(1) Stop shaming each other for being "greedy" when they actually ask for what they merit. I can't tell you how many times on HN and elsewhere I've run into extremely defeatist attitude about this implying that we should be happy just to have jobs in the field. As long as these folks are around shaming fellow engineers for asking for more money they will drag everyone else down and other folks will laugh their way to the bank at engineers' expense. It needs to end.
Edit: See other replies to this post for great examples of this. Just because you get paid more than a lot of other folks, does that mean you're getting paid commensurate to the value you actually create?
(2) To justify these asks programmers must shift from doing things like chasing the latest JavaScript trend to focusing on delivering business value first and foremost. Every programmer hire is a gamble that might pay off big time or might end your business with crushing technical debt and poor decisions. Until programmers as a whole demand that each other focus on delivering business value first and foremost the shiny new tech chasers will, just like the shamers above, drag the salaries available for everyone down due to their own poor decision making.
The chasers will only drag your salary down, if the business can't distinguish you from them when hiring. Luckily, it's pretty easy for you to signal that you are not a chaser.
Getting paid more than other folks mostly means you are better at interviewing and negotiations. (Or, if you are a lifer, that you are good at your company's promotion process. If your company is sane, that might even imply something about how well you work.)
I don't think shaming or not makes a difference. It's just irrelevant. (Or are people really going to ask for less in their next negotiations because someone on the Internet 'shamed' them? Really?)
It's not just the Internet, it's real life too. If salaries are low across the board at $COMPANY it's an easy wedge for the management to use. "We couldn't give you more because then you would be making more than your coworkers. Do you feel like you really deserve more? You should be happy to have what you do already." If your coworkers are also too meek to ask for raises it's bad news for all the engineers. Pressure matters.
"We couldn't give you more because then you would be making more than your coworkers. Do you feel like you really deserve more? You should be happy to have what you do already."
The answer is to call their bluff and tell them that yes, you do feel like you deserve more. You may or may not add that you feel like your coworkers also deserve more. You can't negotiate your coworkers' salary for them. You're only in a position to negotiate your own.
In my case I have been fighting for my colleagues salary too, since they're "linked" by company policy.
It works because even though he's not asking for more money I can tell them what the cost of replacing us is, and I can tell them if one of us leaves the other is more than likely to follow.
Yes. And that's why every employee should spend some low amount of background effort constantly interviewing elsewhere. First, to get a feeler for what the rest of the market is doing. Second, to take a better offer if available. Third, even a committed lifer needs to keep the interviewing skills sharp, in case of layoffs or bankruptcy.
You do realize that it costs companies more to continually hire. If you add real value to a company, from my experience most non-global companies see and understand that. However, in many cases the engineer is mediocre in their job (regardless of actual skill) and still expects a company to increase their pay. In a generation of people that feel something is owed to them, unfortunately the mediocre engineer covers 80% of the talent pool.
There are also places that hamstring their above average developers with processes and/or interruptions that tend to bring down a lot of potential productivity (and morale).
Yes, I do realize. If you keep interviewing, you'll get a sense of how much your talents are worth in the market. (And the mediocre engineer you talk about will see their real worth too.)
These things aren't mutually exclusive. If it takes 10 devs 3 months to ship a Java EE app that requires 2 full time SREs to keep running, vs. 2 devs, 3 months and a part time SRE to ship something built with ShinyNewTech, then you better believe that's delivering business value.
ShinyNewTech bites people when they aren't intentional about introducing it and haven't done an accurate cost/benefit analysis. If you've done that analysis, and it really is a big difference in cost to market & cost of operation, then you're leaving money on the table by not taking that route. This happens all the time.
The cost of rejecting new stuff because the status quo seems to be working well enough is massive, especially because the status quo at most software shops is room-on-fire-this-is-fine.jpg
A good engineer certainly should know when to bite on new technology if it will deliver legitimate value but a FAR more common story in this industry is that whole stacks get rewritten for the new hotness with very little actual tangible gain to show for it. Opportunity cost of jumping at new tech when you shouldn't is much higher than the opportunity cost of the opposite.
It helps to try to price yourself out of 2/3-3/4 of the cold approaches you get from recruiters. If you want to make more, ask for it. If you're in a position, even if you don't like it, there's no harm to keeping your options open, or asking for 5-10% more than you are currently making. You might be surprised. Also, if you outright ask what the pay range is, more often than not, they'll tell you. That gives you some indicator of what to ask for.
Also bearing in mind where you stand on the skills ladder as part of that factoring.
(1) Stop shaming each other for being "greedy" when they actually ask for what they merit. I can't tell you how many times on HN and elsewhere I've run into extremely defeatist attitude about this implying that we should be happy just to have jobs in the field. As long as these folks are around shaming fellow engineers for asking for more money they will drag everyone else down and other folks will laugh their way to the bank at engineers' expense. It needs to end.
Edit: See other replies to this post for great examples of this. Just because you get paid more than a lot of other folks, does that mean you're getting paid commensurate to the value you actually create?
(2) To justify these asks programmers must shift from doing things like chasing the latest JavaScript trend to focusing on delivering business value first and foremost. Every programmer hire is a gamble that might pay off big time or might end your business with crushing technical debt and poor decisions. Until programmers as a whole demand that each other focus on delivering business value first and foremost the shiny new tech chasers will, just like the shamers above, drag the salaries available for everyone down due to their own poor decision making.