I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for?
Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely
As a hiring manager, I've interviewed people who have 5 great years of experience who I'm very comfortable hiring into those senior roles. And I've also interviewed people who have 15 years on paper but when you dig into it, it's the same one year of experience 15 times over. They're an easy pass from a hiring standpoint. Not everyone looks at candidates the way that I do, but it's still extremely common for some people to move up much faster than others. Anything you can do to be one of the group that moves up quickly will make you more money in the long run.
Things you can be looking for right now instead of money:
- Try to find a team where you're the weakest member. It may be scary, but you learn from working with talented engineers and if you're the strongest member of the team, you'll stagnate.
- If you've got more than 18 months in a position and you feel you're not learning something important, jump to a new position. Diversity of experience is usually better than a single, longer experience even if it's good experience.
- As much as it gets trashed around here, chase the latest buzzword technologies. The more technologies you can prove you know, the more you can prove your ability to learn and the more money you're likely to get offered.
- A chance to take on responsibility beyond your years. If someone is willing to offer you a senior title with senior responsibilities but only pay you a junior salary, that's worth something. The next time you jump, you'll be able to jump into a senior-paid role.
The advice changes once you get through your rapid advancement years, but for someone just starting out, I think the above is pretty solid. Focus on growing yourself...the money will follow.
How do you differentiate "great years of experience" from that by looking at a CV?
To give some comparison, I started at $51k in DC. Stayed at that job for 10 months before I got poached by a startup that offered me $75k. Stayed at that job for 9 months before I got poached by a startup in the Bay Area & relocated to the Valley. I worked at that job for $110k for 3 months before switching to another startup for $140k after stuff soured at the prior company. After 9 months there & getting laid off, I landed a job at another startup for $160k. I stayed there almost 2 years and then got laid off, and now I am at Apple making a little over $200k total (effectively even more now since the stock has been doing pretty well, which bolsters my RSUs & stocks from the employee stock purchasing plan).
Those numbers are over a career of 4.5 years. I am very good at what I do, although still learning new things all the time, so it may be an unrealistic match, but I have heard of other developers doing even better than me $-wise (one former coworker on track to make over $300k this year with under 2 years of experience - he's shooting for $400k-$450k for the year I think, making more than almost all of the best developers I have ever worked with, but he is working lots of contract gigs simultaneously and outsourcing when necessary).
And if someone doesn't offer you the salary you want, say thank you but no thank you. As for convincing people, just be sure to have side projects and be sure you're able to talk in detail about anything you've worked on.