| There is definitely good advice here, but a word of caution: Don't miss the forest for the trees. I've spent a lot of time helping people negotiate job offers. The predominant theme is that offers will vary a bit, and some negotiation may be necessary, but the couple thousand dollars on the table during the discussion is virtually meaningless. For most of the software devs reading this article, we're talking about a couple of percent of your overall compensation -- an amount that, given the demand of developers in the market today, will end up being taken into account during your first performance review anyway. If you’re good, your employer will want to keep you around and compensate you accordingly. During negotiations your main priority should be getting the job that’s the best fit. If it really is the best fit, the company will be presenting you a fair offer. It may not be on the top end of normal, but optimizing for price is bad practice when negotiating salary (much like VC term sheets). Truly enjoying your time at work and being fully engaged and happy with your job is worth tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m not suggesting that you accept below market offers. Instead, I’m trying to illustrate that how much you will enjoy each hour of the day is part of the offer, though it’s not written on the document a prospective employer presents you. Full disclosure: I’m the founder of Mighty Spring (https://www.mightyspring.com) and our aim is to help people find great fitting opportunities quickly and easily, while making these salary negotiations much simpler in the process. |
Perhaps in relative terms? After living on a grad student's salary for years, it's clear that even a thousand dollars can be rather powerful.