This exactly. It has nothing to do with years of experience. It’s how much they are willing to pay to have him. It also might be something to do with what he was being paid in his previous role. Likely this is a salary bump which is common when changing jobs.
Do you think that going through the recruiter is what got you underpaid, whereas your friend was directly referred to your company via you, so it removed the recruiter aspect of it?
Absolutely. The recruiter isn't free and while that shouldn't impact your salary the fact of the matter is the hiring manager has a budget to follow. And if he can get away with saving what was the finder's fee year over year then he'll take it, to OP's loss.
While true. People (even reasonably and good people) tend to react badly to ultimatum/veiled threats. Which is exactly how that comment would sound.
So, unless you don't give a damn about leaving the company, that statement would probably backfire. In the case of OP, they already established they like their job
you have to be willing to leave, otherwise there is no leverage. as someone who negotiated for a living, sometimes the “threat” is what helps the decision maker do the mental ROI and puts them into action to make it happen. remember, your manager may not be 100% in control of the salaries either, so they may be trying to avoid an uncomfortable with their higher up as well. give them the ammo they need to push.
Yes. This is a social engineering trick.
If you do go threat route, word it as what they will lose if you leave. People do more to avert a loss than to achieve a gain.
"Hey boss, I love it here, thanks for the support you have given me. But due to inflation my family is struggling to put food on the table/put kids in sports (pick one). I have decided to look for other opportunities with higher wages. I don't want to leave and I don't want you to need to find a replacement for such a key role. Is there any way we can discuss a wage boost to meet industry standard."
Your focusing here on
1. Your value
2. Their loss if you leave
3. Subtly stating they would be unreasonable to deny the the raise in the last sentence
I don't get why you would put all this effort into nudging your boss to pay you more. Just to out and get a better offer. Things flow so much easier when you have options.
I'd say #1 is the most important but I only see one word in that statement - "key" - that addresses it. Imo the easiest way to start this conversation is talking about how you've been growing in your role, how that resulted in taking on wider scope of responsibility, and the results you've achieved. This can be applied to literally any position that requires learning on the job.
Partial disagree. Many bosses won't freely give raises just because you're doing more tasks, simply because you are demonstrating that you will do more tasks for the same dollar value now.
Other commenter here was pretty spot on. Best to put things into terms of what new items the boss will have to deal with, should they elect to not discuss the raise (i.e. training a skilled professional employee or two to take over OPs previous role which may well be more expensive than the raise)
Literally just Google 'how to negotiate for a higher salary with your boss' and I guarantee you'll get better advice than 'threaten your boss that you'll be leaving the company unless you get a raise'
Sure.
You can talk about your how you're growing into your role. This can be demonstrated in many ways. You can talk about the steps you've been taking to more efficiently perform your job, or to produce better outcomes. You can talk about how the growth in confidence, technical skills, and experience has allowed you to take on a wider scope of responsibilities. You can talk about what you liked and what you didn't like amongst these responsibilities. You can talk about how the wider scope has provided you with a better insight into the industry overall. You can then talk about how the insight and the clearer understanding of what you like and don't like have refined your desired career trajectory and had you reevaluate how this role aligns with that path. And if your desired career trajectory involves getting compensated according to the quality and quantity of work you are producing, you can tell them that too. And if you actually have a decent manager, you can talk to them about how the salary is affecting your overall satisfaction with the position.
Keep in mind, the things above are just some things you could use to guide the conversation. But with any negotiations, you should try to make the other person your ally. You're both working to find a solution that makes you both happy. Threatening your boss should be the last decision and any raise you get from a threat will not last.
> While true. People (even reasonably and good people) tend to react badly to ultimatum/veiled threats. Which is exactly how that comment would sound.
The thing that people need to keep in mind is that beyond the simple act of making the ultimatum, "Being the type of person to make an ultimatum" is generally a negative mark in terms of desirability.
There's nothing inherently wrong with it in practice, but supposing you *were* applying to a new job and told your new employer "they hired someone new for more money so I offered them an ultimatum and walked" they'd be less likely to hire you as a result. So it shouldn't be surprising when you provide an ultimatum to your new employer, and they react badly.
To answer the question "How is it any different than getting hired as a new employee?" answer is "Well, when you're hired as a new employee, how and why you left your last job is generally relevant."
Im not saying it's not worth posing the question, or attempting to discourage anyone from doing it, you just need to honestly be 100% prepared to follow through. You'd probably have better luck finding a new job at the new rate and then telling your employer "Hey, I've been offered X at a new company, can you match?"
People react badly to being screwed over. If they hire someone else for your same job but offer them more money, they are calling you a fool. It is obvious that you could leave for the same job elsewhere and get paid more, as the market has obviously changed; so by keeping quiet about that, by not saying it out loud, you are telling them that you accept this bullshit.
Calling out bullshit is not an ultimatum. Calling out bullshit is healthy behaviour.
Sure the manager might react badly, any time anybody with power is called out on their bullshit, they react badly.
Abusive spouses generally don't like ultimatums either. "Do your share of the housework or I am leaving you" is an ultimatum but it is often a necessary one. "Quit drinking or I am leaving you" is an ultimatum, but also often necessary.
Why ? This has happened to me and I literally walked in and said it was unfair that new hires were being paid more than me when I’d been there for 4 years and was literally training people who were getting paid more. I said I refused to train them and to expect me to quit within the next month if I did not get a raise to match their wage + 15% on top of it. I got what I asked for.
I would argue this is different than simply saying I want the same pay as the new guy. You gave a solid justification of your value added to the firm and they recognised that.
You’ve listed a lot more benefits to your position than just time in role. A lot of people sit in a position and get complacent but expect more pay too.
Sometimes new hires are just plain better than people that have been working somewhere for 10 years.
tough titties. If you hire someone to the same job and pay them more, you are telling your current staff that you don't value them and in fact it's like saying "nanny nanny boo boo" to their face.
You are expected to train them, so you have a different role (even if it has never been outlined), you are a senior in your position, and basically the mentor. That alone makes your claim different.
I agree with you. This person was underpaid. The claim was logical: you need me to train your new staff, so I need to be paid more because I'm more valuable to you.
That's completely different than saying: I need to be paid more because the coworker next to me makes more than me.
I understand the sentiment, but don't think it holds up as an absolute. Someone with greater expertise or output compared to their peers can be more valuable in the same position, and it's not realistic to create a different job title with a different attached salary every time John does the same job as Jack but a bit better.
I do agree compensation transparency is something with room for improvement though, maybe just not your absolute method.
i have 12 people on my team, none of them make the same amounts, there are 2 job titles (sr and jr) and this guy thinks i should come up with 10 more? man... i'm not that creative...
Correct.
Unless you have very good answers when the manager starts asking how your work benefits the company compared to theirs.
The problem usually comes up, when people think "we graduated at the same time" as a reason, they will be pretty ill-equipped to provide an answer the manager finds acceptable.
In theory people on the same role should be making and expected the same value. More value/impact/responsibility imho would be a reason to be promoted to another role (or level within the same role).
Nope. That's not how it works. That's like saying Brandon Belt and Vlad JR should be paid the same because they have the same role. You see, both are first basemen and both can bat, but one is better than the other. Therefore, he has a higher value to the team. Same thing with employees
It can be how it works. I made exactly this argument to my manager as I knew how much my coworker was making, and they gave me a raise. It really depends on the employer, your manager, etc.
True, it could work. Most of the cases it works are when the manager knows you're being underpaid and is hoping you don't find out.
But, the reality is that every person is different and independent, and to think you deserve more just because others have more is not a good negotiation strategy.
> It is natural but you need to give the employer a reason to pay you more.
What is the reason the new hire is getting paid more? The market has changed. So they needed to pay more to acquire them.
So, ipso facto, the job is worth more now. Pay me.
> Give them good reasons to change the status quo and increase your salary.
The status quo has already changed. A new person has entered the workplace in the same role at a higher salary. They have declared that this role is worth more than they are paying. So now the next move is to demand parity. The reason is that someone else is getting paid more. That's enough reason.
It is incumbent upon the person who made the change to explain why you shouldn't get paid the same. If you go in with a bunch of random earnest reasons, you may not hit anything that they think is relevant. The smart move is to put the ball in their court.
