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I worked at a savings and loan back during the 1988/1989 crisis that took them out and we were no different. Hired as a 'C' programmer I was quickly turned into a Sybase DBA, sys-admin and anything else I could handle. In fact I ended up writing an in-house payroll system so like you I had inside information.

When the sys-admin left I asked for a raise since I was doing his job and my own. They made some excuses about his better education (he was a few hours away from his PhD in music) and the fact the company was under FDIC control.

I found a new job at a local oil company but contracting: my new salary was more than double what the bank laid. My bosses exact words when I quit were "Oh, shit" because he knew all along he'd been screwing me and he was never going to get a programmer/DBA/UNIX sys-admin for $27k/yr.

He asked if he could make a counter offer it was with great satisfaction I was able to reply "Vick, I now make more than you do. What's your counter offer?"

I had a similar experience. I was brought on as a junior fresh out of university and quickly made a name for myself in the company, I wasn't the top developer by any means, but after a few years and a couple of pay rises, the £32k/year they were paying me (in central London) was definitely much lower than what I should have been getting.

One of my colleagues had the year before, and had recently got funding for his startup. He offered myself and another developer a job, so we went to tell our boss together who obviously wasn't too pleased. He then spoke to us separately about negotiations, and he offered me £55k/year. The look on his face when I said "Sorry, but they are offering me much more than that" was priceless.

A few years later (after all the team I'd worked with had left) I went back to what was left of the company as a contractor for a few months. I was earning more per week, than I was per month, when I first started.

This line makes my day: "Vick, I now make more than you do. What's your counter offer?"

Oh, the joys of sticking it to a particularly evil boss. I got this exact same satisfaction when I left my job working on sounding rockets. The boss was a micromanager who was eventually demoted (and then left the company) after I left, because he had driven away more than half his department.

Two days before I left, he had been threatening, in a roundabout way, to fire me. But when I handed in my resignation letter, he was eager to keep me and asked what it would take to keep me. I named the salary my next job was offering. "You'll make more than I do now!" he said.

I once was searching for a file locally (Windows) and my search ended up searching the shared drive of my company, which contained a zip file. Inside this zip file were excel spreadsheets containing the salaries of all employees (around 50 IIRC).

The instructions from the CEO were to limit raises due to the economic conditions at the time (very true). Apparently the tech manager was not as good fighting for us, since our department (4-6?) averaged the lowest raises. The departments with managers better at negotiating got average raises that were higher than the CEO's policies.

This is one of the many benefits to working for a high performing manager. They will have more clout to argue on your behalf for raises and promotions. Not to mention it's easier to grow around higher caliber people.

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten, and I'm so glad I followed it, is to ignore details like what the product is entirely, and pick the team to join solely based on the manager. It's worked out very well. There was a survey I remember reading earlier this year about how the single biggest factor causing dissatisfaction at work is having a bad boss.

How do you identify a good manager? I ask because I've had both good and bad but no indication of which is which at the beginning. Some seemed super engaged when interviewing but disappeared once I started working.

Its much easier if its within the same org, of course, but even in another company, you can possibly talk to the people who will work with you under the same manager and ask them. Unfortunately, there isn't any surefire way of knowing whether you will work under a good manager, just as there is no surefire way for the company to know you will be a stellar employee.

Personally, what I look for the most is honesty. Even if the product/company is crap, if the people working on it are honest about their current state and where they want to be in the future, I find that much more interesting than a well-known established company whose manager is just OK.

I had a thirty minute chat with each potential manager during the hiring process, and I went with the one that I felt I had the best rapport with. It turns out that the initial impression was correct. Now of course this is far from foolproof, but oftentimes you can learn a lot about someone from just a thirty minute chat (and asking the right questions).

So...what do you think are the right questions?

It depends on what you value most in a working relationship. What I want in a boss isn't necessarily what you want in a boss. General questions that might apply to most people would include things like "What kind of working hours do people on your team keep", "How do you help build the careers of people on your team", "Why did you choose this project and what do you find exciting about it", "If you were to start this project all over again knowing what you know now, what decisions would you make differently", "How are relations between the tech side of the team and the business/product side of the team", "Why should I join your team in particular", "How well do the members of the team get along and what does a typical day look like -- do people sit together and chat frequently? Not interact in person much?". You see where I'm going with this.

