Tag: pay

Convince Others of Your Worth

Recently, I have been chatting with some folks who are in positions to give me compensation for the value I historically would bring to them (per annum, millions of dollars, perhaps even lives).

AKA interviews 😂

While passing tests and getting along great as people, I keep needing to do what you too must see on a frequent basis: convince others of your worth.

I have the $$$ figures, I have the historic evidence, I have the rapport, yet I need a little help from experts.

Some experts on the arts of negotiation and selling oneself have been visited before in Devaluing Your Worth and What Is Your Work Worth?. Those insights are gathered here with new insights sprinkled in that I have negotiated tens-of-thousands of compensation for.

So read on – it will only be 15-20 minutes. This bit of prep could help land you enough to make all the difference. Here goes:

  1. Value Yourself
  2. More Than Just Cash
  3. Update Your Numbers
  4. Aim High to Make Fair
  5. The Reveal
  6. What Is Your Base?
  7. Wrap It Up
  8. Negotiate Like Your Life Depends on It
  9. Further Reading
  10. –

Value Yourself

First off, you need to know what your value actually is – without that, you have nothing, the same as your value in another person’s eyes.

So convince yourself of your worth first: understand how many years of experience you have for a given role, the skills you bring, how and how fast you learn, and the quantities of cash and cash-equivalents (time savings) you have brought to other roles.

That done, figure out what is a fair compensation range for that role. This can be found through:

  • Bureau of Labor Statistics
    • What should be the be-all, end-all source of compensation data, BLS is a treasure trove of data. By role, by industry, by state, and by county, medians and averages and other data are everywhere. It can be a chore to navigate – the effort will be worth it!
  • Glassdoor
    • The most common work resource on the internet. Besides researching the company being talked with (reviews, history, and interview topics), Glassdoor houses a vast collection of salary and total-compensation for cities, roles, and roles at the company.
      • NOTE: Glassdoor will track your use and after the first page you view, it will require you to sign in to view more. While contributing to the Glassdoor community is a valuable way to give back, it can also be annoying.

        Instead, do all your Glassdoor searching in a private/incognito window. When the page blocks you, copy the URL, close the entire private/incognito browser, then reopen the browser, navigating to that copied URL. Voilà!
  • Levels.fyi
    • Largely tech-focused, this site’s deep breakdown of different companies, roles, and cities for both general and specific job titles (e.g. “software engineer” vs. “L4”) is invaluable.
  • Stack Overflow
    • More of a software resource than general, it provides a great, easy-to-read walkthrough of reported data, something you can learn from in reference to other data providers.

Other resources like Salary.com or industry-specific reports like the annual report from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) can be great for pulling additional data points.

From the above, collect the averages and medians of both salary and total compensation (dealing with those in the next section). If there are multiple results, take them all. Put everything into a Google or Excel Sheet – you will need it >_>

Example: Throughout this article, we will reference a fictional role that, after calculation, comes to $98,765 base salary, $123,456 total compensation.

These terms are investigated later, but now you have the details!

More Than Just Cash

Now you have a collection of average and median $$$ figures, a bunch of base salaries and total compensation packages. Here, we need to find what amount of compensation comes from things other than a paycheck.

Usually, total comp refers only to base salary, annual bonus, and stock grants/options. “Cash is King,” as is said, but for many, the additional bonus and stock can be the linchpins in the agreement.

Bonus and stock can be viewed as cash equivalents – not as good as cash, but within a margin of error, can bring major payouts later on a yearly or quarterly basis. Sometimes it can be cash-in-pocket right away – signing bonuses with lenient claw-back terms should be considered as a cash bonus in the offer.

With the numbers you have, look at the whole package of salary, bonus, and stock when the offers come in – any other benefit is gravy. This does not decrease the value of PTO (sick and vacation, approximate value of 2% of base pay per 5-days/1-week; assume “unlimited” is 15 days or 6% of base pay, i.e. 3 weeks before someone starts asking), work from home, or other benefits – it only means that we can judge like with like, salary-bonus-stock numbers compared with the offer of salary-bonus-stock.

But how much does salary and everything else make up total compensation?

Simple: You have salary and total comp numbers from the previous section. Divide salary by total comp in each pair, and get an average and median – this will give two numbers in percentile of how much salary should be making up the total offer package. Since cash is king, pick the higher percent (i.e. expect a higher salary right away vs. waiting a year for benefits to kick in).

Example: $98,765 is the base salary, while $123,456 is the total comp.
$98,765 / $123,456 = .8, or, 80% (round up if needed)
Therefore: Expect base salary to be 80% of total comp.

Total Comp * Percent = Base Salary

Keep this percent for later.

Update Your Numbers

Setting salary aside, bring out the total compensation numbers so we may calculate the total range of value your work is worth!

Adjust all the total comp numbers by the rate of inflation, rounding up to the nearest 5% (e.g. 8.9% = 10%). We do this because virtually all data will be a year (or more!) old.

Next, whenever using general resources that apply to the entire nation (e.g. “X in the USA” vs. “X at Y company, in Z city”), adjust those numbers by the cost of living in your city.

