Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

You should really read the kalzumeus salary link for the exact words and methods.

You can check levels.fyi large faang l6 and above get those numbers. I think there is a massive gap between faang and similar and smaller places. When I got the recent crazy offer I interviewed in what I thought were good smaller companies and several offered me below my current salary. And a couple were in 110k range with absolutely no room for negotiation.

I think the main thing his experience showed is that if you want to make a lot of money, you need to position yourself to move into industries that can pay a lot. For software engineers that means 3 major options:

1. The US tech giants (the "FAANGs"). These companies are so insanely profitable and they can afford to pay a lot, though they all have become more cost conscious in the past couple years.

2. Finance. Again, they've got a lot of money, and especially for trading firms it's usually more straightforward to assign value to individual developers than in other areas.

3. Currently there is a big desire for AI talent, so if that's your industry one of the big startups (OpenAI, Anthropic) or one of the smaller well-funded ones should be able to pay you well.

So I would say this person didn't so much "climb the ladder" as opposed to position themselves well to get hired at other companies that would pay them a lot more. And I think this person did it in perfect order, i.e. it's been said a lot on HN how "the startup deal" (i.e lower salary but more equity) is hardly ever worth it for IC software developers these days if you can also get a FAANG job, but it can be a great stepping stone to getting experience that leads to a better paying job at companies that can afford to do so.

I think what made the difference in both places is that I had good projects I could talk about and the tell a good story of this is the business problem, this is what we did, this is how I contributed, this is the result. I know this is not super helpful and sounds like standard STAR stuff. I was lucky because I was given a chance to deliver large and important projects and I think this is what they liked. This comp is high but once you get into l7 and above or get senior roles in trading firms numbers become even more crazy.

Notice I’m not suggesting that people go for “hard” negotiation. You don’t loose anything by not revealing comp early. Worst case you will get offer that’s too low. But best case you get offered above what you expected.

Germany needs to regulate a mandatory posting of the pay range with every job being posted. The power dynamic is very skewed towards employers because when you send in your application, you must also indicate your pay expectations but employers (except select few) never post the pay ranges. In the end what happens is that, two seniors in the same team will earn in 50-70% difference while doing the same duties.

This is UK

This is why we Europeans like working at American companies (in Europe)

Not with that attitude

I started my first job in 2008. I had a friend who got a job doing software development for a city government at $60k. I interviewed at a big tech company. I don't remember even being asked about my salary expectation. The offer came at $75k. I'd been expecting 40-50, based on what the career center at school was telling me.

From my experience, this is not necessarily true. Some companies might have the budget to pay at the 50th percentile in New York, or the 95th percentile somewhere else, and would prefer to do the latter

I'm not interacting with companies seeking cheap labor in Poland - like Intel. Despite their quite active recruiters, all conversations with whom end up at "company policy doesn't allow me to discuss salary range".

I've set up a small business with EU tax id over a decade ago and I'm issuing invoices to European countries (EU and Schengen) and North America.

It's a trade-off of giving up European employment safety, pension, some quality of life when working in different timezone, benefits and job security, to work for higher salary.

But it only makes sense until some business decides that they would like a contractor from Poland with a Polish salary.

To play the devils advocate there are some justifiable reasons to try and hire international employees. Maybe some component requires some physical proximity or has some large benefit. Maybe someone is exceptional at a global level and doesn’t want to move.

With that said I tend to agree, most companies are shopping around for a bargain if they can find one.

Presumably we're talking about remote roles here, in which case this is nonsense. A Zurich developer is not worth more in a remote role than a developer in Warsaw. The only reason large cities have inflated salaries is because that's what you have to pay someone for them to live within range of your fancy office. If it's a remote role anyway, the companies that aren't out to exploit you will pay the same salary band for all roles anywhere where they hire.

Location-based pay in remote roles is a major red flag that the company doesn't reward merit.

That's why they demand high salaries. You are paying so much to convince them to build boring software instead of the fancy bridges and gothic temples.