Is this a consulting role like Accenture? (Asking because not all companies let managers choose their projects?)

  pick the team to join solely based on the manager

My experience too. Of course there are other factors, but this is (arguably) the most important factor of all; the rest are just constraints, and this is like the objective function.

Another advantage is that they are confident of their position and do not feel the need to put you down / downplay your achievements.

I was hired as a Software Architect at one company and after about a year and a half on the job we were without a CTO and nobody over my direct manager, who essentially managed the team internally (very well) but wasn't the public persona that I was within the company. Being an agency we needed a lot of internal self promotion as a team, as well as making our sales team aware of what we were capable of and doing that they may not know, as well as being part of pitches that were more technical than average.

I drafted a new role that formalized all those things I had been doing and some, suggested a meager salary bump (like 5-7% when year over year bumps were between 3-5). My manager was on board, but getting leadership buy in besides "that's a great idea" languished for months.

I finally got an offer from a different company that offered all that and more, at a large salary bump (over 25%), large bonuses, options, and a number of other perks just not available to my privately held 200 person company. The huge problem with the new role was at least 30% travel (which means more like 60) and I had a baby and a baby on the way. I offered my resignation and they begged for 24 hours to put together a counter.

Their counter was a blanket okay of my plan, with a twist. I went from Architect to Director and became my boss' boss. They couldn't quite match the salary "because that would make me the highest paid employee at the company" but offered some creative ways to make bonuses to cover the gap.

I always preached the 'never accept a counter' theory, but I'd liked working at this company more than anywhere else and the thought of traveling that much (I used to travel a lot before) was awful sounding. I accepted and was gone 16 months later- so I made it! Honestly though, as much as I loved the work and the creativity we didn't have the time to really get deep into interesting tech. If we did, it was skunkworks projects (I started the skunkworks lab with beer and pizza) that meant working before and after hours and weekends to ever get a concept done.

I didn't leave for just any other company though, I went and started my own. I'm glad I accepted that counter, I never would've had the chance to take my current leap if I had left for the other company.

I've semi-changed my stance now. If you trust your team and leadership, and trust that you are going to be given the power to affect the changes you were looking for that had you looking to leave- then accept the counter. If it's the same ol' same ol' but you have a higher salary, you will wind up leaving sooner rather than later.

Out of interest, why didn't you counter the counteroffer at $140k? Realistically, you could've probably gotten $150-155k on the spot, right there. They basically just showed their hand telling they want/need you to stay.

Exactly. It's possible to make many tens of thousands more in mere seconds if couched right in those situations.

I am quite good at negotiating raises, and I know when I can push and when to hold back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12122526

i definitely am not. that is one skill i hope to learn before i move on. Granted, i'm pretty happy where i'm at right now, but it could useful in the future...

One helpful tip - if you're not good at it, try to avoid doing it in real-time. Negotiating via email is much easier for beginners.

In face-to-face communications, those not accustomed to negotiating will often give in just based on misread cues. For example, if someone asks how much you want, and you say a number, stop talking until you get a response. Many beginner negotiators will interpret silence as disagreement (even a short amount of silence) and quickly add "but that number is negotiable".

I have this happen all the time when I'm doing profiles of new candidates, particularly when they are junior. They say "I"m looking for 60K, but I am willing to negotiate". I usually respond by telling them they have already backtracked before receiving any objections.

Practice or get some coaching, and until that time, try to do it via email.

$117k to $140k with perks sounded like a win at the time and I didn't want to push my luck. I really wanted to stay at that point so it was a calculated move to not look too greedy. A year later when I was promoted to director (and raised to $155k + potential $25k bonus) I got to see all salaries (and histories) in the department, and $140k made me the highest paid engineer at that point, so it was a good move. 3 months later after a management shakeup, I negotiated to have the part of that $25k bonus that was in my power ($5k was dependent on hitting sales projections) converted to salary, hence the raise to $175k.