CoL can be found online. I am partial to Best Places to determining my city compared to the national level, e.g. Las Vegas is +11.6% as of August 2022. Best Places, Nerd Wallet, and Numbeo all have excellent city-to-city calculators too (if there is a difference between them when you research, take the number best for you).

(Use the city-to-city calculations later if considering work in another city, but only if the result is higher than what you already have!)

Example: $123,456 is the calculated total. Assuming inflation is 10% and the position would be onsite or remote in Las Vegas, the CoL is 12%, the new total comp is:

$123,456 * 1.1 * 1.12 = 152,097.792, or, $152,098

Aim High to Make Fair

Adjusted numbers in hand, get them down to just 4. Plug the numbers into this grid:

Average of the AveragesMedian of the Averages
Average of the MediansMedian of the Medians
Comp Number Breakdown

These numbers define what you ought expect as a total comp floor from any offer.

The lowest number in the grid is your secret floor. If desperate, you can accept offers just above this value, but for pity sake, accept nothing lower. Tell no-one this number. Cool?

Take a look at the highest number in the grid. That number is your quoted floor, the bottom offer – this is what you will tell folks when they ask “what is your range?” Round up to the nearest thousand. Do your utmost to stay away from this median.

Medians are mediocre. I trust you bring more than a mediocre value.

Time to aim high, getting us closer to the 75% percentile in wages. We do this because it helps inflation-proof your compensation, improves the performance rewards you ought be getting for a good job, it helps prevent a company from low-balling you, helps your peers in the field by demanding a higher wage, and saves your self respect.

What’s not to like?

Anyway, take your bottom number. Multiply it by 15%, 18% if feeling confident. Round that up to the nearest $5K. That is now the top of your range.

Example: Assume $152,098 is our lowest of the 4 values. The highest value is $156,789 (round to thousands).

$152,098 is the secret floor. Acceptable if the company is great, the work good, you would like to work right away, and you and your boss have a plan to review that number in a few months.

$157,000 is the bottom range. Told to prospects.

$157,000 * 1.15 = 180,550, or, $185,000 is your top range. You sell yourself near or above this number.

The Reveal

You have your top and bottom range, a secret floor, and salary percentage. While you never reveal your floor, contrary to this section title, you try, try, try not to reveal your range.

Why?

Keep the employer honest – they ought give you a range expectation for a role first, especially if they reached out to you first. Who knows – they may give you a higher total comp range than you calculated! (This gets touched on later.)

This section though is about when your casual efforts have failed and the employer stonewalls you on the value of your labor. So it is your turn – after giving the context that this is the reasonable range for your experience, the role, and other factors, reveal your range.

Example: “After researching the role and the value I am bringing to it on places like Glassdoor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and industry reports, a reasonable total compensation range would be $157 to $185, though with my proven career of success, I feel I would fall closer to the top of this range.”

If the person you are talking to balks, you walk. If the person says anything but no, you have the door open 🙂

Even if the employer mentions they likely could not hit the top of the range, they now know your bottom, and are more inclined to meet well above the bottom knowing your expectation of more!

What Is Your Base?

Many times, recruiters haven’t done the homework to figure out what their company is offering in total. When you give your total comp reveal, this may leave them confused. Here is where you save the day:

After the other person expresses they don’t know total comp or need a salary range, you can provide the base salary of your bottom and top numbers using the percentage calculated before.

Easy! So long as you remind them that these are flexible numbers depending on the extra benefits – total comp is always the goal, your personal value placing you squarely at the top of the range.

Example: The total comp range (in thousands) is $157 to $185. The calculated base salary is 80% of total.

Therefore, the base salary range is ~$126 ($157 * .8) to ~$148 ($185 * .8).

(Rounding up, as always.)

Wrap It Up

  1. Find numbers from resources: BLS, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, etc.
  2. Calculate base pay percent from total comp: base / total
  3. Update numbers for inflation and CoL.
  4. Pick the highest numbers as your bottom total comp, saving the lowest numbers as a secret floor.
  5. Calculate top total comp: bottom comp * 1.15
  6. You now have your secret floor and bottom-to-top total comp range.
  7. Calculate a soft, flexible base salary range for those in need:
    1. Bottom: bottom comp * base pay percent
    2. Top: top comp * base pay percent
  8. You now have your flexible base pay; this is a guide since total comp is the goal.

Nifty, eh?

But what good is knowing your worth if they won’t realize that value?

That’s where negotiation comes in.

Negotiate Like Your Life Depends on It

Your life really will depend on your negotiation. From misplaced time to opportunity cost, you must negotiate – it is one of the most important things you must learn to do.