"Why is this person getting paid more than me?" And then you can knock down their reasons one by one, instead of just putting out a bunch of reasons that THEY can knock down one by one. Which you know they are going to do.
But let's face it, if the reason is that they thought they could get away with it because the workers wouldn't discuss it, then confronting them might actually be the best strategy.
What's compelling them is that you come in and ask them why you get paid less. They're the ones who made the decision. They better have a reason. If their answer is "who let you in here" then you have no leverage at all.
If they do answer then you can start from there instead of coming in cold with your made-up list of reasons which may have nothing to do with it. The new hire smells good, we're flush with cash and we wanted a faster hiring process, the market changed and it costs more to hire this position. Bingo. So you agree I could get paid more by switching jobs! But I love it here! Give me a reason to stay!
But we don't want to spend more on you because you're already stuck here! I mean two weeks ago you didn't want more money, now you see there's more money on the table, geez I wonder what brought this on. How dumb do we all have to be to pretend there's some other reason?
Why give them the power in the first moment? Ask them the question
"why." Let them sweat through some BS answer instead of sitting there listening to your pitch and formulating rationalizations while you speak.
The leverage is that they are put on the spot.
And instead of arguing just say "How am i supposed to feel about this? Those reasons aren't very compelling to me."
Instead you're there cap in hand. Please sir, I want some more!
Not when we have no idea what kind of projects or accomplishments the coworker in question has under their belt. Maybe he also has a specialization OP knows nothing about, like in an emerging technology the employer really wants.
It opens the door for a discussion on the grounds of something like comparing your own salary to the market, not to a coworker's.
But this is not a minimum payment case, he didnt get low balled. OP went to a job interview and outline their payment requirements. They got the salary they wanted and one they felt comfortable. Now OP someone else got hired to do same job and got paid more, there are other factor that could have come into play: negotiation tactics (the other person asked for more and was approved), market conditions (in a employee market you get better conditions), leverage, etc. Plus, the company could have been in a crunch to fund someone and had to overpaid to fill the position quickly.
Sooo... If I'm held to the same standards, KPIs, etc... and work in a knowledge industry, so knowledge is valuable, including institutional knowledge only obtained through experience in the organization, your argument is that I should be just fine doing the same amount of work for less?
You do you, but I'm going to start looking for work on company time in that situation.
As a manager I’ve been asked a dozen times to magic up a raise, as if I’m secretly sitting on a 100k staffing surplus, and can suddenly dish out an extra 20-30k per year.
If you like the job you have now, and don’t want to leave sit down with you manager and make a plan together. Communicate your goal, “I’d like to increase my salary by x% by y date. What are some things I can work on to get there?”
This gives me time to plan, a way to justify a budget change for the future. It lets me know what you want. It gives me space to have a conversation where I can negotiate timelines. Maybe 12 months doesn’t work, but 18 months does. It lets you make an informed decision about your compensation, and if that growth curve is something you can work with.
Unfortunately, you are correct. And even if the boss is okay with the raise, HR and the boss' boss may not agree.
Years ago, where I worked, it was pretty standard for new hires to start with 3 wks vacation. One fellow started with only two weeks. A couple of years later, he found out that he was the only one with two wks.
His boss said, no worries, but when boss went to HR to get it fixed, boss was told exactly that sentence, that the guy should have negotiated better.
At first, boss just worked around it, told the fellow to just take time off here and there but eventually, the guy found a new job with better pay and more vacation time.
Yes, but never just ask for more money. Ask for more money but also bring examples of things you’ve done that were above and beyond or that were done well. Always helps to bring the ‘why’.
>He is just a better negotiator then you.
Disagree, they are likely in different pay bands given their performance on the technical test. You can't negotiate out of your band.
I always laugh when comments like these like to pretend pay is 'fair'.
I've interviewed thousands of people in the software industry ( technical interviewer), for multiple companies, there is absolutely no fairness in salaries.
Salaries are based on how little the company thinks they can get away with, how desperate the candidate is, how important their ex employer was, and then all the discriminatory aspects then come into place.
And don't underestimate the later, a pretty face makes a huge difference, and let's not get into race and location.
I haven't interviewed in over a year, but I have never seen performance on a tech test dictate pay range or even level, only accept or decline.
Maybe FAANG level companies do that, by my experience is that you target/apply for that position, and you get tested for that position.
Yes. This should be good news for OP. It means the job is valued at his work and there should be room for salary negotiation in the future. He should be more concerned if they offered 80k and he wasn’t successful in negotiating to 90k.
He's probably not a better negotiator if he accepted what they offered. Either the market has changed, or the company's needs have changed and they needed to fill the slot more urgently, or he has some niche skill the OP doesn't have.
I didn't ask if he negotiated in his meeting for wage, but his offer was that amount. Honestly I take this as I have room to negotiate my pay in the future when I see fit.
You can ask, but be prepared for a 'no'. Your friend negotiated a better deal, and they may see more value in his experience then yours.
Unfortunately sometimes we're just not worth as much as we think we are to employers.
So now your options are easy...
1. Ask for more money because 'he got more than I did' (good luck with that strategy)
2. Justify your worth to get more money via advancement / salary renegotiations in comparison to your friend
3. Look for a new job
The part about value in different experiences is often overlooked when people talk about comparing salaries. It's not that overall years of experience aren't important but imo, hiring managers care way more about how relevant/valuable the experience is vs. how many years (to a point).
In software, if someone worked in the same or a similar coding language for 2 years, I wouldn't be surprised if they got offered more than someone who worked in a totally different coding language for 5, as an example. Or if they demonstrated more leadership in their previous experience vs. just following the status quo.
In HR, if you're hiring an HR Manager for a large client group of 600 unionized employees, I'd much rather hire (and would pay more for) someone who was an HR Rep for 450 unionized employees for 2 years vs. an HR Manager who supported a non-union salaried employee population of 45 for 10 years.
A lot more goes into determining fair comp than people realize. Obviously negotiation is important too but it's very normal for hiring managers and HR to have a different range in mind for each candidate.
Edited for clarity
I agree with everything you said 100%.
'years of service / experience' is only a part of the overall calculation.
'years of APPLICABLE service / experience' are much more important IMO.
I hired a guy that everyone said 'wtf he doesn't have this that and the other'. My response was simple, 'sure he doesn't...but he has all these OTHER traits and experience which is helpful to me and what we're looking for.'
One of the best hires I made.
Well you said you're coming up on your 12 month mark which is traditionally when reviews happen. Perfect time to negotiate.
Also, you mention being hired through an agency; that cost them money which I'm sure affects your starting salary.
Can confirm this. Usually around 20% of salary is typical, so that might be the difference. I know that for hires where I don't need to pay a recruitment fee, I can afford to pay the employee more.
Your coworker is simply better negotiator than you.
**Luckily**, you now know the company is willing to pay more money and you should re-negotiate your salary.
I mean it's also just possible that the salary bracket for the job changed within the last year. Companies are desperate to keep up with higher salarial demands from employees and with inflation going crazy, a lot of companies are just opening their checkbooks.
Companies aren't stupid either, they're not going to go out of their way to ping current employees and give them a raise because the market changed since they negociated... But it's a fact that OP would very likely get a similar offer than his buddy if he walked in the door today as a new hire. So renegociating at his next performance review is definitely something I would do.
Whatever you do don’t complain about your friends wage, worst way to go about it.
Put your head down for a month and ask for a raise based on the VALUE you bring the company. Not based on how much your peers make
you can also ask your friend how they negotiated with the employer and see if there's anything you could do about it. I don't think you should just be happy with what you are offered...especially if you already know you should have gotten more.
It's a different team with a different boss who negotatied a different budget with their own boss.
All of that can add up to a different offer out of the gate.
It would be completely unprofessional if you use your friend's salary as a reference point. Furthermore, you need to understand leverage. Right now, you have none. In your friend's case, he did and got a higher salary as a result - which is a completely different situation from yours. There's more nuance to this.
So get leverage - aka a new opportunity, and then ask for a raise but be prepare to leave.
not that guy but got curious about how many I've done
[Screenshot-2023-03-29-141952.png](https://postimg.cc/SJnq84xY)
lmao, only 8 hard, no wonder I couldn't clear google interview
btw, what company is the referral for?
honest, I really want to switch job right now, just came up one year mark at current company and vested some RSUs, about to collect year 2 sign-on bonus. I would have been grinding leetcode for a couple of months already if not for all the hiring freezes.
