A Midlevel Developer Making 160k Base Asked for 190k Base - Here Are the Details...
As we all know, the tech labor market continues its pullback and along with layoffs, we are seeing salaries pull back a little bit as well. We recently worked with a software engineer who continues to believe, from a financial perspective, that it still makes sense to be up front and aggressive in your salary requirements when you interview with companies. In this story, however, his strategy backfired. I wanted to use this moment as an opportunity to discuss a completely different approach to software engineering interviews so that the candidate always comes out a winner.
The engineer in the spotlight here has done well for himself and you can never fault anyone for continuing to reach for the stars. Let's call him Ben. Exactly seven years out of school, he technically aligns to a mid-level software engineer and his current salary is 160k. Ben has progressed nicely in his career, albeit on account of his job changes coming at the optimal times. Five employers in seven years and you can just tell that a few of the changes were classic "job hops" because the offers were well above his current compensation. By looking at his career, I am estimating that he came out of college making around 80k at his first employer and again, he now stands at 160k, representing a 100% increase in salary since graduating in 2015. Well done Ben!
However, this type of approach to job searches can't go on forever. I think we can all agree that Ben won't be at a 320k base salary seven years from now. His percentage of compensation increases with each job change will start leveling off significantly. Since he has realized some nice financial growth early in his career, the focus now needs to be on his path to becoming recognized as a Senior, Staff or Principal software engineer. And to do this, he needs to start approaching his job searches in a more exploratory manner. For every company he applies to, he needs to speak with someone in the Engineering organization. We were working with Ben about a month ago and he sent us his resume that was fully updated and said that even though he was starting to look around some, he was not going to accept anything less than 190k base salary. We presented an opportunity to him and he gave us permission to present his resume to the company.
However, our hopes were pretty low. I knew immediately that asking for a 190k base was not going to be accepted by any company in Austin right now. When I presented Ben's resume to our client, I passed along this concern and their internal recruiter thanked me for the heads up. A call with scheduled between the recruiter and Ben and here was her feedback,
Hi Mark,
Just got off the phone with Ben. You were correct. He quoted me a 20% bump in base salary over what he's making now (160K) which would bring us at the low 190's base range. His experience, unfortunately, is wildly light for that type of request.
For a little bit, I was thinking about a call with our Principal engineer but we're going to pass on that for now. Please keep me updated on anyone else you can find and if you can close it out with Ben it would be appreciated.
Rachel
As we all know, first impressions mean a lot. And for at least the next 2-3 years, Rachel (as well as myself for that matter) will view Ben in the light of a candidate whose job search is driven by money. And trust me when I say this feedback will not only be stored in Rachel's memory but also the company's applicant tracking system. At this point in the post, I can understand some of my readers having an issue with my position here. In seven years, Ben has gone from 80k base to 160k. What is wrong with that? Sounds like he has played things perfectly so why not keep this same approach? To address any dissenting opinions here, let's talk a little bit more about our job searches and what it means to fully explore an opportunity at a technology company.
Among all of the responsibilities that an internal recruiter owns, one critical function that doesn't get a lot of attention is that of being a gatekeeper. Please remember that, at her very core, Rachel is a gatekeeper. Not only does Rachel source candidates and review incoming resumes but she also owns a significant amount of authority in determining who the engineering organization does and doesn't interview. If a candidate brings a few too many red flags in the introductory call, the interview process comes to a halt. After all, why pass a candidate and all of these respective concerns on to the engineering team? Why waste their time? And Ben's 30k salary increase requirement resulted in his immediate rejection.
Ben most likely walked away thinking it was no big loss but eventually he is going to need to rethink this approach of his. At the end of the day, he learned nothing about this company's opportunity. I'm not discounting Ben's conversation with Rachel but make no mistake, it was non-technical and covered the high level responsibilities as depicted in the job description. A software engineer gets the real meat of an opportunity when they speak with one of the company's senior developers. In this particular case, my client has a very strong engineering organization and their leadership team is solid. The next step in this process would have had Ben speaking with the company's Principal Engineer and whether or not he would have made it to the on-site interview, he would have been able to get the details he was looking for in this opportunity. His curiosity about our client would have been satisfied. But none of this was realized. I've spoken many times in the past year about software engineers using their job searches as a form of networking and an opportunity to build their professional brand. Allow me to speak briefly about OJO Labs here in Austin.