While I am only a student myself, here is the best I’ve gleamed:

  1. Get a range during the first screen / conversation. Get the other party to reveal a range first if possible; otherwise, give yours and specify how you land at the top of the well-researched range.
  2. Kick behind during the interviews – this is non-negotiable. Study, rest, eat well, destress, clear your calendar. Brush your teeth, wash, dress fine. Smile, mind your manners.
  3. When the offer comes, express your thanks that they considered to give you an offer, and all the time they have invested so far. However:
    1. Offer is above your goal: Great news! Do not show your elation. Instead, explain you have learned through the interview that the role is worth more than originally estimated. Maybe it is responsibility, requirements, or near-future challenges – see how far north it can go with salary, bonus, stock, and signing compensation. (Don’t negotiate too hard here – you have already ‘won,’ so congrats! Anything else is icing on the cake.)
    2. Offer is well below your goal: Oof. While you do not get flustered (take a breath!), verbally gasp or suck in air through your teeth. After thanks, let them know that this is well below the market asking price for a person of your skill and that the offer is very far off of expectations.
    3. Offer is around your goal: OK. It is close. Let the other party know this. Ask how the offer might meet expectations. Let them figure out how to meet your value – if they need help, suggest that you all look at non-salary benefits, such as bonus, stock, signing, and extra weeks of PTO to make up the difference.
  4. Be quiet. Silence. After making a statement, shut up. Let the other side fill the void. They may give you more information or negotiate against themselves.
  5. Walk the offer along. When the offer is below the top range, walk that top range down to the bottom. Choose a way to do this beforehand:
    1. Ackerman Model/Technique: T is the top of the range. B is the bottom. T-B is the difference D you work with. “B + D” is the “T” you initially aim for.
      1. Zeroth offer: T
      2. First offer: B + (D * .35)
      3. Second offer: B + (D * .15)
      4. Third offer: B + (D * .05)
      5. Fourth: B
      6. (Give thanks, but offer no more after this.)
    2. Aggressive Technique: Something I have used before. T is top range, B is bottom, D is the difference in between:
      1. Zeroth offer: T
      2. First offer: B + (D * .6)
      3. Second offer: B + (D * .3)
      4. Third offer: B + (D * .1)
      5. Fourth: B
      6. (Give thanks, but walk after this unless the job is needed and the secret floor is met.)
  6. Be prepared to walk away. Those that can leave the table have leverage; those who cannot are slave to whatever the other party wishes.

All of this is barely skimming the surface level of understanding, demonstrating, communicating, and convincing others of your worth. It is at least a start.

Further Reading

Knowledge is powerful:

–

Those are my tools! Now those are your tools too ~

Like ideas or drafts, the first offers may not be up to snuff. Stay patient, friends, as best you can. Your situation is undoubtedly different from mine – no matter what it is, use these tools to convince others of your worth. Stick to it, k?

Here is to your gains and your greatness! Share with me your success stories and own methods for achieving your value. Cheers for now ~

#PaidMe2023

Restarting the tradition that began as a hashtag in the summer of 2020, I am back to share with you my data once again!

All the below are estimates using free online resources. Your mileage may vary.

The Data

THP – Take Home Pay (assuming only income taxes without contributions apply)
Inf – Inflation (not used for the year of writing, ’23)
CoL – THP normalized to national Cost of Living

Senior Software Engineer, L3
Base Pay: $175,000
THP (after effective tax of 32.54%): $118,050
CoL: $71,545 (THP / location’s decimal-percentage CoL)
Aerospace Company
Westside Los Angeles Metro Area, CA

Excluding all stock, bonus, and other amenity info. Checkout Glassdoor (use an incognito browser) and levels.fyi for great value-add resources.

Takeaways

California income taxes suck. Guess that is why so many CA tech companies offer stock and options, those taxed at a different, i.e. lower, rate!

I haven’t experienced too harshly the cost of living change – housing nearly triples the national average, but Airbnb and fully-furnished month-to-month options are perhaps 100-150% vs 200% higher. Not to mention what would happen with a roommate(s)!

Regardless, take-home pushes me ever closer to financial independence FI while allowing luxuries in some lifestyle choices (e.g. no need for roomies).

–

That is it for this year! Checkout 2021’s data (skipped 2022 – the company gave no raises [I should be “appreciative” that the stock went up, which then proceeded to nosedive] before summer layoffs).

Wanna talk numbers? Would =adore= getting to hear! Curious about an offer or the non-base-pay bits left out of this post? Hit me up for a call!

It is dangerous to go out into the working world alone – I am hear for you. Until needed, I send you cheers in your pay and careers ~

You Are a Slave to Your Work

No argument: You are a slave to the work you need to do. Let you and I jump into why any other mode of thought is a delusion:

Getting Terms Straight

From the Cambridge Dictionary:

Slave – “a person who is legally owned by someone else and has to work for that person […] and has no personal freedom.”

Slavery – “the condition of being legally owned by someone else and forced to work for or obey them […] the system in which some people are owned by others.”

Free – “not having something that is unwanted or unpleasant.”

Work – “to do a job, especially the job you do to earn money […] to make a person or animal do a job.”

Job – “the regular work that a person does to earn money.” And, “a crime in which money or goods are stolen, or an action or activity that is dishonest or unpleasant.”

Money – “used to buy things, or the total amount of these that someone has.”

Reasoning

Making a leap in assuming you can connect the dots here, you need money to buy the things that make life survivable: Foods, clean water, clothing, shelter, medical treatment, etc.