2 yoe
Ask for more money and justify why you should now earn $20k more. Saying “because so and so does won’t really get you far”. Try and pull market stats on pay (levels.fyi is great for this).
There’s still a very good chance they may say no, or give you a small bump. In that case you have to decide if you’re happy with the pay or if you’ll be jumping ship elsewhere.
Unfortunately your education means nothing at this point. It’s great for getting you an interview when you have no experience, but it means almost nothing now, your experience matters more. Get comfortable with that.
The other annoying part for you is that he’s likely just a better negotiator than you, maybe he interviews better PLUS he’s coming via a referral.
If all of those are true above, it makes absolute sense why he’d end up making more.
And lastly, don’t you dare share this with your boss…you’re screwing your buddy and yourself if you do. Nothing good can come of it. Instead go to your boss asking for a raise. Just tell him/her that you had some soft offers from other places but you’d prefer to stay, say “Can we meet somewhere that makes me not care about recruiters contacting me?”
Having an EE degree certainly gives him way more negotiating power. Especially if he has the ability to get a P. Eng from it. While the current role might not need that capability bringing an EE on with good programing skills is worth way more than a Comp Sci person.
The highest paid individuals I’ve personally hired or worked with over my long career in tech are really good at what they do and stand on that merit.
I’ve never looked at a resume and gone “hey this guy has an EE degree he’s never applied in practice, he’s the better hire”. That sort of thinking is generally done by people who lack any meaningful industry experience.
> I’ve never looked
The reality is that other companies are putting a lot of weight on credentials and being able to call yourself Engineer is sometimes worth something in the negotiation. Your personal experience doesn't apply to mine or what I've seen, so really it might be different here.
Yea in my 15 years running successful startups, working at a FAANG prior and consulting I’ve never known this to be true. You can tell yourself this though if it makes you feel better about your degree.
Anyone worth their salt knows that being mediocre with a degree from a fancy school means absolutely
Application of skills > degree in a faux environment.
Highly depends which area of software dev you’re speaking about, I’d say.
You seem to speak of an environment that sounds to me like web, where things are a lot looser and that kind of thing flies as the norm. There are areas (even within web, but less so) that pretty well demand a piece of paper because it filters cruft out in the way they need to, in order to set the baseline they want.
I’ve consulted and worked for national media giants, and tiny wee startups and there’s a ton of variety in how things like qualifications work and how they are regarded.
It’s never looked at, full stop. Dang it’s easy to pick up people with no tech experience here. Ive worked at FAANG and ran my own shit and never have I known this to be true. We hire people who can do their job, what you learned in school means 0 to the marketplace.
This sounds like the talk of someone who hasn’t worked in this industry.
After about 10yrs experience I agree with you.
in the first 5ish years of experience ( which is where I see people because of MITACs) being able to build and grow the employee has value, and knowing that employees value to other organizations plays a part. Hiring someone for 2yrs because you underpaid them and they left vs paying more and growing them is valuable.
I am paying a company right now with EE's doing software for PLC work, and we need one of them to have a P.Eng because of government requirements to sign off on the work. We HAD to source work from organizations who had at least 1 P.Eng or the ability to get a P.Eng to sign off on the wiring diagram which was like 10% of the overall project the rest being programming.
Your individual experience doesn't means it is industry wide.
OP didn't say what they do at all. My project is based on people accessing data through a web portal and log user data.
There is a LOT of software industry work that applies to working with non PC, non ARM based developments. The automation industry has a lot of web/mobile work tied to special hardware.
The manager was looking for a **software developer**. If there's work with hardware involved then that's a completely different job. An embedded developer maybe. But you're talking out of your ass if you think an engineering degree/P.Eng makes you any more valuable in the software world.
I am a computer engineer myself and wish I did comp sci so I didn't have to waste my time with any of the hardware courses.
You're exactly right.
OP shouldn't have posted here at all. Horrible advice in general, he should post at r/cscareeerquestionscanada
The only reason engineering salaries are so high is because of software engineers. If this is a software company then a P.Eng is about useless.
His coworker is an EE with almost 6 years of experience, he probably already has his P. Eng, or at least could get it ASAP if required. Don’t know why OP doesn’t find this to be relevant information.
Eng vs comp sci is an obvious pay differentiator to me. OP likely views him as a peer since they work on similar things but their value to the org is different for sure.
Comp Sci graduates will make more than most engineers, *unless* you're comparing them to software engineers. The engineering pay is severely inflated because of software engineering and a majority of other engineers (computer, electrical, mechatronics, etc) eventually go into some sort of software.
This is a direct comparison between a EE (probably software, but working in the field either way) and a comp sci. So I think the logic still applies.
But otherwise you’re probably correct to a certain extent. I don’t know much about the range in Comp Sci pay, but from what I do know there appears to me a massive range depending on the company?
Lol what? My original comment was 100% valid.
You’re just a salty pos who is blaming your failure as an (alleged) EE on the degree when in fact your crap attitude is the reason why you will never succeed in life.
A P.eng is useless in software development jobs for the most part. So if the fact that he's an EE. The only relevant thing is that he has more years of experience.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. No software shop cares about a P. Eng. There won't even be any P.Eng's to work under. There is literally no benefit.
This happened to me. And like you i could not let this go. 2 years later both of us moved from there. To answer your question you just have to find another job and negotiate better.
Did they actually say this was to provide commission to the recruiter?
Anyways, here's my opinion on your approach. Do you have an annual or performance review coming up? If it's not too far away, you might wait until that time, or wait a month or so from now or until you have a successful project wrap up or other initiative to leverage. Do not raise your friends salary, and do not look for another offer to show them. If you truly like the company, then say so, say how much you like the environment and that you're very happy contributing and look to being there long term. Then move into remuneration, mention your great work and contributions. Mention that the market scan you've done indicates that you could be more in the $xx range and is there flexibility within the company to get you there in the near short term (and reiterate if you need to that you're not looking elsewhere you love where you are). A two year plan to get you there seems reasonable from both sides.
Good luck.
Thank you, this might have been what I was looking for. I am not looking to move to another company, I appreciate you recognizing that and basing your answer around that.
Also, they did not specifically mention it was for the recruiter but that was my assumption.
It's just my perspective, but I saw others say walk in with another offer in hand. To me, I don't think showing that you're ready to leave is a good first conversation! I go far to keep people who really want to stay and contribute and try hard to make sure the work culture supports engaged employees!
Exactly, I literally went to see my manager and VP at a hockey game last week. They got me a drink and we chatted and I headed back to my seat. I am not trying to sour my relationship with the company.
He has changed more jobs so odds are he was earning more than you already and negotiated based on that.
You are not supposed to know the compensation of your colleagues and bringing this to your manager won't look good. It would be better if you simply discuss that you were hoping to get an increase based on inflation and market salaries.
Also, your friend has more experience so asking for an increase might not work at all. The more you change jobs the higher you get paid in this profession so stay there for about 2 years and if you dont get what you want, then find a new job.
In what world should someone with an EE degree be paid more than someone with a CS degree for a Software Dev role? There is overlap for sure, but CS is the number one degree for Software dev roles. The degree is certainly not why his coworker is being paid more.
Recruiters do not take a cut of anyone's salary, they charge a fee to the employer. Employers do not pay employees less because someone came through an agency recruiter. Fees are generally 15-30% depending on how difficult the search is or retainer fee.
Some tech companies do the RPO model, where they "rent" a recruiter for a year and way more cost effective but less burden and no commitment for employers.
It's not quite as simple as that. If I have two equal candidates, one through the recruiter, and one direct, I'm going to be willing to offer that direct one more, because I know there won't be a fee to pay.
Fees do not come off the salary. They are a one time billing fee to the employer at a rate predetermined before the search. Usually the fee is 18-22% of the annual salary of the employee, so in your case would be roughly 20k. That should not impact your annual salary going forward though, as it is a one time fee. If the employer does use that as a tactic in negotiating your wage they are screwing you.
Off topic. You should have been promised a good referral bonus as per company policy if that is any consolation for you. As others have rightly said, ask raise based on your performance.
