other offers you can get.

Companies do not pay you by value, generally speaking. Rare ones do, but most often you are paid whatever they can get away with.

That is why you are paid close to your junior colleague. Everyone has base living expenses that drive much of salary demand. Anyone without a job will undercut you towards that level.

But if you look at it another way, your pay is not much higher, but your savings rate is, after all your expenses subtracted.

> You know if you are paid enough by learning what other offers you can get.

Yup.

Instead of pouring an excess of effort your energy into your job, perhaps above and beyond what you agreed to do as per your employment contract, pour your effort and energy into investigating and cultivating your other job prospects. See if other companies are willing to make you a decent offer. It may take a fair bit of time to find a company that really wants you, that you'd be willing to work for, and will make you a strong offer. You are in a good position to look for other options when you are not rushed and are not desperate - i.e. - when you are already employed. Once you have one or more offers on the table, then you are in an excellent position to either take the offer, or begin negotiating with your current employer for a raise to a level that is competitive with the offer.

If you go to your employer and say "give me a 20% raise" - or even "give me a 20% raise because <reasons why you are valuable>" without having first cultivated a strong alternative option, and they refuse, what are you going to do? Keep working for them at the same rate of pay?

A few resources that I found useful are:

  * the idea of a BATNA - Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement
  * the ever popular Patrick McKenzie's salary negotiation advice
  * the book: "getting to yes: negotiating agreement without giving in" by Fisher, Ury and Patton.

On a personal note, I'm finding it far more valuable to become better at business-y things than technical things at this stage in my own career, after spending years thinking about programming, mathematics, and technical things. I regret not doing this earlier.

Does it matter? Just ask for more money.

I assume you negotiated your salary when you joined your company. So did he.

Maybe he had a better sense of what he was worth, or what the company was ready to pay for his skills.

Ask for more money and that's it.

The sad part is that I am the only person that should tell what he's worth, since the guy who writes checks doesn't understand shit what we do there. At least I thought that I will be asked about what his performance or quality is, in case he'll want a raise or it will be time to get one. But he still did receive one, and nobody even asked me if he deserved that.

And what if they say no?

Be prepared to leave. Generally, you should have an offer in hand when approaching a situation such as this. This is a way of showing what your worth is to someone else. Companies will end up spending months and thousands of dollars in recruiter fees to replace you so it is cheaper and easier for them to pay the money. If you are reasonable, make a good case, and don't burn bridges in the attempt then you have a chance at coming out of the situation in a better place.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am more than prepared to leave, but I've been on the project for quite a while and I'm emotionally attached to it, plus we didn't have a proper release yet and I want at least to see the first feedback / real world users. If I'll leave now, I'll feel like all the work has been for nothing.

It's not about a yes / no answer. It's about negotiation. If they say no to more money then ask for more vacation. Ask for a travel allowance, ask for whatever matters to you.

Sometimes they may put it off until a future point. If they do hold them to that date to have the discussion again.

Failing that update your resume and go job hunting. Negotiate up from there.

I supervised a team of people and two of them made more than I did. I simply brought it up as another point in my argument for why my compensation should be adjusted a long with a very conservatively calibrated payscale report. I got a 30% raise as a result.

Thanks for the point. I was considering this, but I though it would be rude for me to put this as an ultimatum. I think I will keep this as a fallback option if the 'I am absolutely sure I deserve more' fails.

not sure if it's true, but is it bad to use "[person] is getting paid more than me and i should be paid more than that" as a leverage in negotiation?

In my experience (and this is only my experience/observations) it is extremely unprofessional to bring up a coworkers salary in your own negotiations, for several reasons.

Many companies still have policies against coworkers sharing salary information. Yes, this is illegal in the US, but practically speaking: it being illegal is about as effective as requiring traffic police to have a "preponderance of wrongdoing" to perform a traffic stop. It still happens near constantly, and the cost/benefit of trying to enforce these laws in most cases isn't enough to actually pursue. (if you were to try and file a cause of action against your workplace for such a violation, you would surely mark yourself to future employers as being litigious - i.e you would paint yourself as a trouble-maker, so the benefit to doing so would have to be pretty big).

Secondly, social conventions don't really provide an incentive for near-strangers (and that's what many coworkers are for much of their careers) to share salary information. Yes, game theory says everyone wins if everyone shares, but we live in a society that is super prone to being offended. I don't even think it's polite to discuss money with friends.

As other posts on HN have stressed over the years, what really gives someone power in negotiations is a "Best Alternative" or BATNA[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...

How much longer were you at this company than him?

More than 2 years.

It could very well be that in those 2 years the market has changed and they are putting out more money for talent. It's easier to get another job and get a part raise that way than staying at the same company and hoping for or trying to earn a raise.

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