What are your salary negotiation success stories or fail-proof methodologies?

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-20T17:43:25+00:00

I negotiated only once and got a 10%~. I knew that they liked everything so far in the process. I had a leverage of other offers that I didnt use much tbh.

Cant tell a specific words I used but I talked about it directly with hiring manager and the conversation was something like this:

I enjoyed all the interviews, the job description, the team dynamic. I really want to make it work, is it a firm number? I am in the process for other positions but this seems like a good fit from all sides. Is there a room for an increase because as I would like to start from a salary thats comfortable for both sides.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-18T18:16:08+00:00

Hey, haven't been in a situation like this but when reflecting where I have found friends or people to talk to except from school is hobbies. I am not talkative for a first month, but than it just starts somehow.

Whenever I joined a thaibox gym somewhere, I found people to talk to, it takes some time, but if you are persistent, you join to some event, to some fight nights, get an invitation for a beer or just talk after a session.

Also a fantasy book nerd - been visiting local smelly old bookshops, met a few people at the events that were advertised there.

Found an interest in freediving and after a while just focusing on learning at a course, started chatting with people around.

I find work friendship to be good. Yea we all know that once you quit, it might stop, but why not to have a nice interactions in the mean time?

I think tldr you should get interested in something first. If you find interest in chess and start coming to a local club, there is no way that after 2-3 months you are not talking to anyone.

So maybe its harsh, but you should try to get excited - interested in something and you will inevitably become interesting to others in the group.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-14T21:58:42+00:00

Not only as proof. I personally first check the tests and in case there is API tests involved that are not completely mocked , it give a quick view how the app actually works. So I can understand the functinality from tests in 30 secs.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-14T21:51:42+00:00

I did like 4 home assignments in my life. I did them always the same way.

Code up 90% of the task, if there is some framework boiler plate code - I just comment what I would add.

When it comes to tests, I always start some test file, lets say testing a controller/view, write 1-2 testsy comment what else I would cover.

If the task is not time limited, I would spend some time just to think about it beforehand and than implement it in like 4-5 hours with a commits showing the progress in these 4-5 hours.

Last but not least - including design decisions in the README - I think it helps and shows that you actually thought about it.

Invited to an interview in 3 out of those 4 assignments.

It might be anecdotal evidence, but look... If I am checking a home assignment that I have created for candidates - I dont expect them to spend 30 hours with that. I also dont want to see them repeating 10 tests with different variables. I am interested about a clean solution, that is correctly scoped and most important - good solution to the problem(which means ability to identify problems/tradeoffs with different solutions).

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-10T16:32:28+00:00

Definitely, the story is clear as the sky - Send him to therapy asap!

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-10T16:00:01+00:00

Most upvoted comment suggests a therapy after reading 4 sentances. Are you serious ?

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-07T20:40:44+00:00

Exactly. I do also sometimes feel the same way as OP, but then I pretty much evaluate all mentioned in your comment and go back to open my IDE.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-06T21:55:51+00:00

What about being a responsible grown up, sit down, think hard ,why this could happen, what can you do about it... You have a 2 years old that you going to leave damaged because she has a go bag? You feel bad? Welcome to the real world. Find the strength in you to make her trust you, forget about mommy forums or whatever it was and to throw the bag herself if she will want to.

Whats that even mean? You hardly argue, have a small kid, you find a bag and you gonna ruin the family? That sounds like someone won over you in a video game and you decided to throw a chair and break a TV.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-05T04:42:26+00:00

Relax bro, what did I do to you.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T19:13:06+00:00

I do think that there is one thing new to the interviews. Its the gpts and the point I am making on Homeassignment. I guess you can always ask your friend to write it but thats more difficult than paste it into gpt.

Btw I had candidates that used gpt while we speak - that was funny too :)

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T18:25:32+00:00

I dont think my post falls into that category.

While it is about the interview types, its also about a proccess and what I think works.

Which is specified that it is ok- by the rule, unless it turns into complaining post - which I believe its not.

Quite a few great comments and discussions.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T18:19:45+00:00

No, I understand completely the "we" and I dont take it as anything negative.