All the above – at least in the United States – costs more than the means of production, and is actively denied a person without money. Without food, a person starves and suffers; without water, a person becomes sick and suffers; without clothing and shelter, a person is exposed and suffers; without medical treatment, a person suffers and dies.

(All this needs to be addressed further, so we go without mention of what makes life livable, e.g. means for recreation, time for rest.)

If prevention of suffering is one of if not the only fundamental Good in the world, then a person is obliged to have these things for themselves and those who depend on them. “Enslaved,” as the physical requirements of life are non-negotiable.

What Is Required, What Is Optional

Working in some way to cover the costs of merely existing is the obligation, the enslavement a living creature must carry out for the privilege of being alive.

This is a required enslavement, or experienced as a suffering (if the work be unpleasant) to prevent and reduce a greater suffering.

To care for others who are not able to provide for their existence – regardless of cause – is what a moral and just society is. Though not a total definition of a civilization ought be, without this care, “moral and just” must be left out of the society’s description.

Care for others is optional enslavement – we only have the morals we can afford.

Yet care for oneself, let alone others, is endangered when optional enslavement is required to earn the money to buy goods to sustain life.

What is that optional enslavement, not caring for others?

That enslavement is the excess beyond the cost of initiative, time, and material used to create the good, to exchange for the service. That is the money that funnels to one entity from many individuals. That is profit.

And profit is the name of the game in the United States – and by extension from the US’s economic and cultural global dominance, the world.

Treatment for This Condition

I am no financial planner, analyst, expert. This is not advice, because I do not know beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of the following. It seems to work out on the back of an envelope, though it is uncertain how it would apply to the facts of the world at large.

It is at least a start.

First, a definition of Profit – “money that a business [or person] earns above what it costs to produce and sell goods and services.”

Second, should there be profit? Yes – Communism tried to remove that incentive, and it led to a lot of suffering for entire populations. Profit can be the incentive to have taken the risk to do something that could fail. Yet, excess profit is excess optional enslavement to a job and thereby excess optional suffering for the unpleasantry of it.

Some thoughts:

  • Capped Percentage of Profit per Good or Service Rendered
    • No one action will be more than an X percentage of the cost to create and provide the good or service, X being greater than the profit that might be rendered through other investments – say, stock – within a standard deviation or three. This leaves room for living well while also having cushion to make prices competitive by lowering them from the profit margin.
  • Progressive Tax of Profit Based on Market
    • The bigger a single business gets, the less profitable by-percentage it gets, though the net amount continues to increase. It slows the formation of monopolies, allowing other companies to adjust and catch up, thereby encouraging competition. Further, production-cost-cutting is encouraged, as additional profit can be gained for a larger market share, benefiting the consumers while forcing innovation from the business and its competitors. Lastly, public funds are increased that can be reapplied where needed from the taxes, as is part of the responsibility of a society’s government (I forego chatting about such ideas here).

Compelled to Industry

Compel – “to force someone to do something.”

Industry – “the quality of regularly working hard […] in the production of goods for sale […] and makes a lot of money.”

You are compelled to industry, and therefor not free.

You are only as free by that which you can do without. Everyone is enslaved in some degree by the fact of being alive. Beyond those costs, and the costs of reasonable enjoyment in life, everything else is optional enslavement.

Yet the option is not yours.

By either or both through the means of your work or the profit for required goods and services, you are a slave to your work. This is the way of things, though it does not need to be so.

#PaidMe2021

Remember the #PaidMe threads in the summer 2020?

It is fine if you don’t – they seem to have died out as fast as they blazed on to the Twitter scene.

To say that a lot happened in 2020 would be to understate and understatement. Now the situation in the US is beginning to stabilize (go get your sticks, folks 💉💉) with an accompanying boom in hiring.

But if people are getting hired again, are they getting paid enough?

With wages required to “live comfortably” rising, it is as important as ever to openly discuss compensation and DO YOUR RESEARCH.

I follow off of my own #PaidMe post from last year here in the possibly vain hope you won’t devalue your own worth (but who knows – this post may be showing me caught with my pants down).

Just as Adam Ruins Everything, without further to do,

The Data 2021

THP – Take Home Pay (assuming only income taxes without contributions apply)
Inf – Inflation (not used for this year, ’21)
CoL – normalized to national Cost of Living (compare this)

#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe
Senior Software Engineer
Base: $123,000
THP: $92,967
CoL: $90,259.22
MZ, owned by AppLovin
Las Vegas, NV

Let’s talk about this.

Takeaways

I believe these are high numbers (if interviews with Las Vegas-based businesses are to be believed). This does not include bonuses, stock options, WFH, or other benefits (rough estimate would increase base pay 130% for that value).

The term “Golden Handcuffs” comes to mind, but that’s another post.

What also comes to mind is that companies can afford to pay you much, much more than they currently are.

And why aren’t they?

I’ve written on negotiating your compensation before and have linked articles all throughout this post. The resources are out there to both evaluate what you ought to be earning and how to muster the courage to politely demand more.

Use ’em.

–

You ever want to discuss numbers? Let’s talk – 20 minutes is all we’ll need.

