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Asking for a raise is an unfortunate but integral part of the American corporate machine. This is because of how corporate America and capitalism work. Companies and executives are incentivized to efficiently run their businesses and maximize profits. The cycle goes something like this:
- Innovate and compete by creating new or improved products and services
- Expand and gain market share
- Optimize operations and increase cost-efficiency
The last bullet point isn’t really about business administration. This is more about economics. Companies generally exist to make money, and giving out raises unnecessarily is antithetical to making money. While not all corporations abide by these commonplace incentive structures, this sort of pattern is popular so there’s a good chance you’ll need to know how to navigate it.
Put yourself in a position to move the needle in terms that executives can understand: dollars and cents.
Executives don’t often deal in technical details and intricacies of the underlying technology used to build your product. They deal with budgets, schedules, headcounts, EBITDA, etc. You get the point. Put yourself in a position to move the needle in terms that executives can understand: dollars and cents.
To do exactly that, let me explain the following concepts and principles that are based on my experience as someone who has asked and received raises and promotions as a mechanical engineer and then later in a software engineering career. So let’s dive in.
Ask for a raise before you feel ready
Companies don’t pay you what you’re worth; they pay you enough so that you don’t leave.
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Executives will often stall and drag their feet to delay giving raises and promotions. They’ll use excuses like “we have to wait to see what the budget looks like” or “the timing isn’t right”. They’ll sometimes build a zero-sum game with a pool of money allocated across the entire company for raises. If one person on your team gets a substantial raise, you’re unlikely to get one as well. Companies don’t pay you what you’re worth; they pay you enough so that you don’t leave.
So get the idea in their heads early and ask for a raise before you feel ready. Even if you don’t get the raise you’re looking for, you’ll start the conversation and open the door for a future raise. Then later when you’re actually in a position of leverage, you kept the receipts and you can use them to say that your raise is long overdue. There are a lot of nuances when it comes to asking for a raise. Setting the stage is just one aspect that can help put you in a position to get you where you need to go.
Broaden and deepen your scope
As you take on more and more abstract features and are tasked with architecting solutions to complicated problems, your manager, team, and even company will start to increasingly rely on you. When planning out product roadmaps and time estimating feature work, your manager will take your abilities into account and take on more work and tighter deadlines (your manager is trying to get promoted, too). This positions you well in two ways.
The first way allows you to say to your manager, “Look, I’m already doing the work and taking on the responsibility of a more senior role.” Doing the work of the title above you is a great way to get promoted.
Additionally, you’ll build leverage as you take on more responsibility. As your manager starts to plan around your scaling abilities and velocity, they’ll begin to depend on it. Now imagine you decide to leave the company. The void you’ll leave will force them to either backfill your position (this could take weeks or months and lots of investment), or they’ll have to reconsider their timelines or reduce scope. No one likes to miss deadlines or move backward. That’s not how managers get promoted.
In general, this is easier said than done, but in the next section, we’ll take a look at another way to build leverage.
Timing
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As I mentioned before, there are different ways to gain leverage and timing is one of them.
Every new product, service, or initiative, in general, has the backing of an executive. Everything done at a company can be attributed to some executive’s plan. No one likes it when their plan fails, and especially not executives. While obviously being delicate and strategic about it, you can use this knowledge to your advantage.
Imagine you’re working on a new product and you’re one of three engineers on the team. You may even be the youngest and most junior on the team. This is the perfect opportunity to make yourself indispensable by taking initiative, asking for bigger features, and “owning” key parts of the codebase. Now imagine you’re in a one-on-one meeting with your manager and you ask for a raise, knowing full well that the project would hit a major speedbump without you. That’s leverage.
I’ve now illustrated how you can use timing to your advantage, but in the next section, I’ll explain a more subtle but equally useful form of leverage.
Make your manager’s life easy
This may sound obvious, but your manager is in charge of your income. If your manager isn’t happy with you or your work, you’re unlikely to get the raise your looking for. Make your manager’s life easy by getting your work done on time, helping and mentoring others on the team they manage, and making sure that you can be trusted with a task, feature, or project with minimal supervision.
