[knite]

I've wanted to share my thoughts and experiences regarding the "never be the first to quote a number" strategy for some time, but I usually see these threads when they're too stale to comment on.

My background: I'm a senior-level engineer in my early 30s, in SF. After a consulting stint, I interviewed heavily in 2013, and again in the second half of 2015, and currently speak with 1-2 recruiter cold calls per week to keep my options open. My sample size is many dozens of intro calls, across startups ranging in maturity from 1st engineer through some of the unicorns everyone knows.

In short, I agree with p4wnc6. A very relevant fraction of recruiters, say a third, will refuse to proceed until you quote a figure. This is true for internal and external recruiters. No amount of push back works with this group, they'll see you as difficult or otherwise not worth pursuing, and would rather end the discussion than proceed number-less.

This leaves the two-thirds of recruiters who are willing to play ball. Now there's another problem - not quoting a number is only a good idea if you want to avoid being low-balled - it's a tremendous waste of time if your desired compensation is above the expected range.

For transparency and knowledge sharing, I'll be specific: my background is in operations and infrastructure ("devops"). 90+% of the roles coming my way pay in the range of $130-180K base. My base is above this, and very few companies will be willing to pay a premium of 50% more than they expected to. No amount of wishful thinking about "your payroll is a drop in the bucket" will bridge the gap if it's too large.

Which brings me to a question I'd love the answer to: other than working for the big ~6 (Google, Facebook, Uber, Apple, etc), how can I push my comp up to $2X0 (or even $3XX!)? I feel like I'm near max, so I'm biding my time until the right VP/Director/etc of Ops role comes along. Is there anything else I can do?

[HR0000000]

When you make as much as you do, it's a huge waste of everyone's time for you to interview for roles that just can't go there. By stating your compensation up front, you effectively make the recruiter your negotiator before you ever interview. You're getting them to get the company to agree to possibly paying you that much, assuming you meet some bar in their head that's worth it. More specifically to your next move, your base salary just won't have a lot of room to grow. So you have some options. -become a consultant. Many are referencing Patrick's blog (kalzumeus.com), which is a great way to bump up your dollars. -transform a recently funded startup that goes public. They'll throw money at you to build their team, then hopefully the stock makes you rich. -Even outside the big 6 (Uber? Really?), at your level in your job most larger companies should be rewarding heavily in stock and performance bonuses. Take the time with the recruiter to truly understand what the total compensation strategy is. What is the vesting schedule for the initial reward? What about stock given as bonuses or for promotions? What % of possible bonus does the average employee actually receive? -create the next big tech and run with it. AUTOMATE ALL THE THINGS. I hear there's money in that.

[rpgmaker]

> Many are referencing Patrick's blog (kalzumeus.com), which is a great way to bump up your dollars.

Which posts exactly? What is that blog known for? First time I see it referenced.

[rspeer]

Probably this post: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

The blog is known for interesting posts on startups and software development from outside the Bay Area filter bubble.

[rpgmaker]

Thanks, I was curious. I'll check it out.

[p4wnc6]

FWIW I am basically in the same situation. My base pay is in the same region you describe for yours, and I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is, let alone other forms of compensation and other benefits.

I am in scientific computing and machine learning, and I actually love being an implementer and a coder. I don't want to be a people manager (mostly because I think all companies force managers to treat their subordinates in unhealthy ways, and no matter how good your intentions are, being a manager will ruin your humanity).

I worry about finding any job, and then further worry about what growth path there could possibly be.

[DINKDINK]

> I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is

I'm suspicious that this is a silent-evidence phenomenon. I'd assume that the duration a job listing is up correlates inversely proportional to the compensation. If that's true, all the great paying jobs are optically invisible.

[JoshDoody]

This seems very, very plausible to me. Jobs in this experience level and pay range aren't generally posted publicly, and don't stay posted very long if they do go public. This reminds of the same sort of phenomenon with "the good houses"—they never make it to market because someone knows someone knows someone who wants a house like that, so they get first shot at it.

These sorts of jobs are best found through one's network. Not only does this open up better opportunities, but this sort of "back channel" opportunity usually comes with more details than a public job listing (such as the "I think they're probably paying $YYYk or so").

[p4wnc6]

I think this is a major factor, but it has still happened to me even when interviewing for boutique jobs via a friend's reference or happening to know someone who already worked there.

A fair amount of the interviews I accept come from unsolicited head hunters seeking me out, and even then the reveal-your-salary thing is a huge sticking point. And even when it hasn't been, I've still been let down by the ultimate salary offers.

I heard once that you should budget 1 month of job searching for every $10,000 of compensation you seek, and maybe more once you are seeking high-level bonuses. That's easily been true in my case. You also have to put up with horrid HR people who are quite simply just rude to you, and lots of degrading "dance monkey dance" whiteboard and coding puzzles and hazing, and demoralizing cross country interview trips that you have to muster the ability to put your whole self into but which you cynically know in your heart of hearts that it's a waste of time.

[vidarh]

A substantial proportion of jobs never even makes it onto job boards. And yes, higher paying jobs are often amongst them. I've been approached for jobs that have never been listed publicly several times. It's one of the reasons why it can pay to be on good terms with (the right type of) recruiters and (more importantly) have a good network of industry contacts.

[Mickchicken2]

Sorry this is off topic.

Is there a way into machine learning without doing going and going an Ms or PhD?

Im working my way through a coursera course on it but I'm not sure that is enough. All the positions I see are looking for academic experience or 5+ years doing it. Neither of which are doable for me.

[disgruntledphd2]

If you know almost nothing about the field, then introduction to statistical learning is a good choice.

http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20First%20Printing.p...

It assumes some understanding of calculus, but doesn't require matrix algebra.

