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Lockback posted:ok, so I think your perspective on the industry is kinda skewed, as I wouldn't bucket people differently between "20 years" vs "30-40 year" of experience. At that point, you have the skills or not. I'm not looking at a 45 year old saying "Man, this dude will be great once he gets more time under his belt". You can obviously still grow in any role at any age, but it's not like you have to have coded during the Reagan Administration to qualify for a job. That pay range you listed is closer to games job with that experience. The non-game roles are higher for the same experience, and sometimes a job level down. A principal engineer job in games seems to be around $220k to $240k total comp, the software jobs are $300k to $500k total comp for job levels 2-3 lower than the principal role in games. So the ranges I'm seeing right now is anywhere between $150k for the lowest end at my job level, to $500k at the highest. Total comp being the asterisk, because some places that might be $150k base pay and $300k+ a year in bonuses, other places try to have a higher base pay for stability. Some places those are cash bonuses, some places they are equity, stock, etc. Sometimes it's a combination of everything. edit: I just noticed the years of experience thing. I am definitely not the highest-paying phase. I'm at the "career position" level where I could stay at my current job level and never get promoted again without anyone batting an eye, but there are probably a good 5-6 job levels above mine. Principal, Senior Principal, Technical Director, roles like that and higher. It feels like there's a new job level or so added to the ladder every 5-10 years right now. Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 20, 2023 16:32
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spwrozek posted:This is very true and applies to all sectors in my experience. If you stay in a IC role you should be pretty much at the top by 20-25 years of experience. Most people find their top end at that point in their career. Hell, that is true for most people in management as well. There just aren't that many chairs at the really highly compensated levels.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:42
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Chainclaw posted:That pay range you listed is closer to games job with that experience. The non-game roles are higher for the same experience, and sometimes a job level down. A principal engineer job in games seems to be around $220k to $240k total comp, the software jobs are $300k to $500k total comp for job levels 2-3 lower than the principal role in games. So the ranges I'm seeing right now is anywhere between $150k for the lowest end at my job level, to $500k at the highest. A level down for being in Games sounds right. 220k total comp would be low for a principal-level dev, but not totally out of the range. 300k-500k total comp for a senior 1 type level (which is what I'd call 2-3 levels lower) would be FAANG-type comp ratios, maybe FAANG adjacent, and wouldn't match up with what you'd find at a FinTech or MedTech type company in the midwest, for example. Remember, FAANG is not "The Software Industry". It's a very thin slice that right now is seeing an outsized portion of the layoffs in the sector.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:44
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Lockback posted:ok, so I think your perspective on the industry is kinda skewed, as I wouldn't bucket people differently between "20 years" vs "30-40 year" of experience. At that point, you have the skills or not. I'm not looking at a 45 year old saying "Man, this dude will be great once he gets more time under his belt". You can obviously still grow in any role at any age, but it's not like you have to have coded during the Reagan Administration to qualify for a job. What do you recommend as the skillset that is different from office experience? Is this a different skillset than other corporations, or do you mean an engineering skillset?
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Mar 20, 2023 21:49
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downout posted:What do you recommend as the skillset that is different from office experience? Is this a different skillset than other corporations, or do you mean an engineering skillset? Being able to crush leetcode questions, solve very specific architecture questions in an interview setting, and have experience with potentially very specific tools/technologies that you will almost certainly have to learn on your own. You probably still need the regular experience to get noticed, but that's not what gets you through the interview.
