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Comment by mehrdada | Hacker News Reader

> You should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and negotiating from a position of strength.

I very much agree with you and my other comments in this thread are very much advocating for this position. I'd just like to add an important caveat by saying anecdotally in multiple occasions I've seen friends (notably people who are just moving in to the Valley from elsewhere and/or right out of college) tend to widely underestimate the "realistic" estimation in your advice (they know in abstract that salaries are "high" but don't necessarily concretely know how high), and therefore following it can be dangerous and would mean lowballing themselves. Hence, not saying anything might result in a better net result end of the day.

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Probably true. I'm actually in LA, and we experience this too. Honestly, the best thing you can do in salary negotiation (and in almost any negotiation, probably) is to gather as much data as you can to inform your position.

Similar jobs in similarly-funded companies at similar stages should yield a pretty strong dataset of numbers by which you can construct your own ask. Easier said than done, for sure, but if you can - gather data!

What do you by inform your position? Can you give an example of what to look for?

Well, recruiters are in the unique position of getting to talk to tens (or sometimes hundreds) of candidates a week for any given position, and asking them all a bit about salary usually yields a workable model for the market for any given role.

Some recruiters also have access to data from VCs or from other salary reports (there are a number of good institutions that run compensation surveys - access to these usually costs lots of money). Glassdoor is also a good source of data (sometimes) and PayScale is even better.

Do you have any other good sources? As a marketing guy who wears a lot of hats, it is hard to identify consistent titles that represent what I bring to the table, and PayScale didn't seem to be great, and Glassdoor was hit or miss (in large part due to geographic data despite living in the Bay Area where they should have lots of data).

There is serious information asymmetry between recruiters/employers vs employees, and if information is the best weapon, employees are woefully unequipped to fight that battle.

Glassdoor is okay for the UK at least, I use it to check the Software Developer and Solutions Architecture average wages nearby to were I live. The amount of data seems to be getting worse lately though, wonder if certain companies are asking for data to be removed.

Glassdoor's website states "Your trust is our top concern, so companies can't alter or remove reviews." so at least the reviews are genuine but of course, that does not mean some other data (salaries) are not being altered.

Especially helpfull for engineers, the salaries and titles of H1B visa holders is public

This is actually a dangerous source to draw conclusions from. Even ignoring the qualitative bias of H1-B workers having less leverage than an average worker with easy mobility which likely causes relative wage depression in that data set, the key issue is that a significant chunk of a high salary software engineer is in equity and it rarely shows up in the labor certificate application. So H1-B data is mostly base salary and can be misleading to use when drawing a conclusion on total comp. Extra care need to be taken.

Both good points. All of the data mentioned has its role. The key with H1B data is that the biases are better known. With self reported datasets, who knows what the poster's motivation is? Especially with companies that don't have many data points!

The risk to an employee is asking for too little and H1B data can help put of floor on that number.

Do recruiters ever provide this information to candidates for a fee? If I was in the market for a job it would be great to pay an experienced recruiter to objectively judge my skills and say how much I should ask.

Why would they charge? They get a placement fee based on a percentage of the starting salary. It's in their interest that the candidate gets the best deal possible.

They get their fee if you are placed. This puts them in a conflict of interest situation where if they can convince you that you are worth less than your true price you will be easier to place. Also the cheaper you are the less work they will have to do to get you placed in a new position.

You really only want advice from someone you are paying and who cannot benefit from under pricing you.

Buy recruiters at your current company a beer. If you keep in contact, especially once they've left, you can get all sorts of information.

It is good advice to treat recruiters with respect. All too often on HN I see an attitude of contempt shown towards recruiters (and HR in general).

That contempt is earned from a history of doing things that make articles like this one necessary.

I agree, but there is nothing to be gained personally from doing so. It is like being rude or contemptuous to your waiter.

The best thing you could do is to have two offers. In that case the companies bid for you on the perceived value you will provide them. And you turn the table. Btw - anecdotal evidence points that is a way to get a raise too - company Y is offering X,Z and C. Can you top it so I can stay here?

I would not recommend the raise strategy unless you have a very impersonal relationship with your manager OR you're 100% willing and able to walk (e.g. offer is in front of you and can be signed that day).

Managers are human beings too and don't like being put at gunpoint by their employees. It's very much the nuclear option IMO.

If I had good relationship with my manager, he would have offered a raise without me having to ask for it.

What is your leverage if you don't have competing offer?

Your willingness to quit.

Want to name some numbers? Ideally with context.

I'd like to know how high is high in SV. Especially for junior positions.

24 y.o college grad software engineer at "Big Tech" company in the valley.

