Here's how you can navigate salary negotiations as an experienced application developer.

Navigating salary negotiations as an experienced application developer involves understanding your worth. Research the average salary for developers with your experience and skills, considering specialized knowledge like high-demand programming languages or popular development frameworks. Recognize your unique contributions to past projects and how they drove success for your employers. This information will justify your salary expectations and serve as a benchmark during negotiations.

Researching average salaries for application developers with my experience level and skills on platforms like Glassdoor and LinkedIn has been invaluable. This data empowers me to set realistic and competitive salary expectations. It also is very useful to check the market salary from the local websites with similar data. You may also check with the similar job postings and market worth of the same skills you have.

- Quantify your achievements through KPIs and metrics. For instance efficiencies like number of applications automated, number of reusable libraries built etc and how they helped towards organisational goals.

During a negotiation, It is a good idea to use the numbers or metrics to give an idea of the work you have done which aligns with the business expectations or values. Develop and practice the way how you can paint your work in the business values canvas. For example, how optimization of an application reduced load times by 30%, which directly improved user retention. This concrete example helped justify your salary increase.

Good times include the below - A significant milestone or a high risk project completion within constraints. - A major efficiency gain for the Unit and organization by a key initiative implementation where you played an integral role - A major deal conversion

Actually, I disagree with waiting for the perfect moment can lead to missed opportunities. Sometimes, it's necessary to initiate discussions proactively, especially if you've consistently demonstrated value even before planning or completion of a project.

I would negotiate for something that is realistically achievable as per the organization's past experiences. One of them is the consideration for an IJP. An IJP is an internal job promotion nomination that would go through a separate evaluation for selected individuals. Once nominated, it is really worth to work towards.

Salary increments always go through certain predefined guidelines and limits. A lot of this is unchangeable unless exception approvals are taken for a distinct achievement. It is upto the business unit head to take the ultimate decision based on the budgets they have and the Bell Curve enforcement from HR. This is a tricky and involved exercise involving adjustments, negotiations and exception approvals. A lot of this need to go through organisation thresholds according to their costs/margins and few are changed through exceptions. All need to be aware of this fact.