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Mar 20, 2023 21:55
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Does anyone have any good examples of what successful negotiation e-mails look like? The OP doesn't have it, and google gives me a lot of results similar to the OP: why you want to negotiate, what info to disclose/not disclose, etc, but not a "Here's what a negotiation e-mail looks like." I want to read through a few to get an idea on what they look like, how long or short they should be, how to press on some points and coming across as firm but not an rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:15
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Chainclaw posted:Does anyone have any good examples of what successful negotiation e-mails look like? The OP doesn't have it, and google gives me a lot of results similar to the OP: why you want to negotiate, what info to disclose/not disclose, etc, but not a "Here's what a negotiation e-mail looks like." Straight, to the point, and saying nothing more than you need to. Mine look something like: pre:> We're able to offer you $X and are excited to have you on board. Does Q work for a start date? Hello PERSON, I could accept $Y today, or I'll need some time for offers to finish coming in to evaluate. Q is fine if we can wrap by end of week. Regards, -lk If you're looking for something specific, just say what you need to accept. They'll accept that or counter and you keep going until one side feels like it's not worth it anymore.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:24
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I always went with something along the lines of: Thank you for the offer. After reviewing the total package I will can sign today with the following changes: Comp of XX PTO of XX whatever else you need the is more than the offer I really look forward to working at Company XX and I am sure we can come to an agreement. Thank you for the consideration, XXXX Just riffing that quickly but you don't need a big long diatribe. Straight to the point as I don't care about why you think you deserve the increases, I just need to understand what you need and then I can get with HR and see what we can do.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:25
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Interesting, I figured it would need more rear end-kissing of some kind, and to be more vague on the request to see how high they will push it up, and not to be specific there. Something like "The project is great, the team is awesome, but this is under my expectations for this role." It's also tough because I need to now figure out the differences between all the different kinds of bonus structures, and what they actually mean for take home pay each year. ISO, NSO, RSA, RSU, etc. It feels like I'm comparing apples and oranges with packages due to the caveats and differences of each of these. Also so many companies seem to do that awful "unlimited" PTO thing nowadays, which I don't like at all. Can't really negotiate on it, it means that severance on layoffs will never include PTO, there's no retention incentive with additional PTO, and obviously it's not actually unlimited, you can't just take the job and never show up, so you have to figure out what the actual secret acceptable PTO you can take is.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:33
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Personally I do like to be positive and nice with how I write it, but it's still brief and to the point. My style is along the lines of "Thank you for the offer, I really enjoyed your interview and would love to work with your team. I could accept $Y today, or I'll need some time for offers to finish coming in to evaluate. Q is fine if we can wrap by end of week." What's really important is less the specific wording, and more the vibe. Which should be that you're awesome and in demand and have options, so they need to close this deal before you move on. You can and IMO should be nice and professional about it, but tbh I don't think adding the niceties actually affects whether or not you get what you ask for. It's just a mechanical question of do they want you enough to give you what you ask for rather than risking you walking if they hold firm, or not. The niceties are really more about starting the relationship positively if you do ultimately accept their offer, and not really about the negotiation itself.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:38
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Chainclaw posted:Interesting, I figured it would need more rear end-kissing of some kind, and to be more vague on the request to see how high they will push it up, and not to be specific there. Something like "The project is great, the team is awesome, but this is under my expectations for this role." The reason you're vague to begin with and don't say a number first is because most people can't anchor high and you want to defer talks about salary until there's significant sunk cost in your candidacy. It's very easy for them to cut people early in process because your ask is high. Later in the process, if they really want you, they're more fungible on price. So the general advice is let them anchor, because people will screw that up for themselves. After that's out there and you're actually talking, you need to talk in specific terms. "that's not enough can you move higher?" without any specific ask gets a "no." as an answer.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:39
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If I got an offer with unlimited PTO, in my counter I would state how much I will be taking. Not binding but at least sets the expectation.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:40
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If you say "this is under my expectations for the role" the first question that is going to come back are "What are your expectations for the role so we can attempt to meet them?" (or, alternatively "gently caress off.") Guessing games are for children. The employer has put forth an offer; you respond to that offer with your specific requirements. The various bonus and deferred comp structures make things more difficult, for sure, but you still have to have a specific ask. My general advice would be to not try to change the structures, but instead change the amounts. If the company's comp includes ISOs, don't ask for RSUs instead.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:41
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spwrozek posted:If I got an offer with unlimited PTO, in my counter I would state how much I will be taking. Not binding but at least sets the expectation. If you get an offer with unlimited PTO you should significantly raise your salary ask, because absent very reliable information to the contrary, you have to assume "unlimited PTO" will actually work out to mean "very little PTO and only when it's convenient for management".