In the meantime, go earn your freedom! Don’t work too hard getting that bread. Drink water, take rest. Cheers ~

The Value of Being a Professional

Hey there! Before going on, know that I’m hardly a professional. Knowing what a professional’s value is, however, is invaluable.

This post is for you that need to double-check if you are being valued; for you looking for work so you know what’s acceptable to ask for and what an employer ought to be offering. For simplicity, I’ll be using my own profession of software development as the example to be used.

I’ve participated in the #PaidMe movement and laid out the tools I use to put together what my work is worth before. Now, to help you not devalue yourself or others, here are those tools applied!

Note: Having a pen-and-paper handy along with a calculator to figure out the value of your own work while you read may save your time.

Inflation

From 2019 to 2021 (now), inflation has been 2.88%. (This will be important as we’ll be getting some salaries from 2019.)

Because some of the following numbers will be multiplied by hundredths-of-a-percent, there is going to be some inevitable rounding. If the values are off by a few dollars, no sweat – you should be rounding up anyway 😉

Bureau of Labor Statistics

In the Spring of 2021, BLS has data from 2019 for the United States as it comes to compensation. In 2019, software folks (QA and dev) were most often paid $107,510 a year.

With a trusty map of 2019 pay for techies, we can take the national value and inflate it, leaving us an estimated $110,606.29 per year median.

The hypothetical $111K is contradicted by Salary.com’s reported $115,430 per year average. Since this is private company is only a statistically insignificant ~4% different, we’ll ignore Salary.com for now in favor of the official numbers (inflation and BLS).

Cost of Living

How much money one needs in different parts of the country changes drastically, even from suburb to suburb. Where your zip code is has a heavy factor in what you should be earning.

A few example metros / locales follow. I received two different CoL calculations in my recent research – Best Places in general had higher values while PayScale was more conservative. Naturally, I went with the former (what a shame to be underpaid):

WhereCoL vs NationalEst. Min. SalaryEst. +10% Salary
Las Vegas111.6%$123,436.62$135,780.28
Redmond185.1%$204,732.24$225,205.46
Seattle172.3%$190,574.63$209,632.10
Austin119.3%$131,953.30$145,148.63
Washington152.1%$168,232.16$185,055.38
Boston162.4%$179,624.61$197,587.07
New York City187.2%$207,054.97$227,760.47
San Francisco269.3%$297,862.73$327,649.01
San Jose214.5%$237,250.49$260,975.54
CoL Applied to BLS Median Pay

You, sharp reader, will have noticed that the numbers estimated above do not match up quite with the BLS values previously. That is because BLS does not always include bonuses, stock options, the size of the company a person is employed at, or what has been the best few years for software companies ever.

More on that in the next section.

Remember: Always round up to at least the nearest thousand thereabouts. Exact numbers shown here to allow you to make your own decisions on how comfortable you are with rounding.

Also remember that odd numbers (123.45 vs 120) psychologically seem “more official” and “legitimate.” If you can round up while keeping some of this oddness when you go into negotiating your value, it’ll help you greatly!

Expected Salary Range

Not every company has or likes to have the cash on hand to pay huge base salaries. Though cold, hard cash is almost always preferred, you can leave it up to a company to make up the difference in your value.

Base salary is usually less than the CoL and BLS calculations above, yet this does not take away from your value. You can accept this lower pay by expecting the company to exchange cash bonuses, equity, PTO, or other subjective boons.

A cash bonus usually is a lump-sum payment delivered every six-months or a year. Usually about 10% of your base salary, you can negotiate this percentage higher to make up the total value difference. If the bonus is variable, say, based on performance, only calculate for the “you did no more and no less than your job” value.

Equity is some investment in the company. My personal rule aside is to only accept equity at a 2:3 rate, where for every $2 of base pay being forgone, $3 comes in equity. Why? Equity is variable with the market and often delayed in being granted to you. There is no timely guarantee for your work to be properly compensated, nor is the opportunity cost for not having cash-in-pocket slight, so as equity literally costs the company nothing to give you, asking for more is always a safe bet.

PTO (paid time off) is a common benefit working at most companies. PTO comes as paid vacation, sick time (if separate from vacation), and holidays. Each PTO day is 8 hours but the value of the whole day is your daily salary rate, i.e. base salary divided by 250 days. Daily rate multiplied by the number of days is PTO’s value.

Finally, there are other boons that the company can give. Maybe it’s better healthcare, a shorter commute, a better title, work-life separation, etc. Tangible (physical, material) or intangible (time, feeling), only you know what’s more important than cash-in-the-bank. Always keep in mind that any boon you accept in replacement of direct pay is doing the other party a favor.

Glassdoor Et Al.

Every company changes in what they may offer potential new-hires. Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and other websites have oodles of employee-reported data on pay, among other things.

If you are looking at a company that has a presence on one of these sites, use the site. Compare the ranges of base salary and other payment options to your BLS and CoL numbers. This gives you not only an idea of what other compensation to negotiate for with the company, but also a second set of values that may be higher than BLS + CoL (needless to say, increase any site-found value by at least 10% since site values do not account for CoL increases or inflation).

