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Comment by roody15 | Hacker News Reader

Did you ever ask for a raise or more money?

If so did they ever say no?

In my experience many who complain about salary often failed to ever try and negotiate on behalf of themselves.

There is an element of failure to negotiate, and to renegotiate, involved but if that's where your thinking stops you're missing the point. It's not just that the person involved didn't ask for a raise. It's also the fact that everyone above them who was privy to salary data accepted it. Every single person in a higher management role was perfectly OK with two people doing the same job being paid significantly different salaries.

And then you start wondering if you're being underpaid too. Do all the people above you know how much of a sucker you are for accepting the lowball rate?

It's a problem for people who get promoted to a level where they get to peek behind the curtain and see all the things that the company has been doing wrong all the time they've been there, and the realisation that all the other people are fine with it. It kind of gets to you after a while.

I respectfully disagree. There is no "inherent" fairness for salary in my experience (older in my mid 40's). For example if you feel you are underpaid and deserve 15K more per year... make your case. If you have a reasonable case to be made (others make this for salary for the same job ... or I am worth it because) then make it. If they don't offer anything then perhaps you do work for a crappy company and should consider another job.

However the idea that everyone should be paid the same for the same position is just not how the world works.

Here is a personal example. Long time ago I worked at a bank.. I did simple teller operations and some loan document processing. My co-worker did the same job. However when it came to number of transactions processed and number of loan documents processed I literally was twice as productive. So should we be paid the same since its technically the same position? Or do I have a valid case to be made that I am worth more? Would my coworker have a valid reason to be upset that I make more?

Another example in my IT career, In general I get things done quickly and am easy to work with. There are people in this profession that sometimes lack social skills and can just be difficult to work with. Is my ability to easily work with others and get things done quicker (technical skill and people skills) worth more to my employer than say someone in my same "position" who is hard to work with..add hurdles to get things done... etc.

It's almost impossible to negotiate anything unless you have leverage, and leverage only exists when there is a decision-point: "I'll pick this other job unless.." or in the beginning "I won't join your company unless..."

Randomly asking for a raise doesn't work.

> Randomly asking for a raise doesn't work.

Randomly, no... but asking for a raise while showing reasons why you think you deserve it definitely can. I know because I literally just did that.

Keep a running document of accomplishments, especially anything that is "above and beyond", whatever that might mean in your context. It's much easier to present that then trying to remember everything you did months/years later.

Also, in my experience, it's fairly easy to tell which companies will be willing to give you raises based on how your initial salary negotiations went. When I've worked for stingy employers who wouldn't budge on salary, I rarely got anything over a basic 2-3% annual bump. When there was a lot of flexibility in the salary range (or when they've offered more than I asked) it has been quite easy to get additional bumps. I also have the same work ethic and drive at each of these companies, so I don't _think_ it was a difference in performance. I've always received glowing reviews regardless of the company.

I don’t negotiate. I’ve found it’s usually a waste of time and I’m still negotiating around the margins. It has been much easier to just get another job.

I also resent on principle that the primary driver of one's salary must be something that's at best tangentially related to the job: Negotiating skills. Let's say someone taught himself programming, went to university for computer engineering, got decades of experience in the trenches. A programmer geek through and through. And then someone fresh out of school starts at double that guy's comp because... ... New guy is a slick negotiator? And we're all supposed to just accept that's how the world works? "Just negotiate harder, bro?"

My experience with salary negotiations is probably similar to yours. It's pointless. The company has all the power, and if you give an ultimatum, they say "there's the door" anyway, so why bother? Just skip it all and go out the door from the start. Grind some Leetcode, go through the interview hazing ritual again, and job hop. It sucks, but I guess it is the way it is.

And I also don’t do meaningless coding interviews - ever.

Some of us think that doing our job should be enough to be fairly compensated without having to take on the additional duty of continually fighting for it.

But since that isn't how things work in glorious capitalist utopia, I just slack off hard core instead. I don't need the money near as much as I need my time back.

Just wait till you see the comp in the glorious socialist utopia, you're gonna love that I bet.

I think that a lot of people would be happy with America moving to the mix of social programs, taxation, and salary that Sweden or Norway have.

Surely. The point is all these systems have tradeoffs. I'm guessing OP would find things to be disappointed in there, too, as have many of the people who actually live in those places.

edit: especially when it comes to comp, which was how this started. The left hand (as it were) criticizing comp in tech, and the right complaining about capitalism, is my favorite part.

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