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Mar 21, 2023 15:42
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Eric the Mauve posted:You can and IMO should be nice and professional about it, but tbh I don't think adding the niceties actually affects whether or not you get what you ask for. It's just a mechanical question of do they want you enough to give you what you ask for rather than risking you walking if they hold firm, or not. The niceties are really more about starting the relationship positively if you do ultimately accept their offer, and not really about the negotiation itself. You're also negotiating with human beings so "Loved you guys, super stoked, really looking forward to working with you at the rubber chicken factory, I need X to make it work out" is going to be better received than "I need X to make it work out"
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Mar 21, 2023 15:43
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^I agree that you should be nice but it all comes down to dollars at this point. The company wants you and you are at least close on pay if you are making a counter. Eric the Mauve posted:If you get an offer with unlimited PTO you should significantly raise your salary ask, because absent very reliable information to the contrary, you have to assume "unlimited PTO" will actually work out to mean "very little PTO and only when it's convenient for management". You are surely correct. I have never worked in the unlimited PTO world. It seems like a bunch of crap.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:44
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Eric the Mauve posted:If you get an offer with unlimited PTO you should significantly raise your salary ask, because absent very reliable information to the contrary, you have to assume "unlimited PTO" will actually work out to mean "very little PTO and only when it's convenient for management". Which is also why at any joint with unlimited PTO you should be asking everyone who interviews you how much PTO they took in the trailing 12mos.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:45
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You're also negotiating with human beings so "Loved you guys, super stoked, really looking forward to working with you at the rubber chicken factory, I need X to make it work out" is going to be better received than "I need X to make it work out" Right, but you need to thread that needle so you don't come across as supplicative. You can be nice and positive but also maintaining the demeanor of "You need me more than I need you" which is hugely +EV in a negotiation. The former is a good thing but the latter is actually far more important.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:49
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If you say "this is under my expectations for the role" the first question that is going to come back are "What are your expectations for the role so we can attempt to meet them?" (or, alternatively "gently caress off.") Guessing games are for children. The employer has put forth an offer; you respond to that offer with your specific requirements. The various bonus and deferred comp structures make things more difficult, for sure, but you still have to have a specific ask. My general advice would be to not try to change the structures, but instead change the amounts. If the company's comp includes ISOs, don't ask for RSUs instead. Yeah I wouldn't try to change the type of comp, it's more trying to do the mental math of what X ISOs mean in take home pay compared to Y RSUs, for example. I'd hate to be like "This is low, I was expecting total compensation in the range of $X+Y, with a base salary around $X and bonuses around $Y" and then have them be like "The offer we gave you puts you above $X+Y already." Right now it looks to me like some of these stock structures are setup where it's not easy to cash out until a pivotal event happens (IPO, corporate buyout, etc), which says to me that you'd be basically gambling a lot of potential income on one company, your own, instead of playing it safe and spreading out investments. This also says to me that I probably wouldn't want to negotiate up on the ISOs, and instead lean more heavily on the salary, I'd rather take stable higher pay now than the potential for a huge cashout or not in however many years. Does it hurt to be more aggressive on pushing on the base pay? I'm in a position where I can probably walk away from most offers (well, hopefully, the economy is hosed right now so no job is actually secure), and I like where I am already. So pushing harder on offers is a potential for me, but I also don't want to come across as an rear end in a top hat with something like "Can you make that offer 3x what it is?" KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Which is also why at any joint with unlimited PTO you should be asking everyone who interviews you how much PTO they took in the trailing 12mos. This is something I've leaned into with everywhere I've talked to that offers unlimited PTO. I'm definitely seeing patterns between companies, some people are actually making use of it, others definitely not. Unlimited PTO is also lovely in software development in general, and games in specific, because people are bad about taking PTO and will burn themselves out in those spaces. Having an actual PTO with a cap and accrual forces people to actually take time off to avoid burnout. I know plenty of people who would take zero days off a year with unlimited PTO and would probably end up with an explosive burnout event from that lack of self control. Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 15:49
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As always, the value of any and all stock-option setups a startup may offer is $0.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:53
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The last company I worked at was not really a startup (had been around something like 10 years when I joined in 2005), and they had an employee stock purchase program that seemed pointless, so I avoided it. I was glad, because when they eventually got bought out, it sounded like most people who had bought in were lucky to break even on it, and due to the nature of the buyout everyone was forced to sell their shares instead of having them transfer into shares in the new owners or something similar. That experience makes me extra wary of any stock awards besides RSUs setup to auto-sell on grant date, for a publicly traded company, with a strong preference still for cash bonuses instead.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:55
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I’ve got an offer for a place with unlimited time off, but here in the UK there is still a legal minimum of 20 days we have to take. I did ask the interviewers how many days they take off but the policy was only introduced in January. The company previously gave 25 days, but the HR lady said this year she’s taking 30 or so days.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:57
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Eric the Mauve posted:Right, but you need to thread that needle so you don't come across as supplicative. You can be nice and positive but also maintaining the demeanor of "You need me more than I need you" which is hugely +EV in a negotiation. The former is a good thing but the latter is actually far more important. Fully agree. Chainclaw posted:Yeah I wouldn't try to change the type of comp, it's more trying to do the mental math of what X ISOs mean in take home pay compared to Y RSUs, for example. The entire conversation around equity awards / options etc is going to be so specific to each potential employer that it's difficult to provide a blanket answer. You'll need to calculate the value of all of these different forms of compensation for each offer that you receive. I notice that you are saying in your response "around $X/$Y" - stop doing this. Base salary X, bonus Y. It's a negotiation - they'll counteroffer, either meeting all/some of your demands or not. Then you get to decide what to do with their counteroffer. Specificity is generally good in negotiations once there's an initial offer.
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Mar 21, 2023 16:01
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:
I just want to lean on this that this thread sometimes gives answers without nuance but a job negotiation, especially one that is up the ladder a ways, will require you to navigate it on your own quite a bit. I think back to the guy a few months ago who thought "Don't Give a Number" was advice throughout the process and the poor hiring company was begging him to tell them what he wanted. There's a reason why good negotiators make great money as a profession. There aren't a handful of weird tricks HR hates, it's about relationship building and steering toward a resolution that everyone is happy with. Getting different opinions and viewpoints is almost always a good idea and there ARE some best practices that can be useful but, this is important for everybody, be prepared that at some point you will be the only one who can make the best call.