I don't know that it really works that way. At least in my experience, salaries are not generally set by an individual, but require multiple approvals. If they had a prepared counteroffer for $140k, it's not likely that he could've just gotten under the manager's skin and had it amped up to 160k without requiring the manager to go back through the approval process.

It depends on the size of the organization.

If it's small you just have the CEO/founder who decides everyone's salary, if it's a big bigger you have a manager with a margin of negociation but can always get a signoff for a bigger raise by the CEO, and when it gets really big there is a hard grid with categories, ranks within the categories, lower bounds and upper bounds.

If they've prepared a counter at $140, there's a decent chance they're (quietly) allowed to haggle up to some larger number, say between $145 and $160 depending on how much they want you and how much they expect you to negotiate.

They won't tell you what this higher number is under any normal circumstances, and may lie about it, but it probably exists.

Depends on the company of course. Big company, the exact number was probably pre-approved (that's how it happens here).

In a big company, the amount matters even less. 140k? 150k? 180k? Nobody cares, it's a number on a spreadsheet.

I, too, have had good results accepting a counteroffer. The problem was pay; I got two offers and asked for more pay; they fixed it (40% salary raise and much better bonuses). This was probably 4 years ago; I'm coming up on 6 years with this employer. Not everyone who accepts counters leaves immediately.

When the main pain point is money, counter offers can be great. When the problem is the job itself or the environment, accepting counter is probably a bad play (except maybe a lateral move in the org, if large enough.)

That's my experience anyway.

I can agree with that, i interviewed at a couple of other places when i worked at my last job, mainly to see what i was worth, and found it was clearly higher than i was making. I loved the team i was working with and didn't really want to leave. i ended up getting a pretty decent size raise, and planned on staying a while...

Sadly 6 months or so later started multiple rounds of layoffs, while i didn't get hit, our team size went down 30% in one round of layoffs. Being my team was the reason i stayed, i ended up leaving another 6 months later...

> my ace in the hole was an unsecured network share drive where I found an offer letter for a coworker showing he made $135k.

Eww

I agree on many levels...the coworker was an idiot and a project manager, not an engineer, but had an MBA, which likely appealed to the founders, who were both "business guys". Also, it was silly to have sensitive info on a shared drive where anyone could see it. It was probably less than ethical for me to use that info in negotiations, but it couldn't be unseen.

I don't think it was unethical. In fact, finding out there is a salary disparity between peers is probably one of the most common ways that large salary raises occur. For that reason, and also because that disparity may result in legal liability if the peers have differing demographic profiles, some companies threaten to terminate anyone who reveals his or her salary to another employee.

> ... some companies threaten to terminate anyone who reveals his or her salary to another employee.

after this, i was wondering if there is a way to get the average salary of a group without revealing / knowing actual numbers ?

edit-001: ok, one thing that i can think of:

1. take a big number, and add your salary to it. this becomes the 'token' for the next guy.

2. he adds his salary to the number. etc. etc.

once you have the final number, remove the original number, and divide by number of folks. since this scheme appears to be so trivial, i am now wondering what i did wrong ?

What threat model are you defending against?

Because the people at positions N and N+2 in your scheme can collude to determine the salary of the person at position N+1 without even having to reveal their own salaries in the process...

> What threat model are you defending against?

umm, not really trying to prevent from folks actively sabotage the whole thing, but just seeing if it actually works i.e gives the correct average salary...

but yes, as you have pointed out, people at N and N+2 can collude to get the original salary (for N+1).

Have a third party generate a set of tokens, one per person, recording only their sum, and randomly distribute them to the group. Then you don't need to pass the cumulative sum from person to person.

Edit: I guess it doesn't even have to be a third party as long as everyone trusts the randomization (e.g., pulling identical pieces of folded paper from a hat).

> Have a third party generate a set of tokens, one per person, recording only their sum, and randomly distribute them to the group

oooh :) this is pretty cool. thank you !

Yes but you still need to trust the central authority then, meaning one person will know everyone's salary (he who generates all the tokens).

If you really want a cryptographic secure process, the key word to begin your journey would be "secure multiparty computation", and a very appropriate example in the book modern cryptography[1]:

[1] https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/project...

