This week, three people asked me about salary negotiation.
I'm shit at negotiation
But I can tell you what I've learned in 10 years of full-time tech work.
Become visible.
Visible people find more opportunities than invisible people.
I've received exactly one raise that wasn't driven by me.
I was moved between teams and my new manager immediately bumped me up $10k.
Turns out he was embarrassed by how little I was being paid.
That was a wake up call.
That year I started creating training materials and giving conference talks.
I made industry relationships and asked them what their compensation looked liked.
I learned that I was still 25-35% under market.
So I asked for it and got it.
This would not have happened if I hadn't been proactive.
I would have remained unaware and waiting.
It's not a company's job to serve your career.
Companies exist to make money.
Part of that equation is keeping expenses low
And you are an expensive expense.
You need to be retained for as little as possible.
It's your job to set that number.
If you're waiting for a raise —
Expecting someone else to notice and evaluate your work —
Stop.
Be visible.
Meet people.
Ask them about money.
And go get it.
P.S.
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Top comments (3)
These are excellent points.
Being silent about salary frustrations makes us complicit in our stunted progress.
And yeah, for people who are already giving 120% every day, it can be difficult to "hit the boost" when being reviewed for promotion.
Navigating all of this is so stick!
True, the most important thing that I learnt during the recent years is that you won't get what you don't ask for. So I started to ask...
So true.
Just getting in the habit of asking is most of the battle.
"What's next for me? How will we know we're there?"