And what can someone do to maximize that value (like open source side projects,good tech blogging etc...).
- Negotiate. That accounts for about 20-50% of the compensation difference between new hires.
- Job fit: Side projects/tech blogging will only get you in the door, not materially affect your income unless your position at the company overlaps heavily. For example, if you are being hired as a security researcher, then good tech blogging in that space may significantly affect new-hire salary. For UI work, having a good portfolio is far more important. For backend/new-grad, neither is particularly important.
- Company: Different companies have different market rate targets. Google is about 90th percentile, Apple not quite as high, unless....
- Competing offer: Having an "exploding offer" (basically a time sensitive competing offer) will get HR scrambling. This gives you some negotiating power.
-Job fit : good to know; I do know a friend who seems to get pretty high salary compared to his experience and domain. I kinda assume that the fact that he was very active in conferences and blogging was the root cause
-Company : Very true, the delta between companies is almost unreal...
- Competing offer : agree, the only advice i give to my friend is to bundle their interview into the same two week, not only allows you to amortized you study time across multiple interviews, but having a "competing offer" from a respected company is gold.
Understand your employers standards for future raises & promotions. Also, there is a timing factor to consider. It's often easier to qualify for a raise in next years budget, than the current year. Additionally, look at the intangibles.
On this subject, Stuart Diamond is masterful > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liCOqUQzpQs