Basically your first solution but encrypt the communication between parties to prevent the n+1 - n attack.

edit - Only say infinite8s reply now, which is almost verbatim my reply including the same link.

There is a cryptographic subfield called secure multiparty computation that lets you compute something like this (an average where nobody finds out the inputs of others) - https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/project...

> some companies threaten to terminate anyone who reveals his or her salary to another employee.

In many jurisdictions, this is illegal.

It is illegal everywhere in the US. Talking about compensation is protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

When has something being illegal stopped a company from doing something that could save and/or make it more money?

When the penalty of a lawsuit outweighs the money gained from such an action.

You're forgetting the likelihood that such a lawsuit will be brought. Which isn't very high.

[H]ow I would never work in this town again

I can see where the arguments about trust etc are coming from (not that I necessarily agree), but that one I don't get at all.

She said that neither she nor anyone else at her recruiting firm would work with me ever again, which lasted about a year before they started emailing me job listings again. Be prepared if you accept a counteroffer after working with a recruiter, they will definitely hold it against you (that fee is 20% of your first year salary or more), plus it makes them look bad to the company they're working for.

Whoa...so she basically tried to blackmail you into declining the counteroffer? What the hell?

> She said that neither she nor anyone else at her recruiting firm would work with me ever again

If she actually thought that was tantamount to "you'll never work in this town again", she needs a reality check. Oh, this one recruiter firm won't work with me, whatever will I do?

I've worked at four different companies. In order, I got those jobs through Craigslist (2007), Monster (2012), Indeed (2014), and a friend referral (2016). None of them involved recruiters. Also, during the times I've been looking, I talked to a very large number of recruiters. If one of them blackballed me, it wouldn't affect me because I talked to so many other recruiting firms, and even then I ended up getting all my jobs without them.

If one recruiting firm won't represent you as a candidate, it's no loss, as there are thousands more that will - and recruiting firms aren't comparing notes with other firms on who took a counteroffer.

It's a threat that is totally unrealistic.

As a recruiter, I'd actually say that technologists are more likely to be able to damage a recruiter's career than the other way around. If word gets out about a recruiter not behaving properly, that word can travel much faster in the worker space than word travels in the recruiter space.

I believe that's a tongue in cheek reference to the movie industry in Hollywood where this is (was?) a common phrase.

Why did you quit to freelance?

probably more money, and more time.

people get what they ask for. when you make nearly 200k working for someone else you quickly start to realize what you are actually worth in the open economy compared to someone who is trying to imprison you professionally.

If you have the experience, contacts and social skills (very underestimated by many professionals in our field) you can make much more as a freelancer/contractor.

I'm now self employed for 4 years and I earn 6x as much as I earned in my last job. (though I believe I was underpaid in my last job)

I'm sure many people would be interested to learn more details about your current gig. How much are you making now? How did you get clients initially? What sorts of development do you do now?

>How did you get clients initially?

He said it, contacts and social skills.

One other way is referrals but you generally need to have a few clients before that starts happening.

> "contacts and social skills"

I'm curious too, because that's what everyone says, but they stop there. It's always:

1. Have contacts and social skills 2. ??? 3. Make 6X as a freelancer!

Let's say I'm starting with contacts and social skills. And a mortgage and a full-time job that lets me pay it. Any good books or blog posts that describe what's in step 2?

Just keep in contact with your network and make sure they're aware that you're freelancing and what sort of projects you do. I know it sounds simplistic, but the hard part is building a network. Once you have it, they do most of the work for you, especially if you keep them abreast and happy (ex. reciprocal referrals).

The reason it always seems to stop at step one is because the experience feels like a natural consequence of those two factors. A step two would be something like "exercise those social skills with your contacts" and that seems redundant. 'social skills' encompasses discussing professional situations and (unfortunately or not) being a person your 'contacts' are attracted to and comfortable with extending opportunity to.

(I'm a contractor, not a freelancer)

Step 2 - make sure you have enough money put away to last for at least six months with no work.

Step 2.5 - put some stuff on github, publish your cv, prepare to talk to and turn down an absolute ton of agents who will try to talk you into totally inappropriate work.

