Ask HN: First Year Salary Negotiation Advice | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: First Year Salary Negotiation Advice

2 pointsSCUSKU3 comments

Hi HN,

My first round of performance reviews/salary negotiation in my career is coming up, and I would appreciate any advice from more experienced developers.

Current Salary: $95k/yr Desired Salary: $120k/yr

Context: I am coming up on a year at a young but decently funded startup in Silicon Valley in the vertical farming space making $95k/yr. I was hired to do imagery analysis and have implemented and deployed deep learning and traditional computer vision algorithms to do imagery analysis. I have had excellent feedback from senior engineers as well as the CEO. I enjoy the job, team, and company, but feel like I have been somewhat missing out financially.

I would be very happy with $120k/yr, but am unsure of how I can go about negotiating this. When I was first hired, I asked for $120k/yr but they were rigid at $95k/yr and shut down all negotiation. At the time, COVID was new, I was fresh out of my MS program, and had no proven track record. However, I feel that I have proven myself and could reasonably expect $120k/yr or more at other competitors.

How should I go about asking for this raise? I expect that if I ask for $120k/yr, my employer will negotiate me down, which I would not be happy about. On the other hand, I don’t know if starting high at $130k/yr for example would even be seen as a sane ask that would be a $35k/yr increase. However, one senior engineer with 4 years of experience told me they were able to negotiate up from $115k/yr to $135k/yr last year.

Any advice, paradigm shifts, resource reccomendations, or service recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Given the current state of the job market, you are underpaid, even by startup standards. At FAANG companies (& similar) an engineer with a year's worth of (paid) professional experience implementing DL & CV should easily be able to clear top-of-band new grad compensation (which is already over 200k, not counting signing bonuses). With a Masters degree & good interview performance hitting mid-level at some places isn't totally out of the question; top-of-band there is ~300k (a couple places where it's higher, but not many).

Jemaclus' recommendations are good and I second them. But unless you're so happy with the team & work that you feel like it's worth giving up on potentially millions of dollars of lifetime income to stay there, I'd encourage you to start looking around after you hit your first anniversary.

Here's a long read but probably one of the most accessible reads on negotiating salary by @patio11 [0]. Even though the author does focus on negotiating a new job more so than raises, the principles within are still relevant.

Some thoughts:

- a 30% pay raise in one year is quite large, and they would not be out of bounds in dismissing that and offering you something closer to 10%

- you didn't specify your location, so it's hard to tell if 95K is too low or just right. In Silicon Valley, it's pretty low even for someone fresh out of school with an MS.

- if your company is still small and doesn't have a ton of money, they may only offer you a smaller raise. On the flip side, if they are flush with a lot of cash, you have a better shot of getting more

- you need to decide what your BATNA is. BATNA stands for Best Alternative To No Agreement. In other words, if they decline to give you anything that you're willing to accept, what's your best alternative? Could you find a new job that would start you at 120k? Suck it up and deal with it? Then whatever your BATNA is, don't accept any less than that.

- similarly, do some game theory. What's your boss's BATNA? What if you ask for 120K and they come back with 105K and you say no thanks and then you quit? What's their best alternative? They may need to hire someone else, which may cost time and money and prevent your team from reaching its goals on time. That may be worth throwing an extra 15K to you to stay on! On the flip side, you may not be adding as much value as you think you are, and the company may decide that they could save $95K/year by letting you go! Figuring out what their BATNA is will help you figure out how far you can push them.

- there are other kinds of compensation than cold hard cash, such as equity, additional vacation days, paid workshops and conferences, etc. if they aren't willing to up your salary, you could see if you can get those non-tangibles instead. You could ask for more equity or ask them to pay for more schooling, for example.

- if your bosses are unwilling to compensate you reasonably, then that's a red flag and you should look elsewhere. Keep in mind that the definition of "reasonably" may not reach the level of 120k salary that you're looking for. As I said earlier, 30% increase is quite a bit, especially for someone with 1 year of professional experience. If their feedback is as good as you say it is, they should be willing to give you something.. the question is just whether that's enough for you.

- unfortunately, the best way to get a raise is to find a new job. brace yourself for that possibility.

Good luck.

[0] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

I realized I didn't answer the "how do I ask for a raise?" question.

Here's how: you don't. Instead, state the facts and state them clearly, then draw the logical conclusion. Something along the lines of: "It's been one year, which is an appropriate time to start compensation. I took this position at a high risk due to the small nature of the startup and my lack of experience, but in the past year, I've done A, B, and C. In my feedback sessions with you and others, I've been consistently highly rated and have established myself as a valuable member of the time. I've done my research and a fair market value for my role would be an increase up to $120K."

Then you leave it at that. Don't elaborate, don't talk about your feelings. Leverage awkward silence, if you need to.

If they're really good people and they care about you, they'll do their best to make it happen. If they aren't, then they won't. Their reaction will tell you a lot about your future at the company.

But what you really don't want to do is come at it from a position of weakness. In other words, don't say: "Can I have a raise?" That sounds like Tiny Tim, "pretty please, sir, would you please throw your spare change from your couch into my bank account" kind of thing. Don't do that. Instead, stick to the facts.

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