Because it helps you position the offer, and emphasize/sell certain parts.

Salary, equity, title, working hours, etc.

More information always helps.

I can disclose, but when I have people start trying to negotiate as if it's a starting position, they get really happy with the number and then irreconcilably annoyed when they realise the number doesn't change.

Hindsight and looking externally on the situation would have you think that you'd react differently, but it's a 5/5 repro rate.

If I think the money is enough then I'm quite happy, but if they expect more then I have to emphasise other parts of the job (remote first structure for example, and flexible working hours) - I wouldn't need to do that if their request was lower than what I offer.

someone else replied and then deleted their comment, but i think they made an interesting point that i don't agree with.

they said that someone desperate to get a job will accept a low offer and keep looking for something better. and by asking them for their expectation this could be prevented.

if i am desperate for a job then i am going to give you a lower expected number in the hopes that i'll get the job and then keep looking anyways.

so no, i don't think asking a desperate candidate will help you avoid that problem.

A former employer did 40% bonuses. It made for a nice holiday surprise even when they decided "the company didn't meet expectations" and gave everyone half bonus. Eventually they decided to "align with market expectations" and coincidentally started hemorrhaging staff.

Even if they come back with what you wanted, they'll resent your salary and have inflated expectations above reality

that is something i worry about when i see a high offer. in part it's imposter syndrome, but also a lot of job descriptions are like we want the best, and you are super fast and an excellent this and perfect that, able to work in a high pressure environment, etc.

these claims are so meaningless. they don't tell me anything about what it is really like to work there.

who really wants to work in a high pressure environment with the expectation to be a rock star developer?

Theoretically, what they pay you should have nothing to do with your current salary, given that your current salary could be anywhere from $0 (e.g. if you're an unpaid intern) to INT_MAX (if you're being vastly overpaid).

As a freelancer who gets paid by the hour or by the job, I've never been in a position to negotiate salary directly, so I wonder how tenable it is to politely decline to answer questions about your current salary, given that it may give the potential employer more leverage against you.

I equate this to businesses (not you employer but places like the cable company) asking for your SSN: they may want it, but you are not always legally or morally obligated to provide them with it.

You only have w2 available for previous year. In any case employers can pay to Equifax and the like to view your actual salary which most payroll processors (including rippling starting next year, i think) happily sells to them.

Lying about this these days seems rather risky to me. Some employers may not care, but some will.

The Worknumber product from ADP (and it's equiv from Paychex) covers a vast range of white collar employees. Perhaps most.

Your new employer has a very good chance of seeing precisely what your current salary is down to the paycheck level going back years to even verify raises and title changes.

Replying with what you require to make to take the job seems like a much safer bet to me.

The vast majority of tech workers leave firms in under 3 years, move laterally, or are mission critical with meaningless title changes.

If you find 6 different division managers that entered the same facility as coders, than I may agree. You won't, but I respect your youthful idealism. =)

Recruiters only get paid if a candidate stays beyond a period of time. If the candidate does not work out the recruiter needs to find a replacement. Recruiters won’t deal with shit people because if they don’t stay or are prone to not working out they are a burden.

In terms of money it’s usually a percentage of the salary. So if the recruiter works on 10% then they have incentive to get you as much money as possible.

"You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer"

You answered your own question: "they're super expensive for the company who you hire through"

The person that pays the recruiter money is their customer. The item their customers pay for is the recruiter's product, which is you.

So the recruiter's reputation does matters to acquire additional inventory, but it matters more for their actual customers. Selling bad fits to their actual customer, the hiring companies, would be business-ending.

It is so important to understand when you are the product and when you are the customer.

Yeah if they put you in a crappy job or it's not what they represented it was, you'll never use them again and you'll tell your network not to use them.

They are motivated to place you in a job, since that's how they get paid, but they want you to be happy with it.

I'm sure as my sense of urgency and my sense of selectivity head in opposite directions I will think back to this comment. So far I've been picky and have seen more like 10% and most of that in the last couple weeks.

It may also depend which job site or application tool you're using.