The original (and amazing) book that lots of people used is Elements of Statistical Learning.

https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/local.ftp/Springer/OLD/ESLI...

Chapters 1-7 are worth their weight in gold. This is one of the cases where the physical books are much better, as you'll need to flick back and forth to see the figures (which are one of the best parts).

The forgoing assumes that you already know some statistics/data analysis (the latter probably being more important).

If you haven't done this before, then I suggest that you acquire some data you care about, install R (a good book is the Art of R Programming by Matloff), and start trying to make inferences. And draw graphs. Many, many, many graphs.

If you keep at this, finding papers/books and reading theory, and implementing it in your spare time, then you can probably get a good data science job in 1-2 years. You'll probably need to devote much of your free time to it though.

I'm assuming that you can already code, given the context :)

[Mickchicken2]

Thank you for this, i really appreciate you sharing these resources.

[guftagu]

I'm on that coursera course too! The course is pretty basic though. It'll help you get the concepts but there's too much spoon feeding in there to make you good enough to compete with people with MS and PhDs. Also that course doesn't cover deep learning and you should definitely study that.

[Joeri]

I don't know how reproducible the approach is, but i'm working my way in from being a php developer previously. The company i work for is building a big data / machine learning platform from the ground up, and they bootstrapped the project from existing employees, including myself.

[angelbob]

You're in a hard spot. I know, because I'm in basically the same one.

Jobs in the $2X0 range are basically outside the range where a company will trust the normal recruiter/interview process to bring in a good candidate. You must start working your network, and you must either go to one of the big 6 you mention, or you must find a company that desperately needs somebody really senior and where you have an "in" -- somebody who knows the quality of your work and knows you're work $2X0.

It's not that hard to be worth that -- that's about two senior-ish engineers in Silicon Valley. But it's very hard to prove you're worth it. You have to know somebody and they have to know you.

You'll see a lot of advice about becoming a "thought leader" and "noncommodity." And to be fair, that helps -- I give talks, wrote a book, etc. But those things won't usually let you interview cold and get $2X0. At this point, maybe $200, barely? Beyond that, it's networking or seniority.

I can't tell you about $3X0, that's out of my personal experience.

You'll occasionally see massively outliers, up to maybe $6XX (which includes stock, not just base.) But those are almost invariably people who rose in the ranks at very profitable companies -- either big 6 or a small niche company that makes bank. It's very hard to be hired into a role like that unless you're well-known by the company in question.

[lsc]

Most everyone I know who is primarily technical who's total compensation, ah, starts with a two has a base that isn't out of your range and the rest is bonus/stock. So yeah, on a good year? (like last year) a quarter million is completely reasonable, but that's not gonna hold if the company has a bad year.

also, everyone I know in that income tax bracket works for those big companies. Startups just don't pay that kind of money. If you want to get paid (I mean, paid now, not paid if you get lucky and pick the right company and it gets huge) - if you want to get paid, go get a job from a big company.

why don't you want to work at google, facebook, uber, apple, etc...? (amazon, btw, is on that list, too.)

Also, on another note, while I get "what is your salary expectation" a lot, (and I often return with "getting X now, need X+y if you want me to move" because maybe I'm a terrible negotiator?) I've never had any but the lowest of body shop recruiters actually ask me for a previous salary.

[pyre]

> why don't you want to work at google, facebook, uber, apple, etc...? (amazon, btw, is on that list, too.)

I've never come across an ex-Amazon employee with good things to say about the company (though this is admittedly a small sample-size).

[lsc]

>I've never come across an ex-Amazon employee with good things to say about the company (though this is admittedly a small sample-size).

paying better is a good thing. It's certainly not the only good thing, but it's an advantage that amazon often has. Most of the people I know who currently work there[1] are like "The work is only okay, and they kind of treat you badly, but the pay is really nice"

I was out drinking the other weekend with a good friend who works at amazon, and we were comparing notes. As a contractor at google? My perks are way better. The free food at google (which I get to eat as much of as I want, and can even take home, even though I'm just a lowly contractor) is way better than the not-so-free food at amazon. At google, even as a contractor, nobody gives me shit about leaving my car at work while I'm on vacation. The contractor next to me has had his clearly inoperative vehicle parked at google for the last month or two. They asked him to verify it was his car, but didn't tell him he needed to move it. All my interactions with security and google corporate, and, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner, kind of made me feel how I imagine the coddled children of the super rich feel when they are on the campus of an elite college.

At amazon? even full employees get shit for just leaving the car there over the weekend.

But my buddy, I mean, he is a little better than me, but he's not, you know, amazing, like the guy from apple we were hanging out with at the time, but he's making a lot more money than I am. Really dramatically so.

[1]I'd expect reviews from current employees to be rather better than reviews from ex-employees; the current employees clearly aren't annoyed enough to find another job.

[angelbob]

It's possible to work for a startup and have a base salary starting with a two. And even to be hired into the role at that level. I speak from experience. But yeah, that's the very high end.

[gnopgnip]

You only need one job. It doesn't matter if you exclude 1/3rd of all recruiters to get that one job. If you are disclosing your salary requirements first you are restricting yourself on the high side, and each person has to weigh what that is worth to avoid lowball offers.

[darksim905]

I don't want to be rude, but at that salary is it easy to survive, or hard? Do you rent, or own a home? That salary can buy you a castle out in Texas, Florida, or anywhere else. Looking for anything beyond that (IT Director in Santa Monica makes $180k, maybe more depending on where it is) -- at that amount of pay, not only are you close to being a dreaded top 1% person, you're getting paid out the butt for what everyone else already does. :|

[base698]

I know a few directors making $250k base with big bonuses on top. Most of the senior devs I know make around $180k.

$180k a year can not buy you a home in Santa Monica. Mortgage would be > half your take home even in a condo and the alternative is to commute an hour each way.