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Mar 21, 2023 16:30
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I agree with Lockback here, especially the second paragraph. The higher up I get on the corporate ladder the more I think every job is sales and politics.
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Mar 21, 2023 17:11
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Lady Gaza posted:I’ve got an offer for a place with unlimited time off, but here in the UK there is still a legal minimum of 20 days we have to take. I did ask the interviewers how many days they take off but the policy was only introduced in January. The company previously gave 25 days, but the HR lady said this year she’s taking 30 or so days.
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Mar 21, 2023 19:01
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My email was "I should get offer+8%, please let me know. They came back with +x% and I accepted it and alls good.
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Mar 21, 2023 21:47
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One thing I’ve found out from my current job search and hardball negotiations is that I’m well paid for my job title, in comparison to peer companies. I’ve been getting offers lower than my current salary for positions comparable to mine, and offers 10% higher than my salary for the next title up. This seems to chime with glassdoor too, which I was always skeptical of. It’s definitely eye opening - I always wondered if I was paid market rate, and never believed my manager when said the typical stuff about ‘benchmarking’ vs competitors.
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Mar 22, 2023 00:35
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Eric the Mauve posted:As always, the value of any and all stock-option setups a startup may offer is $0. I'm curious. Can you ever counter an offer of stock options with, "I'll forgo all stock options, but pay me $[bigger number]"?
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Mar 22, 2023 01:27
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leper khan posted:Lmao Reminds me of the story of the guy who threw out half the resumes because he doesn’t like unlucky people.
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Mar 22, 2023 01:33
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Quackles posted:I'm curious. Can you ever counter an offer of stock options with, "I'll forgo all stock options, but pay me $[bigger number]"? I've never heard of it being done. In most cases the company knows the options are worthless and are deliberately offering them in lieu of salary. They're designed to be worthless, because you can't cash them in at will. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 02:18
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Quackles posted:I'm curious. Can you ever counter an offer of stock options with, "I'll forgo all stock options, but pay me $[bigger number]"? You can do whatever you want. They won't go for it though.
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Mar 22, 2023 02:32
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Lockback posted:Being able to crush leetcode questions, solve very specific architecture questions in an interview setting, and have experience with potentially very specific tools/technologies that you will almost certainly have to learn on your own. Ah I was misunderstanding, thanks for clarifying. I'm pretty certain I could have done this, but the opportunity came to move into management. I don't know what management interviews are like compared to the dev leetcode hoops, etc. I need to get one scheduled to see how it differs.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:25
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Golden Bee posted:Reminds me of the story of the guy who threw out half the resumes because he doesn’t like unlucky people.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:39
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downout posted:Ah I was misunderstanding, thanks for clarifying. I think it differs a lot depending on the area, but the 2 people I know who went into Amazon management said it was very, very technical.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:42
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Lockback posted:I think it differs a lot depending on the area, but the 2 people I know who went into Amazon management said it was very, very technical. That's good to know, becoming more proficient on the architecture side sounds like time well spent for me.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:29
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Golden Bee posted:Reminds me of the story of the guy who threw out half the resumes because he doesn’t like unlucky people. This is David Brent from the UK version of the Office.
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Mar 22, 2023 19:51
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I've got a question re: how much leverage I might have to negotiate a recent job offer. I've been a contractor for the last 11.5 years and am now being officially hired on by the company where I've been stationed for that time. I'll be doing essentially the same job, as part of the same group, with the same people. They of course know exactly what my pay was as a contractor and the salary they're offering represents a 46% increase over what I'm currently making. The benefits package is also substantial: +50% paid vacation days right off the bat, bonuses, paid holidays/sick days (I know that's not necessarily uncommon but I've never had those before because my current company has poo poo for benefits), health insurance that's actually good, a loving pension, and a lot more besides. They know I don't have competing offers, we just have somebody leaving the group to move out of state and I pounced on the opening. And they know it's a huge step up for me in terms of compensation. How much can/should I expect them to budge on the salary number?
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Mar 23, 2023 16:06
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Your BATNA sucks so, this might be a situation where you are very limited Is the offer pretty competitive marketwise? I assume it is if you haven't let already.
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Mar 23, 2023 16:17
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Sounds like a "know when you've won" situation to me. Plus the poor batna, which they know about, and I might just take it as offered if it was me. Others may suggest asking for a token increase. I don't think you want to play anything like hardball here.
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Mar 23, 2023 16:25
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