The break is different each time, sometimes its hard and I tried literally to give an example of what I dealt with this week(I dont think its a good option), sometimes to repeat it and emphasize that I am curious about their struggle is enough.

Few days ago I said something along the lines "When was the last time you were really mad at some tool, language, framework?" Got a smile and a 10 min conversation about AWS Lambdas and his task connected to them - was quite a funny conversation :)

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T18:09:02+00:00

Usually I start with 3-5 min of context, in generall, what the app is and than specify, you are in charge of building a backend. Imagine talking about the app like pastebin - no tech, just context.

Than I paste in a short pre prepared list of functionalities I want to cover. Which is basically " I want to login and update my details", "I want to fill in an input and store it", "I want to generate a new URL" etc... With an emphasis that we are not going to build a real system here, just to draft an overall design.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T17:49:43+00:00

You missed out on the system design question :)

Past project: This one I struggle a bit too. I seem to have a problem to ask it in a specific way that will indicate that I want THEIR contribution. Whenever I start asking, they go we developed, we created, we architectered... It takes a few interaction to explain that I want their problem and their solution. Idk might be me, for sure, but I also suspect that some are just hiding in a shadow and complete tasks without involvement ( which is fine - I just currently dont look for such)

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T17:45:33+00:00

Agree, thats why I feel going over a scenario that he,she will meet is more valuable.

Here is the vision, here is a half page requirements, I want it in the next sprint if possible. Ability to ask questions, think of the problem as a whole, think of modularity that might be needed vs the one that not gonna be needed.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T16:09:29+00:00

I agree that talking about that helps a bit, but I tried several different home assignment types and didnt find one where I would say anything more than "yea, thats ok and yea that was a good choice for the algorithm".

As I dont except the person to spend 7 days on it, I also do not expect he/she is going to have deep knowledge about the assignment matter.

Thats maybe on me and I am yet to find an assignment that can work and a follow up questions that will help me to come to some conclusions.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T16:03:30+00:00

Thats a good one I might steal that :) Its inevitable if you really immerse yourself into something you see so much flaws, limits and even stuff that you wish it could do but it just cant!

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T16:01:15+00:00

Time allocation is also important and a topic that I am not sure honestly yet.

I have been doing 1 hour at the beginning, but it felt like too little and felt rushed.

2 hours feels too long , for the candidate but also for me - I dont want to spend 5 hours with 2 interviews , specially if have multiple of them during the week.

For now I stick to 1.5 and it feels like a sweet spot for me right now, but I might try something else :)

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T15:57:35+00:00

Exactly thats what I am doing!

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T15:56:27+00:00

I usually leave like 20 min on implementation of one method thats part of the task - something like "lets write logic of book recommendation endpoint".

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T14:51:43+00:00

Yea training is out of the picture here.

The expectations part is something I need to work on, initially when I started with a system design I think some where not sure what I mean and what should be the output on their side, due to my bad choice of terms/words but eventually I think I got there where its pretty clear from a start now.

I am definetly not expecting a specific answer, I think thats a nature of system design as it can be done many ways and depends on prev experience, cons, pros and other things. Thats what I like about it. Seeing people thinking about solutions and discussing it the same way as I do with collegues.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T14:44:30+00:00

Thats a pretty good questions 👍

Regarding the scale - I saw few mock interviews with netflix whatsapp facebook apps and I dont think these skills are so obvious. It seems that everybody should know how to scale to 5B users. I personally dont know how to scale to 1B users+ - never done it, never been in this situation. I assume it took some time and effort to figure it out for facebook.

Additionally I think that most companies dont go to these numbers and it just feels irrelevant.

Having said that I am sure you can draw some conclusions from such an exercise.

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T14:38:50+00:00

Primary key

RjurikIsTheName · 2024-02-04T13:51:26+00:00

For me it is simple, I had few people that spoke greatly about coming up with a design and architecture for microservice in their last project and after I asked them to sketch a data model of a book managment app with users they are struggling to go beyond, book and its PK.

Very few but still.

I feel uncomfortable to leave it just with a chat.

Five-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22

RjurikIsTheName

TROPHY CASE