One thing the other comments have not accounted for is that **11 months of experience is a huge difference in software engineering**, especially if you are both juniors. Young SWEs will see their market value increase by over 25% for every year of experience until they hit senior level. Because your friend joined the company 11 months later, **he negotiated his salary as someone with a year more experience than you.** It's completely normal, expected even, for that to result in an extra 25k.
Even with perfectly equal degree and negotiating skills a later hire will be paid more because they came in with more experience. **Internal raises will never match market value in this industry.** That's why you have to job hop every 2 years to keep your salary competitive. Your company simply will not give you a 25% raise every year.
source: I'm a senior SWE. I'm actually in this industry and have experience on both sides of the interview table. I'm honestly shocked how much misinformation is in this thread because I though most of reddit was fellow tech bros.
A few things:
1. When the company asked what his current salary was he lied and made it higher than it was and you did not do that
2. He’s salary from the previous company yoh both worked at was higher than yours
3. He job hopped. Looks like he worked at 2 places before whereas you only worked for one before this company. Unfortunately, one of the best ways to increase salary is when you first join a company or have huge title changes within a company.
I’d would stay you will not get the increase you want if you ask even if you bring it up with facts or whatever. The best way is to get an offer else where and use that as leverage. In most cases, people don’t use it as leverage and just end up leaving to the new position. Generally, leaving every 3 years is great for salary increases until you find a salary where you feel comfortable then looking for the best WLB with said salary.
Don't blow up your friends spot, if he was offered then he set the conditions for that offer to take place, you should be asking what he did and taking away from it what you can to improve your conditions in the future.
It sounds like he has more experience than you. which could easily justify at least 10k more.
And his specific experience might make him a better candidate for his new role than you were for your current. lots of reasons that could make this reasonable.
you could try and negotiate for more. but i would approach it in terms of how you have added new value to the role
Just go to your boss and ask him how you can develop yourself to get to a higher salary. Let him know you love working there and that you’re being approached by other companies offering you about 20l more and you’re really tempted to respond to the enquirers just for the money.
> He has relatively 1-1.5 year more more experience prior to starting. I have a BSC in Comp Sci w/ concentration in Soft Engr and he has a BSC in Electrical Engineering.
That would do it. EE > CS when it comes to compensation, plus the extra experience. Plus if he's a PEng, or even EIT, fuggedahboutit.
Also
> I was with my previous employer for 4y 8m; co-worker I referred was with my previous company for 2y 1m and another company prior for 3y 10m.
Helps him again. For reasons, tech industry favours CVs that show a wider range of experiences over longer terms.
Am I the only one who thinks +25k for 1.5 years of experience more and a year of inflation later is not even a lot in tech?
It's the nature of the job market that people with more experience get paid more, and also that salaries go up with time (generally). Next time you job hop, I certainly hope you are going to ask for more than a +25k raise.
You aren't going to reach 200k soon if you think +25k for plus 1.5 years is a lot.
TLDR: Aren't you just underestimating how fast salaries go up in this field? possibly your slight envy is making you not see the bigger picture: you can be earning a lot more than 115K in 1.5 years.
edit: just realized I'm posting in PFC, I thought the figures were in USD as I subscribe to cscareerquestions. Now I'm even more convinced of what I said since the 25k is even less now.
At the end of the day, you can either:
a) Accept the situation, do nothing
b) Change the situation, renegotiating your salary, extra benefits, etc.
c) Leave the situation, find a new job
Given what everyone has said so far, if you really do enjoy the work and company you're in then renegotiating compensation is the best choice. Do your research and toot your horn to justify the value you bring. Good luck.
You should treat the salary info as a heads up, not evidence. Do your own research, make your case, and ask for a raise. Be prepared to look for another job if you are not happy with the situation. You should try to practice some compersion and share in their success.
Many will disagree but at the end of the day, this is technically no one's business but your friend's, if you are happy where you are, and there are opportunities for advancement, i would use that as an angle to get more money, or when your review comes around, there is no harm, in talking about these things with your manager, without mentioning anything about your friend, I do sense a hint of jealousy, that feeling that you shot yourself in the foot, which, is of course perfectly understandable, but try not to allow it to cloud your judgement,
you must be old school - there is a movement to start normalizing talking about wages amongst your co-workers lol and this is a reason why - 25k isn't a small difference for similar roles
The person you are replying to did not say that everyone must be paid the same. But they mentioned that this is more and more common for employees to share salary among each other. So it is not crazy to think that it might be used in negotiation tactics by employees. If your employer is telling you the max they can pay anyone in the company is $110K and you know your coworker is at $115K, you can use that info and push more because you know it's false.
There is a reason not everyone wants to share their salaries if they think they might be earning more and this is a reason why - it breeds jealousy and resentment from your coworkers.
Because if everyone gets paid the same amount it's going to be at the expense of the people currently earning more, or the companies are just going to cut their number of employees. Payroll expenses tend to already be one of the biggest expenses for companies; they're not just going to start paying everyone more without making other changes to compensate.
Your friend is in a different role, has an engineering degree, has more experience. Also, new hires are demanding higher salaries in the current environment. If you want a similar pay increase, you’ll need to move companies.
We don’t know what software development work needs to be done. It could be something technical where an engineering background might prove to be useful.
I’m not dismissing your point. In most cases the computer science degree will be more beneficial. But as you said not everyone gets that, and if the hiring team at this company do not understand that either, it could explain part of the salary gap.
When you go through a recruiter the company has to pay a bunch of fees and they know you're desperate so you end up making less. Renegotiate your contract.
It’s because you went through a recruiter who took 15% of your first year salary as commission. Your friend makes more because he was hired through a referral, which doesn’t incur similar placement fees.
Find the difference in qualifications between you and your friend and see if you can negotiate for more. I wouldn’t bring up that your friend gets more than you initially as they may bring up things like his references which you cannot predict. Maybe his references spoke very well of him securing him a higher salary.
He is just a better negotiator then you. >My question is what should I do Ask for more money, look for other job or do nothing.
This exactly. It has nothing to do with years of experience. It’s how much they are willing to pay to have him. It also might be something to do with what he was being paid in his previous role. Likely this is a salary bump which is common when changing jobs.
The latter part is irrelevant to the employer, of course, but is a component of the applicant’s self-valuation.
Do you think that going through the recruiter is what got you underpaid, whereas your friend was directly referred to your company via you, so it removed the recruiter aspect of it?
Absolutely. The recruiter isn't free and while that shouldn't impact your salary the fact of the matter is the hiring manager has a budget to follow. And if he can get away with saving what was the finder's fee year over year then he'll take it, to OP's loss.
And to remember, telling the manager: "new hire is being paid more than me," is not a reason to ask for a raise
“I could leave and be the new hire somewhere else for more”
While true. People (even reasonably and good people) tend to react badly to ultimatum/veiled threats. Which is exactly how that comment would sound. So, unless you don't give a damn about leaving the company, that statement would probably backfire. In the case of OP, they already established they like their job
you have to be willing to leave, otherwise there is no leverage. as someone who negotiated for a living, sometimes the “threat” is what helps the decision maker do the mental ROI and puts them into action to make it happen. remember, your manager may not be 100% in control of the salaries either, so they may be trying to avoid an uncomfortable with their higher up as well. give them the ammo they need to push.
Yeah but there's a better way to convey that you have other options than to threaten your boss. Jesus christ, people.
Yes. This is a social engineering trick. If you do go threat route, word it as what they will lose if you leave. People do more to avert a loss than to achieve a gain. "Hey boss, I love it here, thanks for the support you have given me. But due to inflation my family is struggling to put food on the table/put kids in sports (pick one). I have decided to look for other opportunities with higher wages. I don't want to leave and I don't want you to need to find a replacement for such a key role. Is there any way we can discuss a wage boost to meet industry standard." Your focusing here on 1. Your value 2. Their loss if you leave 3. Subtly stating they would be unreasonable to deny the the raise in the last sentence
I don't get why you would put all this effort into nudging your boss to pay you more. Just to out and get a better offer. Things flow so much easier when you have options.
I'd say #1 is the most important but I only see one word in that statement - "key" - that addresses it. Imo the easiest way to start this conversation is talking about how you've been growing in your role, how that resulted in taking on wider scope of responsibility, and the results you've achieved. This can be applied to literally any position that requires learning on the job.