Step 2.75 - find a decent project to join, work your ass off getting up to speed and contributing fast. Build a reputation.

Step 3.1 - goto 1

The agent thing is a constant in contracting. They'll tell you "you're dreaming, you'll never find the money you're asking". They'll tell you "you need to be able to move around the country for work". They'll tell you "there's nothig contract based around anywhere right now, you need to look at my permanent roles". Some will even tell you you're awesome amd perfect, and then you'll never hear from them again.

But then a good one eventually comes along.... and gets you a well paying contract in a broken team doing something pointless. But hey, the money's good and you're only there for a few months so what does it matter?

Out of curiosity, do you work remotely, locally or travel? I have considered consulting, but the local market outside of the Bay Area would be limiting.

I do not want to give away too much personal information but I mostly work remotely. (I meet with my clients once every 2 months or so) The only exceptions are heavily regulated corporations like banks that require everyone to work from within their office for security reasons. (to prevent information leaks)

A question for any consultants who work 100% remotely: how do you compete with workers in countries with extremely low costs of living?

I work remotely. It's very simple - you position yourself and your skillset in such a way that you cannot be commoditized.

There are two essential skills required to manage your own freelancing or consulting practice. The first is the core competency for which you bill (software development, sales conversions, security auditing, etc.). The second is the ability to inspire confidence in your clients that you are capable of using that competency to solve a business problem. Perception matters a great deal in business relationships and framing yourself as an equal who will leverage a unique mix of skills to contribute value is very important.

'patio11 has spoken about this a lot, and his writings helped me get to ~$300k per year as a consultant.

High five!

To be honest I've never been in a situation where there was any such competition. I'm sure it happens on the margins but when you factor in time zone inconvenience, language and cultural barriers it isn't so easy to commoditize consulting. Also good people from anywhere in the world tend to migrate to a few places where this work is done. They don't always stay hanging out somewhere cheap. And good people aren't cheap even if they live in a low cost location. The market price for such people is driven by demanding vs supply rather than the cost of their apartment.

How does freelancing income compare to working as a senior engineer at a big corp ($300k total comp if you include bonuses, benefits and subsidized health insurance)?

Your personal time is worth more than any number of $$$. You can't buy back your time after you've traded it for cash. Make sure you enjoy life while you have it.

Edit: My point is that freelance work income may not compare, but the income may not be the reason for moving to freelance. The op did not explain why he moved to freelance, but I can think of some great reasons to do so.

As a senior engineer at a big corp, I feel like I have lot more free time available to me than if I were a freelancer. I don't have to worry about business details, contracts, hell, really even deadlines. In order to contract out for a comparable amount of money I think I'd have to spend a lot more time and deal with a lot more stress. Plus, you don't get paid vacation as a freelancer, whereas I get as much paid vacation as I'm apt to use.

vacations, one of the worst parts of freelancing - it's not the price of it (usually flight tickets + some cash on the spot, all manageable), but the income lost while having fun that hurts bad. combine it with some mortgage, and self-pressure to just work leaves you missing some nice experiences in life (while having some extra cash too)

Yeah, I'll be honest, I'm not the best at taking vacations. I've never used all my vacation time at any of my jobs, and have always gotten paid out handsomely for the excess upon leaving. Of course, once I actually do get out on a vacation, I inevitably enjoy it, but there's so much inertia in planning one that I do it infrequently. It really is a big hassle.

If I didn't have paid vacation days, I doubt that I'd ever take one. They'd simply be way too expensive. It's one thing to use paid vacation days, another thing entirely to give up over a week's worth of income. I don't think I could do it.

This is great advice, but not really practical with conventional American lifestyles. It's possible once you save enough and get the basics completely paid off, so that you can minimize your expenses to < 1k per month, but it's usually not an option for your average worker. I believe making it an option is a crucial social issue for our time.

That's senior engineer at an elite big corp in one of two or three locations in the US. It's a pretty rare (relatively speaking) position to be in.

Locations with high costs of living too.

In my experience they're pretty close, assuming you're excelling in both.

Top independent freelance software developers can make $300k if they work hard and have a good network, as can top big corp engineers. Of course, neither is easy to achieve and the metrics are different. (Freelancers are valued on their results, big corps hire on pedigree and games.)