Tip: I always salary search using a Google Chrome Incognito window to do my browsing. Sites like Glassdoor track your usage, preventing further use if you navigate to a different page. Incognito gets around this:

      1. Arrive at a blocked page.
      2. Copy the website URL.
      3. Close all of the Incognito tabs / windows.
      4. Open a new Incognito window.
      5. Paste the copied URL.
      6. Tada! Unblocked. Continue researching your value.

Putting It All Together

You now know what you should be compensated based off of your research into the company, role, BLS, and CoL.

When the talk of money comes up, here is the handy equation to keep on hand:

Total Compensation = Base + Bonus + Equity + PTO

If you have other boons you are looking for, convey to the other party that you are taking these for granted, increasing your base or bonus or equity if the other party wants to take these boons away. Never Split the Difference is an astounding book (read it at least four-to-six times so far) that goes into more depth in how to handle leveraging boons that may not have an impressive dollar value.

Now, that total compensation ought to be a range, something like the fair value you found through research of median or average pay (whichever is higher), and at least 10% more than that. Propose the larger numbers and have the other party justify why they ought to be offering you less, giving a sense of disbelief the entire time (much more in Never Split the Difference).

Barring the most dire circumstances of survival, never, ever accept below the median or average pay for the role in the place you are bidding for. It is anti-social and masochistic and despicably weak. Don’t do it.

On the plus-side, if the other party counters above your expected compensation range, smile! Then let them know that’s a good base-pay starting point. “Now let’s talk about bonuses and equity.” Using the simple trick of adding 10% more to acceptable figures, you enable yourself to maximize your worth to the other party and to yourself.

–

Having gotten through this article, how are you doing? Are you making out like Robin Hood, maximizing your value above par? Are you being taken for granted, paid pennies on the dollar?

If you need to be valued more, talk with those that pay you about increasing your compensation 10% if you are being underpaid by 10% or less. However, should the compensation be undervalued by more than 10%, you can still have a conversation with the payor, but it is also time to look at other companies since you have been clearly disrespected and taken for a ride 😐

Enough talk! Check your numbers, go get your value, and be confident that you are in the right (heck, you at least have the United States government backing you up). All the best to your endeavors going forward – cheers!

Devaluing Your Worth

As I approach a new year with a new company, let’s look at common nasty bits of the flip-side of how to value your worth: devaluing it 💩

First Off: Not Knowing Your Value

You would do yourself a better favor ignoring any new paid work if you haven’t done the bare minimum of any interview process.

That bare minimum? Doing the research, ie:

Know where the money is 💲

Figure out how much a title pays nationally. Know what that role pays in the region and industry (though industry is less and less relevant). Glassdoor the salaries paid at the company. Normalize everything to the cost-of-living (CoL) of the town you live in and where the company is headquartered.

Of those numbers, get the median. Get the average. Pick the highest value. At least multiply that number by 110%, if not 110% to 125%.

Then what do you have? Value. Or, more precisely, an appropriate range (high average or 110% to 110% or 125%) of value you must ask for with the role with the company in the city. Anything less is at best worthless, if not going to be a sticking point for you later.

Second: Anchoring Low

A common negotiation tactic is to anchor the talks on a low value.

You are not low value.

When the company goes low, you go high. Heck, if the company goes OK, you go high. If they go high, you go higher 🔥

They mention a range lower than yours or doesn’t intersect the top of your range? You sigh, you flinch, you gasp, and you quote them your researched range. (Apply emphasis that your skills warrant the top of the range no-doubt.)

You are cornered or feel compelled to mention a range? That 110% to 125% is looking awfully fine right now 😉

If you feel uncomfortable asking for this kind of cash, just know other companies across the nation are paying at or above your quoted. So why do you deserve any less? (If you have an answer to this rhetorical question, there are some confidence and self-esteem issues you need to figure out ASAP.)

No, seriously, if you don’t think you doing a role is worth the nationally determined compensation for the title, stop reading this article. I wish I had something of mine to link here, but I don’t – go get help!

Side note: If you ever find yourself being in the very rare and unusual position of the company offering more than the top of your not-yet-quoted range, tell the company the both of you are close, but you were looking for approximately-10%-over-the-company’s-value. That way you leave nothing on the table that the company was not already planning on giving you!

Third Up: Not Shutting Up

After you have spoken, cease speaking 😶

Simple, ya? No. Human nature wants to justify ourselves and our expectations of others to others. To do that, we’ll lace our speech with weak words and bury our hopes in our own babble.

When you’ve stated your range, when you’ve told the company they need to have a better offer, when you’ve asked for that bonus, shush.

As many professional negotiators put it (see this post’s Further Learning section):

They who breaks silence first loses.

This in part applies to:

Fourth, Your Greatest Enemy: Yourself

What I mean is you will negotiate against your own self interests.

There are many ways to hamstring your efforts:

      • Quoting a dollar range first.
      • Agreeing to additional responsibility without additional compensation.
      • Settling for splitting the difference.
      • Generally being too agreeable 😇

The root of your self-harm is fearing the discomfort of disagreeableness.

