Ask HN: Company offering me a lowball salary | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Company offering me a lowball salary

3 points2bor-2n9 comments

Hey everyone, I am the OP from "Ask HN: Negotiating Salary" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27332305 which got traction this week.

This is a follow up post to let you guys know what happened after. So, yesterday they called a meeting with me and gave me an offer of $20/hr (my assumption was atleast $30/hr but expectation was $40/hr - checkout the above link for reference).

To be honest, I was a bit surprised and kind of frustrated by their offer. I explained them that they were giving me half of my original expectation and that I was surprised by it. They responded that they offered this number given my current skills and the value I would bring to the company.

The position that I applied for was Sr. Frontend dev but the offer letter says the position would be "Frontend Developer". I see that they are offering me a mid level position instead of the original one. Moreover, since I made the blunder of revealing my current earning that gave them the leverage to offer $20/hr. I bought some time from them and would give my response on Tuesday.

Now since I am from South Asia, $20/hr is still a handsome amount given the local market but the real problem is their tech stack. Their product is pretty big and is using some outdated stack such as jQuery on the frontend. There would be a lot of work for me in jquery, but I think working in jquery (which is soon going to be obsolete) would cause a lot of damage to me technically.

So, this is the how the current situation looks like. Since I am not motivated to work on an old stack at such a low rate, I was thinking that I should try to negotiate a number between $30-40/hr. If it goes successfully I would be able to make good money in a couple of months then try finding a reactjs job.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

US citizen here, curious. I read both posts. Is this normal, paying $20/hr for even a junior web developer because they live in South Asia? That’s a laughably low rate for someone based in the US, where people who can barely write Javascript are getting $100k+ offers. I pay more than $20/hr over Upwork — if I see someone asking for such a low rate I assume they are kids or hobbyists, not serious developers.

I’m not asking you to justify your salary. I’m asking if this is normal — this kind of large disparity based on location and nationality.

I freelance for a living and have lived overseas while working for US companies and none have ever suggested paying me less because I lived in a low cost-of-living country. Other freelancers I know, including many who are not US citizens, are getting good rates too when working for US companies.

Ideally you get paid according to the value you bring to the company. Period. Where you live or what passport you have shouldn’t make any difference. An offer like this communicates either exploitation or that the company doesn’t see you as very valuable. Why even take the time to interview someone at this rate? Just hire and see what happens, the stakes are so low.

Yes, there are employers in both US and EU that will attempt to low-ball remote developers in generally lower-cost regions.

One time I got two simultaneous offers from two EU companies, one of them was like 35% larger (they did not make their offers based on a region), even though I stressed that I am generally earning EU-like salary for my experience. They quickly raised the lower offer to match.

I know people who've worked at very senior/tech lead positions at US/Canadian companies for significantly less than $30/h. It all depends on the type of the company: are they hiring remotely to save on costs, or to open up the pool of talent to the entire world (basically, get better talent for the money they've got available)? Of course, it's never black and white, but where they sit closer ultimately affects what they offer.

Thank them for their time, decline their offer, and look for a position that is in line with your expectations. Your "future self" will thank you for making this choice.

My suggestion is to open your mind to more tech stacks. Senior devs can code in many stacks, switch between them, pick up new ones, etc. I'd be just as hesitant to hire someone who refuses to touch "old" tech as I would an expert in the old tech who doesn't want to take the effort to learn anything new. Tech has variety, and senior folks should be able to handle that.

Still, this is an easy answer for you. You said it yourself - you are not motivated to work there.. So turn it down and keep looking.

jQuery is not a “stack.” It will not go obsolete any time soon. Using jQuery or any other tool or language cannot “damage you technically.” Comments like that may explain why the (most likely meaningless) “senior” didn’t get attached to the title.

>jQuery is not a “stack.”

I guess we all know that already

>Using jQuery or any other tool or language cannot “damage you technically.”

Well i think it does, jquery saw its heyday, now the frontend jobs ask for skills in react, vue or angular.

Except nothing prevents you learning both. JQuery is still far more widely deployed than React, Vue, and Angular combined. It’s not going away, it’s under active development.

It may not be the big thing employers ask for this month but that doesn’t make it obsolete or “damaging.”

If your career goal is to always work with the cool new fad then good luck with that. If your goal is to open the most doors and always have options get good with what most companies actually use. HN is not a good cross-section of the industry.

It’s very short-sighted to focus on languages or tools, because most of them come and go. Instead focus on core skills, adding business value, solving problems, working with people. Those skills pay off forever.

Not having Senior Frontend Developer on your future resume and being underpaid is far worse than having to code in jQuery. Senior dev means senior dev pay so they are effectively robbing you of not only present salary but future salary too.

If $20/hr is the mid pay can a “senior” at that shop expect $40? Those are more like Upwork piecework rates.

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