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Comment by engtech | Hacker News Reader

I've sadly realized that almost all job offers are based on some combination of what they offer other candidates at that level and what you state your previous salary as.

Given that you're an unknown commodity, they use your previous salary to determine how other companies valued you.

Between 2001 to 2006 my salary went from 60k to 94k

2006 to 2008 I took a job at a "hot" startup and went down to 89k in return for options (I am never doing that again for a company bigger than 5 people).

2008 to 2012 I took a job that started at 95k, and I've only been able to drive the salary up to 103k even though I've gotten the highest rating possible on every performance evaluation (and I've been a key contributor to hardware development worth about 50 million in revenue -- when other products are breaking even / losing money).

I feel that the only way I can advance my current position is by getting other job offers, but I don't want to be that guy.

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I feel that the only way I can advance my current position is by getting other job offers, but I don't want to be that guy.

I have found this strategy very effective over the years. I have only been working full time since 2004, and since then my salary has gone from 30k to 110k. I have never taken a job that paid less than the previous one, and on a few occasions I have used competing offers to get raises, or just taken the other job. People may look down on the fact that I have worked for 5 companies in 5 years, but at the same time I have learned a great deal, experienced lots of vastly different company cultures, and I've increased my salary by double in the past 3 years alone.

The secret to getting large salary increases when switching jobs and to avoid getting held back by salary history is to show how you are worth more to the new company than you were to the old one. For example, when I took a job that paid 50k as a junior PHP dev, I spent a year learning object oriented PHP5 and payment processing. I used this experience to land a job paying 58k working on high traffic sites where I learned caching, scaling, and performance tuning. I used this experience to get a job paying 70k working on an advanced ad serving platform running on a cluster of 50 servers, where I learned about load balancing. I used this experience to get a job paying 96k working for ClearChannel, working on syndicated radio shows, where I learned about streaming audio and video. This experience landed me at a stealth mode startup where I'm making 110k plus stock options. Each step of the way, the experience I gained at the last job made me more valuable than my last salary, so the new company offered more, and I didn't even have to ask the first few times (though the last two times, the same recruiter did the asking on my behalf).

> I feel that the only way I can advance my current position is by getting other job offers, but I don't want to be that guy.

I don't understand that. Who is /that guy/ and why don't you want to be him?

I think engtech's point is they wish their work was better-recognized and better-rewarded, without him/her feeling he had to force his employer's hand by pulling a "well, XYZ corp is all lined up to pay me 20% more!" (AKA, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease").

Maybe that's realistically what you do have to do, but that doesn't mean it's ideal. It's easy to view the employer/employee relationship in a purely market-driven, antagonistic style, but I think many people who like their jobs really wish it wasn't like that.

Again, it might be naive, but that doesn't make it wrong to feel that way. It really would be great if businesses could treat their employees like friends, and not just resources.

I've heard this point before, and you know, not only do I vehemently disagree with it, I also think it's massive cognitive dissonance. People are brought up told that discussing money is taboo, and rationalize that.

> force his employer's hand by pulling a

> purely market-driven, antagonistic style

Doesn't it strike you as odd that you've made those statements so emotionally laden?

> It really would be great if businesses could treat their employees like friends, and not just resources.

I think that would be dreadful. I want a company to treat me as a resource, and to realize that as a resource, they'll get the most out of me if they keep me happy. I would like the company to be acutely aware of how much I am worth, how much I cost, and what my options are, and to be happy that they're getting good value by employing me. Programmers spend so long convincing themselves they're scientists, but for some reason (and maybe it's because economics is such a weak science) this all completely goes out the window as soon as money is involved.

I think it's weak-sauce for a programmer to be jumping around chasing a few bucks here and there, but if you're being undervalued, do something about it, rather than complaining that life is unfair, and that the company should be looking after you. And I say this as a bleeding-heart pinkie limey leftie liberal who actually worked at The Guardian once.

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that you've made those statements so emotionally laden?"

For a lot of people, it is an emotional situation. Work makes up a big part of their life, I'd be surprised to find many people who can view compensation in a totally cool and detached way.

And yes, obviously, "do(ing) something about it" is the correct course of action. I wasn't suggesting hoping and wishing as a means of getting a raise.

On a side note, I wonder if the Dunning-Krueger effect implies that the least qualified people are the ones clamoring for raises the most often?

I agree that it sucks that is is this way, and that many of us would rather companies actually kept up with market rate without us having to beat them over the head constantly.

We live in a world that, in this case, performs far less than ideally. Constraining your own behavior to naive, idealized boundaries seems ludicrous.

In other words, do not feel bad about being "that guy", because that guy is all of us. If your employer will not adjust your compensation fairly, then do head off to greener pastures. This whole shame-game with "disloyalty" is just a ruse to make you accept a grossly below-market rate for your work.

I agree completely. This is the world we live in, and you should not feel bad for asking to be paid what you deserve.

That said, it's hard not to have emotional ties to your work, especially if you're friendly with the people you work with. I was just trying to explain how I presumed engtech was feeling, since peteretep didn't seem to understand.

"I feel that the only way I can advance my current position is by getting other job offers, but I don't want to be that guy."

Have you talked to your manager about this? It can be difficult to bring it up but if you like the place, people, and work that you are doing and money is the only problem, then you need tell your boss just that (literally, say, "Boss, I love working here, I love the people, I love the work, but I have a problem. I'm underpaid for my skill level and the contributions I have made here. Is there anything we can do about that?"). Sometimes they can do something about it but they haven't because they didn't realize they needed to. Seriously.

Sometimes they can't do anything about it and they will tell you. Only then you start looking for another job.

My philosophy is that I want to give the company/client a good value for their money but I also want to get paid what I'm worth. If I'm a 100K/yr engineer and the company can't see paying that, the fit is probably sub-optimal and it's time to go someplace where I can create value.

For example: An engineer working at a landscaping company cannot deliver enough value to justify a big salary. It's not the landscaping company's fault, it's just a bad fit.

In my experience, pay increases happen when you start a new job or if you're lucky, when someone on your team leaves for more money. :-)

Talk to your boss over lunch and let him know that it's obvious that you aren't able to deliver the value you'd like and perhaps it's time you got out of the way so they can get someone who is a better fit. Reassure him that you don't intend to leave them in the lurch.

You either are "that guy" or you work for "that guy".

> I feel that the only way I can advance my current position is by getting other job offers, but I don't want to be that guy.

If you're not prepared to leave, why should your employer pay you any more given that you've demonstrated by your actions that your existing salary is enough to keep you working there?

Actions speak louder than words, which is unfortunately why being "that guy" is the most effective way to get that higher salary you believe that you're entitled to.

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