Salary negotiation for software developers, engineers, and designers

by Josh Doody

I recently did a Salary Negotiation workshop for the Orlando Devs Meetup and The Iron Yard’s Orlando campus. It was a great opportunity to work with software developers, engineers, and designers, who are simultaneously in very high demand right now, and hesitant to negotiate their salary.

My talk was about 30 minutes, starting with a salary negotiation overview for those who are looking to change jobs—how to prepare for your interviews, and how to negotiate your starting salary. Then I switched gears to talk about how to get your next raise or promotion for those who are planning to stay put.

After the talk, we did about 40 minutes of Q&A, which I thought was really fun and enlightening.

Here’s the full talk. And below that is an outline that shows all the topics we discussed, and a list of all the questions that were asked so you can jump right to something if you’re interested.

Talk outline

• (0:00) Intro and About Me
• (1:30) Talk overview and outline
• (2:28) Prepare for your interviews
  • (2:35) Basic research you should do
  • (4:26) What’s the company’s story?
  • (5:15) The dreaded salary quesition—don’t disclose your current or desired salary!
• (9:46) Negotiate strategy overview
  • (10:13) You should negotiate!
  • (11:25) What is your minimum acceptable salary?
  • (13:55) Counter at 10% to 20% above their offer
  • (15:02) Define your negotiation window
  • (16:40) Plan for each increment
• (17:38) What if you’re staying put?
  • (18:02) Define your goal
  • (19:49) You also need a compelling case
  • (22:44) Prepare your case
  • (24:34) Make your request
  • (2:35) Basic research you should do
• (26:15) Summary of my video courses on these topics
  • (29:40) How to save 25% on the courses until March 18

Q&A summary

I’m just linking to my answers (I usually repeat the question).

• (30:41) How do you account for equity and other non-base salary items you can neogtiate for?
• (34:29) How do you account for a cost of living difference when negotiating your starting salary at a company in a more expensive city?
• (37:48) How do you negotiate your starting salary when the company announces their pay range for the job up front?
• (39:26) A lively discussion about “The Dreaded Salary Question” and whether my suggested answer is a good one
  • (48:15) What if you’re afraid your minimum acceptable salary is high above what they’ll offer you?
  • (50:10) What if the pay range is announced in the job description? Do you still answer The Dreaded Salary Question this way?
• (52:12) If you’re going contractor-to-full-time, can you negotiate the full-time offer?
• (56:16) How do you account for new skills (technologies) you’re acquiring on your résumé?
• (59:55) Should you have different résumés for different companies?
• (1:01:56) Should you negotiate a surprise raise and promotion package your company offers you?
• (1:05:31) Why might a company break a market increase up into chunks over time instead of just doing it all at once?
• (1:06:44) What do you do when the word “budget” is used a blocker for continuing negotiation?
• (1:08:37) Does it help to negotiate using non-round numbers?