I have done both. It's all highly dependent on your situation, but for me freelancing is higher income (~400k vs ~250k at bigcorp), much more autonomy (I can work wherever I like, subcontract out the tedious things, etc), but also much more stress. I worked considerably less at bigcorp but in the end I couldn't get over the whole having to come into the office and look busy thing.

I personally value the autonomy over almost anything else -- I can live in a low cost-of-living city with my wife for half the year, go skiing/mountain biking over lunch, and overall spend more time among the people I care about. But that does come with all the stress of building a client base, chasing down payment, explaining to non-technical people why their ideas aren't feasible and I can't build Siri in 3 weeks, etc.

I've been doing contract work for the last 6 years. In the markets I'm in Dallas and Chicago for my skill set (18 years) i'm finding it easy to find jobs at $125/hr but not much more than that. Even at that number I get lots of "thanks but no thanks." My most recent project, Apache Kafka and Spark, is only $115/hr. Which is close to $250k/yr but not any where near $400k/yr. I'm wondering where you're finding clients willing to pay this much and what type of work are you doing?

patio11 has a lot of articles and comments about charging by the week. From your comment, that sounds like how you'd make the leap; you get a lot more autonomy as well.

Why did you quit to freelance? I have a daughter (turning 4 this month) and I wanted to work from home and have a more flexible schedule. I applied for a few companies that offered remote work, but the schedules weren't that flexible (they all seemed to have core hours, except WordPress, which was a top contender). I also love to travel...my wife and I average 6 weeks of vacation and a dozen or more countries per year, and that has been a problem at every company for me so far. She is a registered nurse, so she can easily get a month off at a time.

I work for a company (Surge) that guarantees 40 hours a week, though I regularly exceed that, either through clients who don't mind overtime, or when clients overlap. The team is distributed, and the schedules are completely flexible (I spent a month at our condo in the Philippines in February, and was able to put in work despite the time difference).

If I had a time machine, I would go back and do this sooner.

EDIT: If you want me to pass along your resume to Surge, email me (contact info in profile)

>She is a registered nurse, so she can easily get a month off at a time

Tangential, but...a friend of mine is an RN in an ICU who works nights (how he copes with the long hours is beyond me). He's struggled to get a single week off, much less an entire month without quarrel. Turnover is high, they're shortstaffed, etc. What is different about your wife's hospital (maybe there's less pressure and more nurses available in other sections of a hospital)?

She works for Kaiser in the DOU (direct observation unit, ICU stepdown). To get a calendar month off she schedules it almost a year in advance. 2 weeks off she can do with a month notice. A week off usually only requires switching a day or two with another nurse since she only works 3 days a week.

Do her 3 days = 72 hours?

I've known a few medicos/1st responders, including a brother, who do this(take a month/week off, etc). It sounds enviable to most until you see/hear/experience what their 24 hour shift often entails.

I believe it. Especially when it's a young recruiter, not used to people changing their minds, and really needing the money. Once you've been recruiting for a while you realize that you don't celebrate a placement until they show up for work (not to mention there is usually a guarantee period of say 90 days).

The recruiters that are the most pissed, are the ones that have already spent the money. They should relax, no they have a good person and sell them to someone else for even more money in 18 months. Coercion is not a good quality in a person.

I worked somewhere for four years with no raises.

I turned in my resignation, and my boss offered to double my salary on the spot.

No. Thanks. I'll work somewhere that doesn't need me to RESIGN to be willing to pay me what I'm worth.

>I was making $117k

>They beat my salary with an offer of $125k

This barely seems worth switching companies for after tax.

$700 a month isn't worth switching jobs?

> I would never work in this town again, etc.

Of course they contacted you in 6 months and begged you to reconsider their offer, right? ;)

>My recruiter practically broke down in tears when I accepted a counteroffer in 2013.

Sounds like he/she didn't make a wise career choice. So why the duck did they feel qualified to guide others to jobs?

Recruiting is a sales job. Its the only sales job I know of where you can sell a product, the contract can be signed and the product can change it's mind and you don't get paid. It's brutal.

This here is a smart negotiator