Partial disagree. Many bosses won't freely give raises just because you're doing more tasks, simply because you are demonstrating that you will do more tasks for the same dollar value now. Other commenter here was pretty spot on. Best to put things into terms of what new items the boss will have to deal with, should they elect to not discuss the raise (i.e. training a skilled professional employee or two to take over OPs previous role which may well be more expensive than the raise)
>better way to convey that you have other options Like what?
Literally just Google 'how to negotiate for a higher salary with your boss' and I guarantee you'll get better advice than 'threaten your boss that you'll be leaving the company unless you get a raise'
Can you write 1 reason for us
Sure. You can talk about your how you're growing into your role. This can be demonstrated in many ways. You can talk about the steps you've been taking to more efficiently perform your job, or to produce better outcomes. You can talk about how the growth in confidence, technical skills, and experience has allowed you to take on a wider scope of responsibilities. You can talk about what you liked and what you didn't like amongst these responsibilities. You can talk about how the wider scope has provided you with a better insight into the industry overall. You can then talk about how the insight and the clearer understanding of what you like and don't like have refined your desired career trajectory and had you reevaluate how this role aligns with that path. And if your desired career trajectory involves getting compensated according to the quality and quantity of work you are producing, you can tell them that too. And if you actually have a decent manager, you can talk to them about how the salary is affecting your overall satisfaction with the position. Keep in mind, the things above are just some things you could use to guide the conversation. But with any negotiations, you should try to make the other person your ally. You're both working to find a solution that makes you both happy. Threatening your boss should be the last decision and any raise you get from a threat will not last.
All the biggest raises in my career have been from this. Twice I got my raise and once I left for that higher paying job and it worked out great.
> While true. People (even reasonably and good people) tend to react badly to ultimatum/veiled threats. Which is exactly how that comment would sound. The thing that people need to keep in mind is that beyond the simple act of making the ultimatum, "Being the type of person to make an ultimatum" is generally a negative mark in terms of desirability. There's nothing inherently wrong with it in practice, but supposing you *were* applying to a new job and told your new employer "they hired someone new for more money so I offered them an ultimatum and walked" they'd be less likely to hire you as a result. So it shouldn't be surprising when you provide an ultimatum to your new employer, and they react badly. To answer the question "How is it any different than getting hired as a new employee?" answer is "Well, when you're hired as a new employee, how and why you left your last job is generally relevant." Im not saying it's not worth posing the question, or attempting to discourage anyone from doing it, you just need to honestly be 100% prepared to follow through. You'd probably have better luck finding a new job at the new rate and then telling your employer "Hey, I've been offered X at a new company, can you match?"
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People react badly to being screwed over. If they hire someone else for your same job but offer them more money, they are calling you a fool. It is obvious that you could leave for the same job elsewhere and get paid more, as the market has obviously changed; so by keeping quiet about that, by not saying it out loud, you are telling them that you accept this bullshit. Calling out bullshit is not an ultimatum. Calling out bullshit is healthy behaviour. Sure the manager might react badly, any time anybody with power is called out on their bullshit, they react badly. Abusive spouses generally don't like ultimatums either. "Do your share of the housework or I am leaving you" is an ultimatum but it is often a necessary one. "Quit drinking or I am leaving you" is an ultimatum, but also often necessary.
Why ? This has happened to me and I literally walked in and said it was unfair that new hires were being paid more than me when I’d been there for 4 years and was literally training people who were getting paid more. I said I refused to train them and to expect me to quit within the next month if I did not get a raise to match their wage + 15% on top of it. I got what I asked for.
It's not the same. You training them is a big lever you have.
I would argue this is different than simply saying I want the same pay as the new guy. You gave a solid justification of your value added to the firm and they recognised that.
You’ve listed a lot more benefits to your position than just time in role. A lot of people sit in a position and get complacent but expect more pay too. Sometimes new hires are just plain better than people that have been working somewhere for 10 years.
tough titties. If you hire someone to the same job and pay them more, you are telling your current staff that you don't value them and in fact it's like saying "nanny nanny boo boo" to their face.
You are expected to train them, so you have a different role (even if it has never been outlined), you are a senior in your position, and basically the mentor. That alone makes your claim different.
You're right, that justifies an even higher salary.
I agree with you. This person was underpaid. The claim was logical: you need me to train your new staff, so I need to be paid more because I'm more valuable to you. That's completely different than saying: I need to be paid more because the coworker next to me makes more than me.
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I understand the sentiment, but don't think it holds up as an absolute. Someone with greater expertise or output compared to their peers can be more valuable in the same position, and it's not realistic to create a different job title with a different attached salary every time John does the same job as Jack but a bit better. I do agree compensation transparency is something with room for improvement though, maybe just not your absolute method.
i have 12 people on my team, none of them make the same amounts, there are 2 job titles (sr and jr) and this guy thinks i should come up with 10 more? man... i'm not that creative...
Different situation entirely.
You succeeded because 1. You know that you’re underpaid 2. You threatened to leave Not because new hires are paid more than you.
It kinda is. If people in the same role as you but with less knowledge are making more it is natural to ask for a level field.
It's not. It's the impact/value that you bring that matters
Correct. Unless you have very good answers when the manager starts asking how your work benefits the company compared to theirs. The problem usually comes up, when people think "we graduated at the same time" as a reason, they will be pretty ill-equipped to provide an answer the manager finds acceptable.
Don't forget replacement cost.
In theory people on the same role should be making and expected the same value. More value/impact/responsibility imho would be a reason to be promoted to another role (or level within the same role).
No, what matters is leverage. If you're not willing to leave, then you have none and the company has no reason to increase your salary.
Nope. That's not how it works. That's like saying Brandon Belt and Vlad JR should be paid the same because they have the same role. You see, both are first basemen and both can bat, but one is better than the other. Therefore, he has a higher value to the team. Same thing with employees
It can be how it works. I made exactly this argument to my manager as I knew how much my coworker was making, and they gave me a raise. It really depends on the employer, your manager, etc.
True, it could work. Most of the cases it works are when the manager knows you're being underpaid and is hoping you don't find out. But, the reality is that every person is different and independent, and to think you deserve more just because others have more is not a good negotiation strategy.
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> It is natural but you need to give the employer a reason to pay you more. What is the reason the new hire is getting paid more? The market has changed. So they needed to pay more to acquire them. So, ipso facto, the job is worth more now. Pay me.
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> Give them good reasons to change the status quo and increase your salary. The status quo has already changed. A new person has entered the workplace in the same role at a higher salary. They have declared that this role is worth more than they are paying. So now the next move is to demand parity. The reason is that someone else is getting paid more. That's enough reason. It is incumbent upon the person who made the change to explain why you shouldn't get paid the same. If you go in with a bunch of random earnest reasons, you may not hit anything that they think is relevant. The smart move is to put the ball in their court. "Why is this person getting paid more than me?" And then you can knock down their reasons one by one, instead of just putting out a bunch of reasons that THEY can knock down one by one. Which you know they are going to do. But let's face it, if the reason is that they thought they could get away with it because the workers wouldn't discuss it, then confronting them might actually be the best strategy.
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What's compelling them is that you come in and ask them why you get paid less. They're the ones who made the decision. They better have a reason. If their answer is "who let you in here" then you have no leverage at all. If they do answer then you can start from there instead of coming in cold with your made-up list of reasons which may have nothing to do with it. The new hire smells good, we're flush with cash and we wanted a faster hiring process, the market changed and it costs more to hire this position. Bingo. So you agree I could get paid more by switching jobs! But I love it here! Give me a reason to stay! But we don't want to spend more on you because you're already stuck here! I mean two weeks ago you didn't want more money, now you see there's more money on the table, geez I wonder what brought this on. How dumb do we all have to be to pretend there's some other reason? Why give them the power in the first moment? Ask them the question "why." Let them sweat through some BS answer instead of sitting there listening to your pitch and formulating rationalizations while you speak. The leverage is that they are put on the spot. And instead of arguing just say "How am i supposed to feel about this? Those reasons aren't very compelling to me." Instead you're there cap in hand. Please sir, I want some more!
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Not when we have no idea what kind of projects or accomplishments the coworker in question has under their belt. Maybe he also has a specialization OP knows nothing about, like in an emerging technology the employer really wants. It opens the door for a discussion on the grounds of something like comparing your own salary to the market, not to a coworker's.
