Hey y’all, I’m new to the Blind community and a new SWE in my career journey. I have an upcoming salary compensation negotiation coming up after a recent department transfer and would really any/all advice you all might have for me! Fair warning backstory is a little long but I’ll try to condense as much as possible! My background: I graduate college(2015) with a degree in graphic design and I didn’t do much with it until I got a production designer job at my current company(2017). The pay was CA minimum wage($15/hr) but I needed to take it because I needed the experience for the resume. I started playing around with Adobe Javascript libraries to create custom scripts to make workflow easier and fell in love with coding. In 2020-2021 I enrolled into a full stack Bootcamp and chose Javascript as my main language. I mentioned it to the Dev department director and he was able to write a check to help pay for the second half of the Bootcamp. Which made me want to join his team even more, so culture points def earned and I started making new friendships with the current devs. I finished the Bootcamp and went to talk with the dev director and he told me that the companies stack was C# and .NET heavy. I shared with him my desire to join his team and my eagerness to learn c# so he then pull out his cc and pays for a couple course for me and told me to talk to him once I finished. So instead of grinding leetcode after the Bootcamp and applying for jobs I focused on learning more. (January 2022 - Present) I finished the courses and the director got the approval to find a replacement for my old position and I was officially transferred to his department as a junior SWE. But there was a not so appealing catch, the salary. I was given the offer by the manager under the director and he told me the CEO approved the transfer at $19/hr… The manager and I were not so thrilled about it but he mentioned that I would have a 4-6 month evaluation period to prove myself as a swe. With no other offers or let alone interviews lined up I took the position and started working on little bugs for an internal app. Then more bugs, to eventually new feature requests on our customer facing application. I’ve received great feedback from my seniors and manager, I know I’m no genius but I love where my determination has landed me experience wise, just not compensation wise. My current manager has told me that he will go to bat for me to get the compensation I deserve but mentioned that it might not be much since I’m started from such a low starting point($19/hr) that he believes the ceo/leadership will see such a high increase percentage and not approve it and instead offer me something that still is in the hourly wage range. He has been helpful while I’ve been applying for jobs to have some sort of leverage before my salary negotiations meeting. I’ve received responses even had multiple panel interviews for a handful of companies but received no offers. I’m not aiming for any FAANG companies cause I know I’m not there yet, I would most likely fail those technicals. So I’ve been aiming for some medium sized companies. Sorry that was longer than I wanted but I felt a full picture of understanding where I’m at was necessary for any advice coming in. This would be the first time I’m even having a salary comp discussion in my career and I don’t know where to start and would appreciate any and all advice! Thank you for reading this far! Target TC: 65,000 #engineering #software #swe #tech #e-commerce
19/ hr for a SWE. Even LCOL gives more than that. Go with some data points like the average salary of SWEs in CA. Talk about the contributions you’ve made and how you’re interested in the work blah blah. See how much they give. If you’re not happy learn the skills and start looking on the side.
That was my idea, vulnerability moment, I think I’m just scared in general, mentioning data points while being interested in the companies mission. I feel like mentioning “my comp reflects you taking advantage of me instead of what your company values are defined as” is def not the right move hence me coming here
Can understand. We’re usually like this beginning of the career. Nothing wrong in asking politely as that also means you know your worth. Even if it don’t workout you’ll at least know you tried. Then you can gradually work on moving to a better paying job. Nothing to lose!
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1080
Update: Trans Coworker Stealing Breast Milk
Tech Industry
Yesterday
3309
The job market is absolutely brutal right now
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1903
I am starting to think Chinese interviewers currently fail non-Chinese candidates on purpose.
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1983
Cute girl on the floor
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2755
Crossed a line with my boss
Sorry too long, salary negotiation with current manager or did you get an offer?
Sorry it was so long, salary negotiations with ceo. Current manager has no decision power only influence. No offers from interviews had