Started at 107.5k with promotion and raise to 120k

I'd say if you're in SV, have a pretty good background, interview at top-paying public firms like Google/Facebook, get good scores, and negotiate very well, you can expect around

  - new grad: ~175k
  - 4 years: ~300k
  - 6 years: ~350k

Note that I'm including equity, expected cash bonuses, 401k matching, and sign-on bonuses (which I normally divide by 4, since 4 years seems like a typical period to stay at these companies).

the 4/6 year ones are way too high unless you're going for some sort of specific role they need. like if you specialize in robotics or machine learning

The 4 year number is mostly from my own experience. I interviewed recently, and my highest offers (after significant negotiation) were

  ~316k from a public company
  290k~350k from a private company, depending on which valuation you use (409a vs preferred)

Again, this is including equity, expected cash bonuses, etc. I have 4~5 years experience and no unique skills.

The key is to get at least 2-3 offers around the same time, do a lot of research, and be mindful about what info you share when negotiating. When a recruiter asks about salary expectations, I think it's good to share a number, but it could be your current salary, a competing offer, or just a (substantially high) target number. And it could be base salary, or blended compensation. Share the bits of info which are most advantageous to you, and keep the rest private.

The new grad and 8 year numbers are from some info friends have shared with me, and some public info (like the spreadsheet that appeared on HN a while ago, and some info individuals have shared on Quora).

How did you value the options?

I didn't have any offers involving options. The ~316k offer involved public stock, and the 290k~350k offer involved private RSUs. 290k is using the company's 409a price and 350k is using their preferred share price.

Are these numbers before or after pitting competing companies against each other?

After; my first offer was substantially lower.

That 4-year number is roughly consistent with both the SRE offer I got recently at Google and the SWE offer a similarly-qualified friend got, and we have no super special domain knowledge.

Not directly related, but that comp ramp-up between years 1-4 and 4-6 seems similar to what I see at my current place, which is starting to cause some discontent and potential retention fun down the line, with people getting used to everything ramping up quickly initially and then slowing down once they get to a more mature level (and title changes get further apart too, since you're expected to do more and more at each role).

Interesting to see similar numbers from elsewhere.

you should divide by four here too.

First year, what would the person get? $195k, with $160k salary and 35k in stock?

I'd say this thread is not a bad first approximation for what you are asking for (but note that high side has a lot of variance and is very much context, person, and importantly, timing dependent and the uniquely highs are always underrepresented in these threads, almost by definition):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449

As a skilled junior person without having/being known for specific connections/expertise, probably the best generic advice, if your goal is purely optimizing for salary $$$ [and I wouldn't blame anyone for this, but I'd say there are many other factors to optimize for as well], is to get offers at various places, while making sure at least a couple bigcos are included, and play the standard negotiation game (they don't really negotiate with you; they negotiate with each other over you). Also, don't be afraid to jump ship early on when you get a better sense of the numbers you can command and avoid inertia. Inertia can be a big hinderance, especially very early on when a recent decision with much less data is made; a course correction might be essential.

P.S. people who make the real $$$s, don't do that by optimizing for a (risk-free) "salary" taken from an employer, so always keep that in mind.

Can you define inertia in this context? Does it mean the risk of staying stagnant in a lower paid position?

Yes. Too often, people stay at their jobs, simply because they don't even think about it. Leaving your job requires you to step outside of your routine and do something you don't regularly do. Conversely, staying your job simply requires you to stick to the same routine that you've been doing for years and years.

Don't allow your major life decisions to be made on auto-pilot. If you want to stay, then make a conscious decision and stay. If you haven't made such a conscious decision in years, it's time you had that conversation with yourself.

I'm a young Senior Engineer. I'm low on the tenure side, but I've run successful teams and have deep technical knowledge.

I say $220k total comp and that I will count equity but if it's not liquid it won't be worth much.

I base that off of what I would get at Google or Facebook (including equity).

I've asked around and most companies take it seriously.

For junior engineers, I would say $160k. For mid, $180k - $200k. Again, total comp. Equity counts but at my value, not theirs.

160k for junior and 220k for senior? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Do you mean that's not a big enough gap?

Yes. And also crazy starting salary for a junior.

160k isn't salary, it's total comp. A conservative Google new grad salary is going to be $110k + 35k in GSU/yr + 15K annual bonus (not including signing bonus). Many negotiate an extra 15-20k in GSU/yr.

220k is perhaps on the lower side for senior, maybe closer to 250k is on target. $140k at Google plus 90k in GSU/yr + 20k annual bonus. Could be much higher though.

It is also important to note that years 2,3,4 at Google are going to likely result in stock top ups and comp will skyrocket, but I was largely referring to starting salaries here.

Edit: Also, as mentioned I'm a young Senior. Google isn't likely going to bring me in at level 4.

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