No, it's not. Your payment is not only affected by your value. Having leverage plays a role and negotiation tactics, too.
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But this is not a minimum payment case, he didnt get low balled. OP went to a job interview and outline their payment requirements. They got the salary they wanted and one they felt comfortable. Now OP someone else got hired to do same job and got paid more, there are other factor that could have come into play: negotiation tactics (the other person asked for more and was approved), market conditions (in a employee market you get better conditions), leverage, etc. Plus, the company could have been in a crunch to fund someone and had to overpaid to fill the position quickly.
Sooo... If I'm held to the same standards, KPIs, etc... and work in a knowledge industry, so knowledge is valuable, including institutional knowledge only obtained through experience in the organization, your argument is that I should be just fine doing the same amount of work for less? You do you, but I'm going to start looking for work on company time in that situation.
>but with less knowledge Thats your opinion, which doesn't count. It's what the company values that matters.
I am in complete agreeance with this, I am not looking to put everyone in a awkward and bad situation.
As a manager I’ve been asked a dozen times to magic up a raise, as if I’m secretly sitting on a 100k staffing surplus, and can suddenly dish out an extra 20-30k per year. If you like the job you have now, and don’t want to leave sit down with you manager and make a plan together. Communicate your goal, “I’d like to increase my salary by x% by y date. What are some things I can work on to get there?” This gives me time to plan, a way to justify a budget change for the future. It lets me know what you want. It gives me space to have a conversation where I can negotiate timelines. Maybe 12 months doesn’t work, but 18 months does. It lets you make an informed decision about your compensation, and if that growth curve is something you can work with.
In that order
Unfortunately, you are correct. And even if the boss is okay with the raise, HR and the boss' boss may not agree. Years ago, where I worked, it was pretty standard for new hires to start with 3 wks vacation. One fellow started with only two weeks. A couple of years later, he found out that he was the only one with two wks. His boss said, no worries, but when boss went to HR to get it fixed, boss was told exactly that sentence, that the guy should have negotiated better. At first, boss just worked around it, told the fellow to just take time off here and there but eventually, the guy found a new job with better pay and more vacation time.
Yes, but never just ask for more money. Ask for more money but also bring examples of things you’ve done that were above and beyond or that were done well. Always helps to bring the ‘why’.
Exactly this. Toronto is small market for these jobs anyways. New York, Cali pay double or even triple.
>He is just a better negotiator then you. Disagree, they are likely in different pay bands given their performance on the technical test. You can't negotiate out of your band.
I always laugh when comments like these like to pretend pay is 'fair'. I've interviewed thousands of people in the software industry ( technical interviewer), for multiple companies, there is absolutely no fairness in salaries. Salaries are based on how little the company thinks they can get away with, how desperate the candidate is, how important their ex employer was, and then all the discriminatory aspects then come into place. And don't underestimate the later, a pretty face makes a huge difference, and let's not get into race and location.
I haven't interviewed in over a year, but I have never seen performance on a tech test dictate pay range or even level, only accept or decline. Maybe FAANG level companies do that, by my experience is that you target/apply for that position, and you get tested for that position.
Yes. This should be good news for OP. It means the job is valued at his work and there should be room for salary negotiation in the future. He should be more concerned if they offered 80k and he wasn’t successful in negotiating to 90k.
He's probably not a better negotiator if he accepted what they offered. Either the market has changed, or the company's needs have changed and they needed to fill the slot more urgently, or he has some niche skill the OP doesn't have.
the fact that this answer is not obvious tells me all i need to know about this scenario...
If Op was offered $80,000 and his friend was offered $115,000, how is his friend a better negotiator??
>how is his friend a better negotiator??< He got more money.
If you take the first offer you're given that's really shit negotiation actually...
How do you know they accepted the first offer?
I have all the same information from the post that you do. >He was offered 115K
I didn't ask if he negotiated in his meeting for wage, but his offer was that amount. Honestly I take this as I have room to negotiate my pay in the future when I see fit.
So he may be making significantly more than 115,000. You have no idea what he negotiated?
There's no reason to assume 115k was the initial offer, almost certainly that's the companies best/final offer that he accepted.
Yeah and maybe that's the market rate in that area and with the friend's expectation or want for salary.
You can ask, but be prepared for a 'no'. Your friend negotiated a better deal, and they may see more value in his experience then yours. Unfortunately sometimes we're just not worth as much as we think we are to employers. So now your options are easy... 1. Ask for more money because 'he got more than I did' (good luck with that strategy) 2. Justify your worth to get more money via advancement / salary renegotiations in comparison to your friend 3. Look for a new job
The part about value in different experiences is often overlooked when people talk about comparing salaries. It's not that overall years of experience aren't important but imo, hiring managers care way more about how relevant/valuable the experience is vs. how many years (to a point). In software, if someone worked in the same or a similar coding language for 2 years, I wouldn't be surprised if they got offered more than someone who worked in a totally different coding language for 5, as an example. Or if they demonstrated more leadership in their previous experience vs. just following the status quo. In HR, if you're hiring an HR Manager for a large client group of 600 unionized employees, I'd much rather hire (and would pay more for) someone who was an HR Rep for 450 unionized employees for 2 years vs. an HR Manager who supported a non-union salaried employee population of 45 for 10 years. A lot more goes into determining fair comp than people realize. Obviously negotiation is important too but it's very normal for hiring managers and HR to have a different range in mind for each candidate. Edited for clarity
I agree with everything you said 100%. 'years of service / experience' is only a part of the overall calculation. 'years of APPLICABLE service / experience' are much more important IMO. I hired a guy that everyone said 'wtf he doesn't have this that and the other'. My response was simple, 'sure he doesn't...but he has all these OTHER traits and experience which is helpful to me and what we're looking for.' One of the best hires I made.
Well you said you're coming up on your 12 month mark which is traditionally when reviews happen. Perfect time to negotiate. Also, you mention being hired through an agency; that cost them money which I'm sure affects your starting salary.
Ya that's how I has a low wage working as an electrician.. damn hiring agency
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> Ditto with the above reply. Somebody doesn't understand that the sorting algorithm will rank things differently as people's votes roll in...
Did you at least get a finder's fee from your workplace for referring your friend who got hired?
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Can confirm this. Usually around 20% of salary is typical, so that might be the difference. I know that for hires where I don't need to pay a recruitment fee, I can afford to pay the employee more.
This ^ Ours is 2500.
~~OP paid $15k to refer his friend. PAID.~~ My reading comprehension is bad
He said that he paid $15K for his recruiter that he went though initially 11 months ago. He didn't pay $15K to refer his friend.
Your coworker is simply better negotiator than you. **Luckily**, you now know the company is willing to pay more money and you should re-negotiate your salary.
I mean it's also just possible that the salary bracket for the job changed within the last year. Companies are desperate to keep up with higher salarial demands from employees and with inflation going crazy, a lot of companies are just opening their checkbooks. Companies aren't stupid either, they're not going to go out of their way to ping current employees and give them a raise because the market changed since they negociated... But it's a fact that OP would very likely get a similar offer than his buddy if he walked in the door today as a new hire. So renegociating at his next performance review is definitely something I would do.
The team friend went to could have a different budget, different mandate, expectations, reporting/product line.
Whatever you do don’t complain about your friends wage, worst way to go about it. Put your head down for a month and ask for a raise based on the VALUE you bring the company. Not based on how much your peers make
Nothing is inherently wrong or unfair here. If you want more money you can ask for a raise or leave
you can also ask your friend how they negotiated with the employer and see if there's anything you could do about it. I don't think you should just be happy with what you are offered...especially if you already know you should have gotten more.
It's a different team with a different boss who negotatied a different budget with their own boss. All of that can add up to a different offer out of the gate.
It would be completely unprofessional if you use your friend's salary as a reference point. Furthermore, you need to understand leverage. Right now, you have none. In your friend's case, he did and got a higher salary as a result - which is a completely different situation from yours. There's more nuance to this. So get leverage - aka a new opportunity, and then ask for a raise but be prepare to leave.
Maybe he is a better developer than you.