When your manager can worry about you less and their direct work more, you’ve added one more piece of leverage that you can use. Your manager won’t want to lose you and have to handhold a more junior engineer or new hire. The potential added workload and stress from losing you will motivate your manager to get you your raise and make you whole.
Know your worth
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Managers get paid like managers, accountants get paid like accountants, and engineers get paid like engineers. While there are plenty of other important factors involved, this generally occurs due to the cost of replacement. Is it difficult to replace your position? Are there a lot of companies competing for similar talent? Or is it the opposite? Are there plenty of qualified engineers ready to apply the second you leave? Know your worth.
You’re worth what someone is willing to pay you.
There are lots of ways to estimate your worth, but I’ll talk about a few of the easier ways:
- Self-reporting Employee Salary Aggregation Apps
There are a few apps out there that will help you get an idea of what a person with your skillset, years of experience, and in your location might be able to command. Glassdoor and levels.fyi generally have pretty extensive data. Although self-reported and therefore likely a little inflated, these datasets will at least get you in the ballpark. - Job Posting Apps
These include places like LinkedIn, AngelList, and even Glassdoor. The data varies, but some job postings will come with a compensation range estimate while LinkedIn charges a premium subscription fee to get insights on your salary potential. - Friends and Coworkers
Don’t be shy. Politely ask your friends that have similar skillsets and experience what they earn. They may not feel comfortable, but if they are, knowing each other's compensation packages will be mutually beneficial. Additionally, if it’s not explicitly against your organization's policies, ask your colleagues what they earn. It might be an awkward conversation, but that’s often exactly what employers want. Knowledge is power, and if you don’t ask, you’re giving up yours. - Shop Around
It’s a lot of work and can feel a bit like you’re sneaking behind your company’s back, but sometimes the best way to know your worth is to interview at other companies. If you don’t own your own business, then you’re worth what someone is willing to pay you. Think about that for a second. The amount someone is willing to pay you depends on a lot of circumstances, like the economy or how much someone likes you. How do you know how much you’re worth if you only have 1 data point? Oftentimes you need to get out and see what someone is willing to pay you in the open market.
Collectively with all of these resources, you can start to paint a pretty good picture about what you can command for compensation. Clarity can be hard to find in this area, but it’s necessary.
Connecting with your manager
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Ultimately, the more leverage you’ve amassed, the easier it’s going to be for you to ask for a raise. But you can also put yourself in a position to appeal to the human side of the process. Although “business is business” as they say, at the end of the day businesses are run by people. Managers and executives are humans with emotions and potentially empathy. You can use this knowledge to your advantage, not as some sociopathic ploy, but as the truth.
First, you should have financial goals. When asked, “Why do you want a raise?”, if you answer, “because I deserve it”, you may be technically correct, but it won’t necessarily appeal to the empathetic side of your manager. Create a financial plan for yourself and use a 5-10 year horizon. Unless you’re an elite-level programmer, you’ll quickly see how expensive things can get. Maybe you want to buy a car or a house, or maybe you plan on having kids. Either way, these expenses add up, and with a financial plan in place, you can point to these goals and have a target in mind to speak to. These things are relatable; buying a home and having kids is the American dream. Not only will it appeal to your manager’s human side, but it’ll show that you’re taking this seriously and you’ve thought things through.
It’s hard to enjoy your work and career if you feel like you’re being underpaid.
Numbers aside, you can also directly evoke emotion from your manager through relatability. Your manager is also climbing the corporate ladder, and at one point or another, probably felt underpaid. Think about it. The corporate norm of not knowing your coworkers' wages creates doubt amongst employees. Does your coworker walk around with a lot of confidence every day? Does that mean he or she makes more money than you do? Most people go through something like this and your manager is no exception. You can explain to your manager that it’s hard to enjoy your work and career if you feel like you’re being underpaid.
Connecting with your manager’s empathetic side is not only a good idea financially, but it also helps you understand where you stand with your manager. If your manager is closed off and unwilling to connect with you on a personal level, it may be time to find a new team or a new company. You want a manager that you can trust is going to fight for you when the time comes.
Taking the leap
It can be nerve-racking to ask for a raise or promotion. Your palms might get sweaty and your voice might crack, but the more often you muster up the courage to do it, the more commonplace it will feel. Get out of your comfort zone and get it out of the way. You’ll thank yourself later.