Be conscientious of your value, be kind to those you negotiate with, but be brave enough to be disagreeable when a benefit to you and your future selves is on the line.

–

What have you done in negotiating down your value? I’ve done all of the above and more – which have you? Share your experiences for others and myself to watch out for.

COVID is still very bad – While you Zoom safely from home, may you earn your worth and more 😁 Cheers~

What Is Your Work Worth?

I’ve been around the block a few times as it comes to employment and figuring out my work’s value.

In figuring that worth out, a few excellent tools have made themselves invaluable time and time again.

I don’t use these tools until I have an interview lined up or a change in job title or I’ve been employed at the same place for 9 to 12 months. However, when used appropriately, they’ve put the leverage on my side when negotiating a salary or raise. For the cost of an hour looking up values, I’ve netted tens-of-thousands of dollars in value added.

That, and the tools have let me know if I’m walking into a proposal as being underpaid – as an advocate for the worker, never be underpaid 😐

Here, I’m opening-up my personal toolbox for your use. May it be a starting point on your next job offer, a stepping stone to ask for a raise, or merely another reference for your own methods to calculating your work’s worth 🙃

TLDR

(Really, you should read on. But, if pressed for attention, do the following.)

  1. Get the job title for the new job / your current job.
  2. Next, get the city for the job’s cost of living (CoL; google “cost of living theCityName“).
  3. Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, searching for the job title, and recording the median salary.
    1. Example for Software Developers.
  4. If the median salary is not in your current year, search “inflation calculator”, using what you find to turn the salary into your current year’s dollars.
  5. Multiply the median salary by the CoL percentage (111% CoL = 1.11).
  6. Take the multiplied result, round up to the nearest tens-of-thousands (this is the Minimum Salary you should consider for the job).
  7. Multiply the result again by either 110% (this is the Expected Salary you should quote to anyone who asks).
    1. If your Minimum Salary is less than $100,000 and you’re feeling fierce, multiply the Minimum by 125% instead of 110%.
  8. Aim for the Expected Salary or more (negotiate!). Accept nothing less than the Minimum Salary.

If you want more detail, you’ll have to read on 😁

Variables

So what’s important in determining worth? Well, simply put… everything.

That’s hardly helpful, so here are some base values needed for the figuring:

  • Job Title (Title)
  • Company
  • City
  • Base Salary (Salary)
  • Potential Bonuses (Bonus)
    • Performance Awards
    • Signing Bonus
    • Stock Discounts
    • 401K Matches
    • PTO
    • Gym Memberships
    • Commute
    • etc. (Don’t worry too much on this.)
  • Cost of Living (CoL)

Titles can be important, and bonuses lucrative, but unless you have some special arrangement to fully leverage non-salaried bonuses like stocks or commission, nothing will be cash in the bank at the end of the day.

If the salary can’t be increased, multiply the difference of what you want vs. what is offered by 2 (“2” for the number of years a person typically works in a position). Negotiate for bonuses equivalent to that number.

Sites for Values

To get values for the variables, Sperling’s Best Places, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Glassdoor, Salary, Salary Expert, and the job post itself will be your best friends.

(If any of the salary sites have bonuses, record those too).

  • Sperling’s Best Places
  • BLS
    • Search for the job title for the median salary and national area data.
      • Example of a Software Developer. (The “State and Area Data” tab has county information that gives you another salary value when you hover the mouse over the maps.)
    • If the salary medians are from a past year, use Google to find an inflation calculator to turn those old salaries into today’s dollars.
  • Glassdoor
    • Search both the job title salary globally and the company itself for salary information for similar work.
  • Salary
    • Enter some basic information to get the job’s salary.
  • Salary Expert
    • Get more salaries for the job title at the location of the job.
  • The Job
    •  Here is where you get the job title, company name, and city.

If your industry has compensation reports (eg Software and Stack Overflow, Video Games and the GDC Game Developers Survey), include those here too! More data, more power!

Formulas Go Brrrr

You’ve been good so far. Now, do this:

  1. Get one salary out of the reported salaries.
    1. If there’s a national salary (eg BLS, Glassdoor), multiply that salary by the CoL of the city the job is in to get the salary to use.
      1. Eg $100,000 national salary * 1.10% CoL = $110,000
    2. Calculate the Median and the Average for all salaries collected from every source.
      1. Google Sheets is a great tool for this.
    3. Whichever of the calculated Median and Average is higher, keep that and discard the other.
    4. Do this for the bonuses too.
  2. Round the calculated salary up to the nearest tens-of-thousands place. This is your Minimum Salary.
  3. Round the bonus up to the highest place (eg $102=$200, $1799=$2000, etc).
  4. Multiply the Minimum Salary by 110% to 125%. This is your Expected Salary.
    1. Why “110% to 125%”? Well, it depends. The higher the percentage, the more difficult it gets to defend during negotiations asking for the Expected Salary. Use judgement and self confidence in this – regardless of what gets asked for, a salary will always need defending, so preparing a longer argument of why the salary is warranted comes with negotiating 🙂