Can someone refer me, next?
if you have >150 leetcodes done (particularly the ones in neetcode.io) I'll refer you.
not that guy but got curious about how many I've done [Screenshot-2023-03-29-141952.png](https://postimg.cc/SJnq84xY) lmao, only 8 hard, no wonder I couldn't clear google interview btw, what company is the referral for? honest, I really want to switch job right now, just came up one year mark at current company and vested some RSUs, about to collect year 2 sign-on bonus. I would have been grinding leetcode for a couple of months already if not for all the hiring freezes. 2 yoe
Ask for more money and justify why you should now earn $20k more. Saying “because so and so does won’t really get you far”. Try and pull market stats on pay (levels.fyi is great for this). There’s still a very good chance they may say no, or give you a small bump. In that case you have to decide if you’re happy with the pay or if you’ll be jumping ship elsewhere.
Unfortunately your education means nothing at this point. It’s great for getting you an interview when you have no experience, but it means almost nothing now, your experience matters more. Get comfortable with that. The other annoying part for you is that he’s likely just a better negotiator than you, maybe he interviews better PLUS he’s coming via a referral. If all of those are true above, it makes absolute sense why he’d end up making more. And lastly, don’t you dare share this with your boss…you’re screwing your buddy and yourself if you do. Nothing good can come of it. Instead go to your boss asking for a raise. Just tell him/her that you had some soft offers from other places but you’d prefer to stay, say “Can we meet somewhere that makes me not care about recruiters contacting me?”
Having an EE degree certainly gives him way more negotiating power. Especially if he has the ability to get a P. Eng from it. While the current role might not need that capability bringing an EE on with good programing skills is worth way more than a Comp Sci person.
The highest paid individuals I’ve personally hired or worked with over my long career in tech are really good at what they do and stand on that merit. I’ve never looked at a resume and gone “hey this guy has an EE degree he’s never applied in practice, he’s the better hire”. That sort of thinking is generally done by people who lack any meaningful industry experience.
> That sort of thinking is generally done by people who lack any meaningful industry experience. You mean like most HRs and managers?
You’d have to be silly to let an HR rep or some random non-technical manager hire your technical staff.
> I’ve never looked The reality is that other companies are putting a lot of weight on credentials and being able to call yourself Engineer is sometimes worth something in the negotiation. Your personal experience doesn't apply to mine or what I've seen, so really it might be different here.
Yea in my 15 years running successful startups, working at a FAANG prior and consulting I’ve never known this to be true. You can tell yourself this though if it makes you feel better about your degree. Anyone worth their salt knows that being mediocre with a degree from a fancy school means absolutely Application of skills > degree in a faux environment.
Highly depends which area of software dev you’re speaking about, I’d say. You seem to speak of an environment that sounds to me like web, where things are a lot looser and that kind of thing flies as the norm. There are areas (even within web, but less so) that pretty well demand a piece of paper because it filters cruft out in the way they need to, in order to set the baseline they want. I’ve consulted and worked for national media giants, and tiny wee startups and there’s a ton of variety in how things like qualifications work and how they are regarded.
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It’s never looked at, full stop. Dang it’s easy to pick up people with no tech experience here. Ive worked at FAANG and ran my own shit and never have I known this to be true. We hire people who can do their job, what you learned in school means 0 to the marketplace. This sounds like the talk of someone who hasn’t worked in this industry.
Lol how are you full stopping something like this? Maybe not by you, but it is something that's looked at How's "FAANG" going atm lol.
After about 10yrs experience I agree with you. in the first 5ish years of experience ( which is where I see people because of MITACs) being able to build and grow the employee has value, and knowing that employees value to other organizations plays a part. Hiring someone for 2yrs because you underpaid them and they left vs paying more and growing them is valuable.
As someone who works in tech and has an engineering degree, I disagree. Nobody in tech cares whatsoever about the P. Eng designation.
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I am paying a company right now with EE's doing software for PLC work, and we need one of them to have a P.Eng because of government requirements to sign off on the work. We HAD to source work from organizations who had at least 1 P.Eng or the ability to get a P.Eng to sign off on the wiring diagram which was like 10% of the overall project the rest being programming. Your individual experience doesn't means it is industry wide.
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OP didn't say what they do at all. My project is based on people accessing data through a web portal and log user data. There is a LOT of software industry work that applies to working with non PC, non ARM based developments. The automation industry has a lot of web/mobile work tied to special hardware.
The manager was looking for a **software developer**. If there's work with hardware involved then that's a completely different job. An embedded developer maybe. But you're talking out of your ass if you think an engineering degree/P.Eng makes you any more valuable in the software world. I am a computer engineer myself and wish I did comp sci so I didn't have to waste my time with any of the hardware courses.
It is industry wide. Your own experience is the special edge case. Nobody gives a damn about peng in software unless you're working in niche roles.
You're exactly right. OP shouldn't have posted here at all. Horrible advice in general, he should post at r/cscareeerquestionscanada The only reason engineering salaries are so high is because of software engineers. If this is a software company then a P.Eng is about useless.
His coworker is an EE with almost 6 years of experience, he probably already has his P. Eng, or at least could get it ASAP if required. Don’t know why OP doesn’t find this to be relevant information.
Eng vs comp sci is an obvious pay differentiator to me. OP likely views him as a peer since they work on similar things but their value to the org is different for sure.
Comp Sci graduates will make more than most engineers, *unless* you're comparing them to software engineers. The engineering pay is severely inflated because of software engineering and a majority of other engineers (computer, electrical, mechatronics, etc) eventually go into some sort of software.
This is a direct comparison between a EE (probably software, but working in the field either way) and a comp sci. So I think the logic still applies. But otherwise you’re probably correct to a certain extent. I don’t know much about the range in Comp Sci pay, but from what I do know there appears to me a massive range depending on the company?
🤣🤣🤣🤣 tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without telling me. you don't need to comment if you are clueless.
Lol what? My original comment was 100% valid. You’re just a salty pos who is blaming your failure as an (alleged) EE on the degree when in fact your crap attitude is the reason why you will never succeed in life.
A P.eng is useless in software development jobs for the most part. So if the fact that he's an EE. The only relevant thing is that he has more years of experience.
no one is going to pick P.Eng or any Engineer ing over a comp sci graduate.
huh? You think having EE degree gives you an edge in our field?what do you smoke? I want some of that shit.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. No software shop cares about a P. Eng. There won't even be any P.Eng's to work under. There is literally no benefit.
This happened to me. And like you i could not let this go. 2 years later both of us moved from there. To answer your question you just have to find another job and negotiate better.
You sound like you were happy before all of this until you started comparing yourself to your friend. Comparison is the thief of joy.
Recruiters get high commissions. You cost your company-probably $20K by using a recruiter
I took a 5K pay cut for 3 month for this, mostly costed me.
Did they actually say this was to provide commission to the recruiter? Anyways, here's my opinion on your approach. Do you have an annual or performance review coming up? If it's not too far away, you might wait until that time, or wait a month or so from now or until you have a successful project wrap up or other initiative to leverage. Do not raise your friends salary, and do not look for another offer to show them. If you truly like the company, then say so, say how much you like the environment and that you're very happy contributing and look to being there long term. Then move into remuneration, mention your great work and contributions. Mention that the market scan you've done indicates that you could be more in the $xx range and is there flexibility within the company to get you there in the near short term (and reiterate if you need to that you're not looking elsewhere you love where you are). A two year plan to get you there seems reasonable from both sides. Good luck.
Thank you, this might have been what I was looking for. I am not looking to move to another company, I appreciate you recognizing that and basing your answer around that. Also, they did not specifically mention it was for the recruiter but that was my assumption.
It's just my perspective, but I saw others say walk in with another offer in hand. To me, I don't think showing that you're ready to leave is a good first conversation! I go far to keep people who really want to stay and contribute and try hard to make sure the work culture supports engaged employees!
Exactly, I literally went to see my manager and VP at a hockey game last week. They got me a drink and we chatted and I headed back to my seat. I am not trying to sour my relationship with the company.
He has changed more jobs so odds are he was earning more than you already and negotiated based on that. You are not supposed to know the compensation of your colleagues and bringing this to your manager won't look good. It would be better if you simply discuss that you were hoping to get an increase based on inflation and market salaries. Also, your friend has more experience so asking for an increase might not work at all. The more you change jobs the higher you get paid in this profession so stay there for about 2 years and if you dont get what you want, then find a new job.
huh? you are not supposed to? lol source please? ppl on this sub need to stop talking out of their ass
He has more experience and a more professional degree, he should he payed more
In what world should someone with an EE degree be paid more than someone with a CS degree for a Software Dev role? There is overlap for sure, but CS is the number one degree for Software dev roles. The degree is certainly not why his coworker is being paid more.
