Salary Guides

Embedding Company Values To Build a Well-Structured Career Ladder

This article outlines the steps taken to create a clearly defined career path for engineers, including separating paths for individual contributors and managers, defining core values and expectations for each position level, and providing employees with a self-assessment document. The article also highlights the importance of defining values and providing day-to-day examples to illustrate them, as well as the importance of including both quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure performance.

The Importance Of Personality In Hiring Good Engineers

The author was an Engineering Manager at Saama Technologies in 2013 and was under pressure to hire 11 engineers quickly. He interviewed 600 candidates and shortlisted a few, taking into account their personalities and communication skills, as well as their technical abilities. He then worked with his management to create a special budget for salaries and bonuses, and continued to talk to the candidates until they joined the company. The team was a success and the author learned that it is important to never take shortcuts when it comes to hiring, and to consider the environment, culture, and personalities of the company and team when selecting a candidate.

Establishing a New Function

Niche's QA team was struggling to keep up with their increased automation needs, so the QA team leader proposed a new departmental structure with a separate function for automation. This new role, the Software Engineer in Test, would be dedicated to automation, allowing the QA Analysts to focus on manual testing. After a year of refining the role, the team was able to hire additional Software Engineers in Test and begin revitalizing their automation efforts. The lessons learned from this experience included the value of specialization, the importance of face-to-face communication while vetting candidates, and the importance of trusting in the expertise of team members.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

Discussing Pay Compensation

This article discusses how to approach a conversation about earning more money. It suggests researching the company's compensation authority, providing a list of accomplishments, and comparing market salaries to demonstrate why a raise is deserved. It also suggests being honest about other offers and emphasizing the value of staying with the current company. The article emphasizes the importance of making noise and letting the manager know that compensation is important.

Eight Proven Tactics for Salary Negotiations

This article provides eight tactics for negotiating salary, such as making sure your agenda is clear, doing research to understand your market value and position within the company, and using body language and non-verbal cues. It also encourages people to find common ground with their boss, be flexible, and use the "Powerlessness" and "No" cards when necessary. Lastly, it advises to not use precise numbers and to be the first to mention a number when negotiating.