Tada! You now have a Minimum Salary, an Expected Salary, and Bonus values, aka your work’s worth. That said, let’s put them to work 😎

Using Your Worth

Here’s where the negotiation comes in. Negotiation is a topic unto itself and is better covered by cleverer folks than I, so I’ll leave you with these bullet points to keep in mind:

  1. Ask for more than you think you’ll get. That’s why asking for Expected Salary is the least you can do for yourself if pressed to give an expected value.
  2. If given an offer more than the Expected Salary and the Expected Salary hasn’t been told to the person making the offer, counter with at least the offer’s salary and the Bonus calculated earlier, if not asking for an increase in the offer’s salary by 10%.
  3. If given an offer less than the Expected Salary, work with the offer to see about raising the salary to the Expected (*cough* negotiate *cough*). Should the offer salary not be raised, do mental math to calculate twice the difference of the offer and the Expected Salary – negotiate for that value in Bonuses (signing bonus, PTO, etc.).
  4. Don’t accept less than the Minimum Salary. The greatest power is to the person who’ll walk away first.
    1. That, and accepting less than what’s literally fair (the median and average) hurts you, your peers, your industry, and your country. Don’t do it.

These values you’ve calculated are the bare minimum acceptable to not hurt yourself (Minimum Salary) and a reasonable request for the work to be done (Expected Salary) with wiggle-room (Bonus).

Remember, you are asking for compensation for the work to be done first, your history and experience second. Be aggressively fair for future, but only use the past as a lens instead of an anchor keeping you from accepting reasonable work.

Further Learning

–

What do you think? What do you use in your own work worth calculations? I’d really like to know!

If you’d like a spreadsheet with some of these formulas filled out, let me know.

Lastly, a reminder about our relationship to work and money:

Your pay is not a judgement on your value. It should only be a fair estimation of your work’s worth.

Good luck, y’all, on your next negotiation, job or raise. Cheers ~

#PaidMe

Hi, folks!

Guess who’s still in a strange land of finicky data? No matter! That doesn’t prevent writing a few things down 🙂

There’s been a few hashtags going around over the last few weeks. #TechPaidMe, #GameDevPaidMe, #PublishingPaidMe, #ComicsPaidMe, even just #PaidMe.

Think it’s about time I contributed to #TechPaidMe / #GameDevPaidMe. Why? Why not? Transparency in worker pay gives power to the worker. Gives power to you.

uncle-sam-29972_960_720
Uncle Sam from Pixabay.com

My history has been thoroughly and chronically underpaid for the value brought. After reading Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference, I’ll never do such things again. After reading this post, maybe you won’t be underpaid either. Sound good?

I’ll save you some time by crunching the numbers with 2020’s income tax for take home pay (THP), then inflation (Inf; doesn’t count Roth 401K and IRA contributions), then normalized cost of living (CoL; to a US national 100%) so you can get some decently useful.

The Data

(Skipping pre-2013 dev work as I was preoccupied with other things at the same time.)

2013
#TechPaidMe
Software Developer
Base: $45,000
THP: $37,816
Inf: $41,620.54
CoL: $54,122.93
Secure Banking Solutions
Madison, SD

That means in 2020 dollars, adjusted for cost of living nationally, I took home about $54K. Let’s continue…

2014-2015
#TechPaidMe #HealthcarePaidMe
Technical Services Problem Solver (customer support + custom dev)
Base: $69,000 (I think? I actually can’t remember. I just know it was under folks hired some 3-6 months after!)
THP: $51,757
Inf: $55,988.32
CoL: $50,079
Epic Systems
Verona, WI (Outside Madison)

2015-2016
#GameDevPaidMe
SDET II Tools Developer
Base: $66,000
THP: $48,387
Inf: $51,690.73
CoL: $40,926.94
Microsoft
Tigard, OR (Outside Portland)

2016-2018
#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe
Software Tools Developer
Base: $75,000 (not including bonus up to 15%)
THP: $59,588
Inf: $60,842.61
CoL: $54,518.47
Aristocrat Technologies
Las Vegas, NV

At this time, I read Never Split the Difference among other books and Reddit posts. Continuous learning evidently pays dividends:

2018-2020
#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe
Senior Software Engineer
Base: $104,500 (not including bonus; had a raise for a few months before a promotion with a final raise here)
THP: $80,179
Inf: $-
CoL: $71,844.98
Aristocrat Technologies
Las Vegas, NV

2021+
Checkout the post.

Despite all of the lower-than-expected pay, despite coming late to the FIRE Movement, I am well on my way to financial independence. No debt, minimal other expenses, and investment performance is set to CoastFIRE me in less than 10 years, FatFIRE in less than 15. If we suffer a crash in the markets, independence will happen sooner with savings on hand that were meant for buying property 2 weeks before COVID-19 locked the US down. #BulletDodged

If you feel comfortable in sharing, what have been your numbers in tech and game dev? I used to be very sensitive over letting others know what I earn, so I understand if all you get is a reference point for your future salary negotiations 😉

Before we go, checkout these resources that have been such boons to me:

It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this, and ask for what you’re worth ❤ cheers ~