Also, what is this "don't deserve?" Don't deserve? I'm getting an emotional reaction to this! Don't deserve, because we should keep our head down? Chug along, dare not ask

(All numbers are based on salary surveys in my local market).

If the salary range is between $130K - $145K for a full stack developer that knows C# and React and all of the other buzz worthy front end stack and I only know .Net Asp.Net MVC and jquery (which is true), why would they hire me at $150K when they could hire someone who already knows the required tech?

On the other hand, if $135K is my minimum, and they were willing to hire me at that, why wouldn’t I take it? Spend the next year or two learning on the job and when they inevitably give me a 3% raise for the next two years, jump ship to a new job?

A job can offer me two things - immediate compensation and experience that makes me more valuable in the future.

When I did leave the job I had been at for way too long, I only had three skills that the market cared about - C/C++, database, and a little C#.

I had two offers - one paying 20K more and I could have negotiated $25K more than I was making as a C++ developer and one only paying $7K more with no room for negotiation as an entry level C# developer. If I had taken the higher paying job, I would have been worth less in 3 years - hardly any jobs wanted C++ developers. Instead, I took the job as a C# developer. Three years later, I was making what the first job offered and I was more marketable for the next 6 years. Nine years later, there are plenty of jobs paying $60-70K more than I was making back then for C# developers. For C++ developers, not so much.

About a year ago I was in a similar position. I was a “software architect” over a small development shop at a large company. It was time to look for another job. I had two offers, one paying $15K more that I was perfectly qualified for - .Net Framework, ASP.Net MVC, Sql Server, Windows platform and I would have been over a team of 10.

I would have made more at the above job, but using technology that was the opposite of where the industry is going.

The other job was a “senior developer” position that needed some exposure to AWS (I had a little but not enough to be an expert),JavaScript, NodeJS, React, .Net, and Python was a nice to have. It only paid $2K more than I was making, I asked for another $7K just because.

Guess which one I took? By taking the lesser paying job, I already have companies taking me out to lunch, talks with CxOs, etc. trying to recruit me directly at thier company paying $35K - $40K more than I’m making now as a full time billable consultant. It would require travel and I want to wait for my son to graduate before I entertain the offers.

But since we're talking about bigger companies, soulless entities that will actually sell your 401k out from under you for a profit, I believe the "right" and "moral" thing to do is to suck every penny out of them as possible, because they'll fuck you in the end if it's profitable.

Companies have no control over your 401K. They can’t “take money” out of your 401K account.

Thank goodness many founders have realized they have to share the pie with equity to get the goods out of the best engineers.

Statistically, equity is worthless at most startups. They either fail, don’t have an exit event that makes it valuable, or it gets diluted. I would rather have the guarantee of a salary.