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I love to talk about OJO. They have the strongest company culture in Austin and of course, everyone knows what I think of Qingqing. I love her and what she has built over there is just incredible. They also happen to have a badass internal recruiter by the name of Shannon Muller. And yes, Shannon is a gatekeeper. If you throw an aggressive salary requirement her way or bring any other red flags to the table, she politely shuts the process down and files your application. However, if your conversation with her goes well, she opens up the gates and moves you to the next stage. Some of the developers you might speak with include Carnell Washington, Jeffrey Rego or John Adair. Over the course of the process, you would meet a lot of OJO's engineering team and learn so much about the problems they're working on, not to mention the company culture as well. Talk about exploring a company to its fullest, right? As you wrap things up with them, you'll find yourself saying, "Damn, they have some badass engineers over there and they are doing some really cool work as well". And for you, the software engineering candidate, that's about as good as it gets.
From here, your interviewing performance is measured against OJO's definition of Senior, Staff or Principal engineer. Even if you are declined, you come away with a great experience because of the extent to which you were able to explore the opportunity. You met several members of their Senior engineers and you were able to share with them what kind of software engineer you are. Shannon would be 100% professional and she'd circle back with some really important interviewing feedback for your records. Whether you needed to have more experience with Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, BigTable, DataFlow) or more exposure to data processing tools such as Kafka, you come away with quality feedback that can only help you get better as a software engineer. And there is no professional damage to your career in not getting an offer from OJO. In fact, there is only upside if you ask me. Carnell and the others will remember you and Shannon will make sure to archive you properly in OJO's database should a more appropriate role come available in the future.
As we all know, times are a little tough right now. If you are currently interviewing here in Austin, please be careful about throwing around aggressive salary requirements in your first call with the company's recruiter. Remember, they are gatekeepers and they'll immediately assign a label on you as "money focused" or "all about the dollars". And I'm serious, this feedback is put in their applicant tracking system. Getting back to Ben, he is in good shape. Seven years out of college and making 160k base. However, his run of short employment tenures and big pay increases might be coming close to an end. I can't see him four years from now as a 10+ year experienced software engineer with 7-8 job changes in his career making 215k base. I just don't see it. And should that day ever come where he cuts his salary requirement, internal recruiters like Rachel might start scratching their head a bit as to why. Their immediate immediate reaction will be, "Hmmm, okay, what's up Ben?".
Even if you're at 140k base, please don't throw out 170k as a hard requirement to the internal recruiter. Your interview could be over after one call. Instead, approach the process in an exploratory manner where you get to speak with a Principal Engineer or Manager of the team you'd be working on. Get the details you need out of this opportunity and let them learn some more about you as well. Do this with about 4-5 companies here in Austin over the course of a month (so that your schedule allows enough time for the code tests and assessments) and the experience will help build your professional brand around town. Once an offer comes your way, even if it isn't for a 30k bump in pay, it will still be a competitive package and you'll have realized yet another successful job search. Let's hope Ben acknowledges this in the near future so he can take the next step up in his career.
Thanks,
Mark Cunningham
Technical Recruiter
512-699-5719
Android Engineer at Fusion Alliance
2yQuite a few people have 10+ YOE with a 215k base... If you're a valuable contributor and bring a lot of value to your company, that employer will compensate you for it. This is especially common in super specialized roles like ML Research @ Apple or developing investing models @ Goldman Sachs where companies will compensate you aggressively since that person generates 30x their salary through their work. A company can also always make an exception to the rule if they need to fill a position bad enough
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2ySome people will need the time to grow up!
Technical Leader, Father, & Athlete: Over 2 decades of scaling teams and solving complex technical issues worldwide. In other words: A major People/Process/Technology Nerd.
2yThanks Mark Cunningham for continuing to drive the discussion. Great insights for any candidate. I have spoken with quite a few engineers within the downturn and often I really focus on their "professional engineering experience". It's just not the number of years, but the environments where they do it and really, "what they have learned since school". At the end of the day, it's more about the value the engineer can bring to the company + the learning that the company can provide than just base pay. Yes, money is important, but learning is the most important thing we do in life. I love to see engineers that progress within a company much more than "hired guns" chasing the money. However, at the end of the day, the knowledge is an engineers primary asset.
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2yAnother great post Mark! It's always interesting to see your perspective on the Austin tech market. I agree pretty strongly with your assessment here.
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2yGreat advice Mark. Someone asking for a pay that is way out of bounds is an instant pass from me. Especially if I see someone that was as job hoppy as you say, because my bet in the past few years that him jumping was all about salary, very mercenary.