The main tenet of this blog post is that you should argue for your compensation based on the amount of value you add to the company.
That's nice in theory, but the techies' dilemma is that it's often difficult or impossible to put a hard number on the value they have added.
How many customers were retained because you decreased response times by 100ms? How many customers were gained because of that slick UI you created? How many discounts were not handed out because of downtime that wasn't suffered because of your cautious error handling and exemplary testing? How much money was saved because of that documentation you made that helped the new hire ramp up faster?
Even when you can put a hard number on work you've done, like decreasing hosting costs by $15k per month, isn't that why you're paid so handsomely already? How are you going to do that again next year? (Why haven't you done it already?) Wasn't it a group effort?
The reality is, you're basically going to get paid based upon what your employer has deemed everyone else in your position is earning, plus or minus some % based upon experience level, your reputation, and how badly the company needs the position filled. If you don't like that, time to go into management or sales.
That's nice in theory, but the techies' dilemma is that it's often difficult or impossible to put a hard number on the value they have added.
How many customers were retained because you decreased response times by 100ms? How many customers were gained because of that slick UI you created? How many discounts were not handed out because of downtime that wasn't suffered because of your cautious error handling and exemplary testing? How much money was saved because of that documentation you made that helped the new hire ramp up faster?
Even when you can put a hard number on work you've done, like decreasing hosting costs by $15k per month, isn't that why you're paid so handsomely already? How are you going to do that again next year? (Why haven't you done it already?) Wasn't it a group effort?
The reality is, you're basically going to get paid based upon what your employer has deemed everyone else in your position is earning, plus or minus some % based upon experience level, your reputation, and how badly the company needs the position filled. If you don't like that, time to go into management or sales.