Ask HN: Company offering me a lowball salary
This is a follow up post to let you guys know what happened after. So, yesterday they called a meeting with me and gave me an offer of $20/hr (my assumption was atleast $30/hr but expectation was $40/hr - checkout the above link for reference).
To be honest, I was a bit surprised and kind of frustrated by their offer. I explained them that they were giving me half of my original expectation and that I was surprised by it. They responded that they offered this number given my current skills and the value I would bring to the company.
The position that I applied for was Sr. Frontend dev but the offer letter says the position would be "Frontend Developer". I see that they are offering me a mid level position instead of the original one. Moreover, since I made the blunder of revealing my current earning that gave them the leverage to offer $20/hr. I bought some time from them and would give my response on Tuesday.
Now since I am from South Asia, $20/hr is still a handsome amount given the local market but the real problem is their tech stack. Their product is pretty big and is using some outdated stack such as jQuery on the frontend. There would be a lot of work for me in jquery, but I think working in jquery (which is soon going to be obsolete) would cause a lot of damage to me technically.
So, this is the how the current situation looks like. Since I am not motivated to work on an old stack at such a low rate, I was thinking that I should try to negotiate a number between $30-40/hr. If it goes successfully I would be able to make good money in a couple of months then try finding a reactjs job.
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks
10 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 613 ms ] threadI guess we all know that already
>Using jQuery or any other tool or language cannot “damage you technically.”
Well i think it does, jquery saw its heyday, now the frontend jobs ask for skills in react, vue or angular.
It may not be the big thing employers ask for this month but that doesn’t make it obsolete or “damaging.”
If your career goal is to always work with the cool new fad then good luck with that. If your goal is to open the most doors and always have options get good with what most companies actually use. HN is not a good cross-section of the industry.
It’s very short-sighted to focus on languages or tools, because most of them come and go. Instead focus on core skills, adding business value, solving problems, working with people. Those skills pay off forever.
I’m not asking you to justify your salary. I’m asking if this is normal — this kind of large disparity based on location and nationality.
I freelance for a living and have lived overseas while working for US companies and none have ever suggested paying me less because I lived in a low cost-of-living country. Other freelancers I know, including many who are not US citizens, are getting good rates too when working for US companies.
Ideally you get paid according to the value you bring to the company. Period. Where you live or what passport you have shouldn’t make any difference. An offer like this communicates either exploitation or that the company doesn’t see you as very valuable. Why even take the time to interview someone at this rate? Just hire and see what happens, the stakes are so low.
One time I got two simultaneous offers from two EU companies, one of them was like 35% larger (they did not make their offers based on a region), even though I stressed that I am generally earning EU-like salary for my experience. They quickly raised the lower offer to match.
I know people who've worked at very senior/tech lead positions at US/Canadian companies for significantly less than $30/h. It all depends on the type of the company: are they hiring remotely to save on costs, or to open up the pool of talent to the entire world (basically, get better talent for the money they've got available)? Of course, it's never black and white, but where they sit closer ultimately affects what they offer.
Still, this is an easy answer for you. You said it yourself - you are not motivated to work there.. So turn it down and keep looking.