Ask HN: What percentage to expect for salary increase between jobs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What percentage to expect for salary increase between jobs?

6 pointsmrks_12 comments

Let's assume that cost-of-living and other factors are mostly ignored. If I'm fielding new offers in the tech industry (software engineering), what percent increase compared to my current salary should I reasonably expect?

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You can get salary expectations per titles from places like Stack Overflow and Glassdoor.

Most hiring managers shouldn't offer "X% over your current salary" -- and you shouldn't look for that either. You should look at your experience, your capabilities and compare that with market rates for those.

If your current employer is paying you 20% below market rate, then this is an opportunity for you to reset to (or above) the market rate. But in this example, if you were to use your current salary as an input to determining your new one, you'd probably still lose out.

The trickiest bit is mapping titles among different companies. The public salary data is usually indexed by title. You can probably come up with good estimates for which title you think makes the best sense for you.

This is great advice, thanks!

My question stems from the fact that I make about median market rate for my experience and location. I'm having trouble making a plan for how my salary should increase as my experience and career evolve. If I'm currently making median market rate, I'm unsure if it's reasonable to expect a jump into the 75th percentile for my next position during the negotiation process.

In India, you are required to mention your current salary and the expected salary on the job application to even be considered.

The expected salary is usually a 30% bump if you are between junior-mid levels.

It will depend on your location, job title, the company, and your education background.

The good news is that you can plug all of that into a salary calculator on Glassdoor or Indeed.

I've also found talking to recruiters helpful in this one case. They have a good idea of what salary you can command on the job market based on your skills and work experience.

These articles I wrote walk you through finding what salary you can get and negotiating during the interview process:

http://www.climbuptheladder.com/how-to-know-if-youre-paid-wh...

http://www.climbuptheladder.com/they-asked-me-what-salary-i-...

You can get ANY salary increase % depending on the following:

- You should do very well in the interview

- It should be dependent on how much they need your skills

- It should be dependent on how much they can pay for a role like yours, or one notch above [Please take Glassdoor data with a pinch of salt - some of the data is averaged out, or outdated]

Negotiation skills are key.

One thing that (most) people ignore is the risk involved in switching jobs.

Let's say you make 100K today if someone offers you 120K that's a 20% increase. BUT, what happens if you get fired or quit after 2 months. How long will it take you to find another job and how likely are you to match that 120K or 100K?

If the answer to that question is not "a week", the job move should make sure this risk is smoothed out. Usually but a signing bonus on top of the pay increase or something like that.

Not saying that every job should have a signing bonus or that you should hard require it, just saying that pay increase is not the only thing to look for.

Honestly I don't see how anyone can answer this without knowing what you are already making and what your local market is offering (assuming you also want to stay in the same place with the same title). If you're underpaid (e.g. making $65k in the Bay) you could more than double your salary quite easily. However if you're already making $200k as a senior engineer in say Seattle or Austin, well I would expect anywhere from 0 to a decrease, with a very rare possibility of an increase at all.

That's fair. I expanded on the details further in another comment, which I'll copy below.

> My question stems from the fact that I make about median market rate for my experience and location. I'm having trouble making a plan for how my salary should increase as my experience and career evolve. If I'm currently making median market rate, I'm unsure if it's reasonable to expect a jump into the 75th percentile for my next position during the negotiation process.

Median market rate in my location (Pittsburgh) for my skills is around $75k. The 90th percentile for someone of equal skill is about $100k. To clarify my question, using the details from your comment, what can I reasonably expect for the growth rate between jobs as I approach the 90th percentile of pay?

Thank you, given what you've just added I'd defer to other's comments about relying on negotiation skills. I wouldn't accept anything less than a 10% increase (mixed between equity and cash) unless the title bump was meaningful and could actually have an impact on your career growth (i.e. not being VP of Engineering for a 1-person engineering team). If you're right in the middle, it shouldn't be hard to find salaries for 10% more.

Thanks for the advice! I was initially concerned that negotiating for a 20-25% increase would make me unreasonable for my currently median-level skills. It seems that if 10% is a fair, but low-end, increase, then I can continue to target ~ 20%, so long as I practice negotiating.

It depends on the employer as well. For example we have local companies here with horrible reputations that sometimes pay well above market rate for developers.

Makes negotiating much easier, also more risk in working there, as another comment says.

It depends on the local market. For example in my local market, with 5-10 years exp you max out at around $85k. The ceiling for me seems to be around $120k (15 years Java enterprise). I judge this on constantly interviewing the past few years.

The idea being, if you're at market rate for your skill set, you may not see much increase at all.

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