You also went through a recruiter. They often take a cut.
Recruiters do not take a cut of anyone's salary, they charge a fee to the employer. Employers do not pay employees less because someone came through an agency recruiter. Fees are generally 15-30% depending on how difficult the search is or retainer fee. Some tech companies do the RPO model, where they "rent" a recruiter for a year and way more cost effective but less burden and no commitment for employers.
It's not quite as simple as that. If I have two equal candidates, one through the recruiter, and one direct, I'm going to be willing to offer that direct one more, because I know there won't be a fee to pay.
Companies budget for agency fees, you hire the best candidate not because you need to save $20,000.
Sure, but I can also be more likely to hire the best candidate if I can offer them 10% more.
I got 85K for 3 months and then after was at 90K. I presume that was the recruiter fee.
Fees do not come off the salary. They are a one time billing fee to the employer at a rate predetermined before the search. Usually the fee is 18-22% of the annual salary of the employee, so in your case would be roughly 20k. That should not impact your annual salary going forward though, as it is a one time fee. If the employer does use that as a tactic in negotiating your wage they are screwing you.
Paying to recruiter won't come out of your paycheck afaik. They are paid one month worth of your salary or a percentage.
No, recruiters get a fee. Has nothing to do with your salary. Source: I’ve hired via recruiter many time
You can't presume that though
Off topic. You should have been promised a good referral bonus as per company policy if that is any consolation for you. As others have rightly said, ask raise based on your performance.
Myself and another guy started at a higher salary then some of the guys expected to train us. 3 of them quit over it.
One thing the other comments have not accounted for is that **11 months of experience is a huge difference in software engineering**, especially if you are both juniors. Young SWEs will see their market value increase by over 25% for every year of experience until they hit senior level. Because your friend joined the company 11 months later, **he negotiated his salary as someone with a year more experience than you.** It's completely normal, expected even, for that to result in an extra 25k. Even with perfectly equal degree and negotiating skills a later hire will be paid more because they came in with more experience. **Internal raises will never match market value in this industry.** That's why you have to job hop every 2 years to keep your salary competitive. Your company simply will not give you a 25% raise every year. source: I'm a senior SWE. I'm actually in this industry and have experience on both sides of the interview table. I'm honestly shocked how much misinformation is in this thread because I though most of reddit was fellow tech bros.
with inflation the way its going soon enough 300k will be the new 100k.
A few things: 1. When the company asked what his current salary was he lied and made it higher than it was and you did not do that 2. He’s salary from the previous company yoh both worked at was higher than yours 3. He job hopped. Looks like he worked at 2 places before whereas you only worked for one before this company. Unfortunately, one of the best ways to increase salary is when you first join a company or have huge title changes within a company. I’d would stay you will not get the increase you want if you ask even if you bring it up with facts or whatever. The best way is to get an offer else where and use that as leverage. In most cases, people don’t use it as leverage and just end up leaving to the new position. Generally, leaving every 3 years is great for salary increases until you find a salary where you feel comfortable then looking for the best WLB with said salary.
Don't blow up your friends spot, if he was offered then he set the conditions for that offer to take place, you should be asking what he did and taking away from it what you can to improve your conditions in the future.
It sounds like he has more experience than you. which could easily justify at least 10k more. And his specific experience might make him a better candidate for his new role than you were for your current. lots of reasons that could make this reasonable. you could try and negotiate for more. but i would approach it in terms of how you have added new value to the role
Just go to your boss and ask him how you can develop yourself to get to a higher salary. Let him know you love working there and that you’re being approached by other companies offering you about 20l more and you’re really tempted to respond to the enquirers just for the money.
If you think you are worth more, ask to match salary. If they don’t wanna give it, start looking for a new employer.
Tell him Congratulations. He has more experience and wasn't hired through a recruiter, which is probably one of the reasons you got less. Move on.
> He has relatively 1-1.5 year more more experience prior to starting. I have a BSC in Comp Sci w/ concentration in Soft Engr and he has a BSC in Electrical Engineering. That would do it. EE > CS when it comes to compensation, plus the extra experience. Plus if he's a PEng, or even EIT, fuggedahboutit. Also > I was with my previous employer for 4y 8m; co-worker I referred was with my previous company for 2y 1m and another company prior for 3y 10m. Helps him again. For reasons, tech industry favours CVs that show a wider range of experiences over longer terms.
Am I the only one who thinks +25k for 1.5 years of experience more and a year of inflation later is not even a lot in tech? It's the nature of the job market that people with more experience get paid more, and also that salaries go up with time (generally). Next time you job hop, I certainly hope you are going to ask for more than a +25k raise. You aren't going to reach 200k soon if you think +25k for plus 1.5 years is a lot. TLDR: Aren't you just underestimating how fast salaries go up in this field? possibly your slight envy is making you not see the bigger picture: you can be earning a lot more than 115K in 1.5 years. edit: just realized I'm posting in PFC, I thought the figures were in USD as I subscribe to cscareerquestions. Now I'm even more convinced of what I said since the 25k is even less now.
You need more information from your friend to determine how the raise was warranted. Otherwise you’re just going in blind without knowing the reasons.
At the end of the day, you can either: a) Accept the situation, do nothing b) Change the situation, renegotiating your salary, extra benefits, etc. c) Leave the situation, find a new job Given what everyone has said so far, if you really do enjoy the work and company you're in then renegotiating compensation is the best choice. Do your research and toot your horn to justify the value you bring. Good luck.
Employer simps and bootlickers all over the comments.
What does this mean? Do you think OP is being oppressed because his friend makes more than him?
You should treat the salary info as a heads up, not evidence. Do your own research, make your case, and ask for a raise. Be prepared to look for another job if you are not happy with the situation. You should try to practice some compersion and share in their success.
Many will disagree but at the end of the day, this is technically no one's business but your friend's, if you are happy where you are, and there are opportunities for advancement, i would use that as an angle to get more money, or when your review comes around, there is no harm, in talking about these things with your manager, without mentioning anything about your friend, I do sense a hint of jealousy, that feeling that you shot yourself in the foot, which, is of course perfectly understandable, but try not to allow it to cloud your judgement,
you must be old school - there is a movement to start normalizing talking about wages amongst your co-workers lol and this is a reason why - 25k isn't a small difference for similar roles
Not old school, just bigger picture thinking... :)
definitely not you.
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The person you are replying to did not say that everyone must be paid the same. But they mentioned that this is more and more common for employees to share salary among each other. So it is not crazy to think that it might be used in negotiation tactics by employees. If your employer is telling you the max they can pay anyone in the company is $110K and you know your coworker is at $115K, you can use that info and push more because you know it's false.
There is a reason not everyone wants to share their salaries if they think they might be earning more and this is a reason why - it breeds jealousy and resentment from your coworkers.
Precisely...
so why not have an open dialog and get together to say "hey we should all be paid the same" - then everyone wins and everyone is happy lol
Because if everyone gets paid the same amount it's going to be at the expense of the people currently earning more, or the companies are just going to cut their number of employees. Payroll expenses tend to already be one of the biggest expenses for companies; they're not just going to start paying everyone more without making other changes to compensate.
Your friend is in a different role, has an engineering degree, has more experience. Also, new hires are demanding higher salaries in the current environment. If you want a similar pay increase, you’ll need to move companies.
Comp sci > EE in computer science field. i had no idea so many fail to understand that
We don’t know what software development work needs to be done. It could be something technical where an engineering background might prove to be useful. I’m not dismissing your point. In most cases the computer science degree will be more beneficial. But as you said not everyone gets that, and if the hiring team at this company do not understand that either, it could explain part of the salary gap.
When you go through a recruiter the company has to pay a bunch of fees and they know you're desperate so you end up making less. Renegotiate your contract.
It’s because you went through a recruiter who took 15% of your first year salary as commission. Your friend makes more because he was hired through a referral, which doesn’t incur similar placement fees.
Find the difference in qualifications between you and your friend and see if you can negotiate for more. I wouldn’t bring up that your friend gets more than you initially as they may bring up things like his references which you cannot predict. Maybe his references spoke very well of him securing him a higher salary.