Most importantly, look for evidence. Don't trust unsupported numbers from people you've never met.
I ran a query for "PHP developer" and got an average salary of $72k - check the standard deviation of about $7k. Is my salary really almost two standard deviations below the mean for Toronto?
That's embarrassing more than anything else. I find myself wishing I had a post anonymously option on HackerNews.
It's not about being greedy, most companies will pay you the minimum amount you'll work for, or close to it. If your salary is that far below the mean, there's probably still a good chunk of money on the table (if your company isn't broke or doesn't just have a policy of underpaying).
But I had naively given a complete salary history when asked early in the process. Since I was currently working for less than I had earned in years (academic/research job), it turned out that their expectation was that I would leave for 3% to 5% over my current base.
They were pretty perplexed when I refused to consider anything less than my previous industry base (which was below an offer I had in hand from other sources and slightly below market rates in my area).
I ended up getting offered 33% above my current, but turned the job down as I felt that HR conversation was a one of many symptoms of a dysfunctional company. (Print media trying to convert to web based income, but already abusing their Dev team as if they were a cost sink before the digital products even launched).
When a company gives a low-ball offer to a potential developer then counters with a more realistic offer, this raises a big red flag to question the company's intentions and morals .
I've been asked this before in post-interview negotiation, so evidently this is somewhat common practice. I always respond with, "I'll tell you that if you give me a salary breakdown of your engineering positions by experience level." They always back off at that point.
I know what salary I want, so it's not like it matters anyway. Plus their low-ball offer gave me an insight into how they value their development team. If they didn't think I was worth what I was asking, fine, don't hire me. But if they're just looking for budget coders I'm happy to stay where I am. They already had two outsourced coders. The idea of joining their staff knowing they undervalue talent and are willing to hire from the 3rd world to replace me was not tempting.
I think that was the mistake...it's never a bad idea to have more information when going into the negotiation. By giving them the salary history, you gave them more information, and they didn't give you the same courtesy. Why should you provide a salary history if the company doesn't have to. With sites like GlassDoor, now they do, even if it's without their knowledge.
By using online salary info and not revealing my own salary history I have managed to get an average 20% increase over my previous job for the last 3 job changes, even during the economic downturn.
I will make a small suggestion to the OP: if you think the interview went well, try to shoot for something at the higher end or slightly above.
Even if you don't get it, you'll probably still get a good counter-offer, and if you come from an area with a lower cost of living, you may not realize how much you might end up needing that extra $20k a year.
http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze/19
(Salary discussion was at some point after discussing VC but before Android market share.)
but it's worth listening to the entire thing, very interesting stuff
Please do not listen to anyone who even mentions that the average salary is below $80,000, which is completely uninformed and basically an insult to the profession.
I think maybe you're basing your statement on a healthy dose of sampling bias.
But, that is with the federal government. 3 Weeks vacation + holidays & sick leave is nice, but with furloughs I'm beginning to look elsewhere for employment.
I know spacex is hiring, a buddy of mine left for them.
I was recently offered a GS14 step 8 (which I think is around $110k or so) for Python development.
For the record though, that offer is for a government position, not contracted.
Discussing with others it was pretty standard from conversion through a co-op program.
200k will get you a 2 bedroom 1000sqft 2br-1bth condo facing the biggest park in the city.
If you say 100k, you have to say where. I'd rather make 175k in Atlanta than 250k in SV looking at buying power.
If you ask for a lot more than you personally think you're worth during negotiations people will probably read your lack of confidence. If however you ask for more than the employer originally wanted to pay, but express that amount in a confident way then you're much more likely to get it. A good company (ie one you want to work for) isn't going to offer you the job unless they really think you're the one they want, and they wouldn't lose that for a few K, unless they feel like you're full of it.
Most importantly though YOU don't want to work for less than you honestly think you're worth. I once took a small pay cut when I really thought I was worth much more, the job was interesting but I knew there was a timer on how long I'd be there. Be honest with yourself and ask for what you need to feel comfortable with the position.
Very true...at my current job I didn't even have to negotiate. I didn't provide a salary history, even though they asked. Instead they asked me to give them a reasonable number that was the minimum they could offer where I would accept the position. I picked a number that was 5% over my current salary (though they didn't know that). They gave me that number plus 15%.
Couple of points...
Soft skills - can I comfortably discuss a range of topics and ideas with people at all levels of an org, including their clients? What is it worth for you as an employer to know you can bring someone in to a meeting who is, not just presentable, but groks what's going on, says the right things, picks up what they need to know, and can act on it?
Domain knowledge - even outside of your core org's focus - can be invaluable when trying to come up with solutions to some problems. If the knowledge is there with the right problems, there's value created. If not, no value.
A friend works at a company which had some security problems based on some poor decisions that were made in the web services APIs. Someone with practical experience - like me - wouldn't have made those decisions. What 'value' do you place on the tens of thousands of dollars in man hours, customer relations issues and lost opportunity cost would you put on bringing someone like me in vs someone else with less experience?
So... "what do you think you're worth?" is very hard to calculate before the fact, because you usually don't have much insight in to the inner working and problems. After you're hired, you can generally expect to be on the COL-raises and mild bonuses - usually computed based on the dept or team's collective efforts. If you can get some form of profit-sharing negotiated, you may be better off, but even that is still subject to the company's overall financial health, and you normally have little positive control over that.
I used CraigsList so there may be a SV vs LA bias in the listings.
If the company hiring you is already an established firm with a good history in terms of professional's salary, then I would expect that you could go for a range of 100K - 150K. For startups, it could go as less as 50K and for medium sized companies, it should be fair to consider an offer from 60K to 90K.
Most of these job are for roughly 50 weeks a year, 250 days from 30 seconds of googling, of which all the "answers" oddly enough came from answers.com
That works out to 320 a day, and I know I am grossly oversimplyfying FICA taxes and other things, to the point where they aren't even being included.
So yes at 40 an hour for butt in a chair pay, some do better freelancing at times, and to some people the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
For example a freelancer might charge $100-150 per hour. That's like $200-300k per year on salary (at that rate). But a freelancer at that rate doesn't actually make that amount, because you have to factor in downtime (they don't always have work, and they often have to spend time finding work) and they don't have benefits, etc.
I honestly don't know how someone could make it in an the Bay Area on 100k which is really disappointing because I have been wanting to move there and also have been wanting to make the switch to full time python development.
If you're automating a money making process that is scalable, the sky's the limit.
If you're developing from scratch or greatly enhancing a core product, then... A lot.
If you're doing reporting or back-office cost center type of coding, then whatever the market values your skills as a commodity.
Best of luck.
If you are talented you should be able to get $90-100k+.
We are hiring Python developers at Catch.com, feel free to shoot me an email ( aschobel@catch.com ).
Here is our PyCon MongoDB talk: https://catch.com/blog/2011/03/pycon-2011-mongodb-pylons-at-...