All profit is based on exploitation. Surplus value is extracted in absolute and relative terms. Absolute surplus value is increasing the amount of time worked per worker. Relative surplus value is extracted by reducing wages or increasing productivity and intensity.

With that orientation explicitly stated, I work in tech and I find discussing salary extremely difficult. Recruiters and hiring managers ask: "What is your salary expectation?" I have no idea how to respond and because I am desperate for a job, respond with what my friends later tell me is "a low ball". It is a wild wild west, with ignorant HR people looking for buzzwords, unrealistic tech stacks, and a lot of bait and switch.

How to approach salary questions? Should I give them a number first? My neoliberal friends tell me "how much value you think you generate", and I respond "enough so I don't have to work anymore".

  • krammaskin [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    As a former CEO of a tech company this is what I would suggest as an answer:

    Average pay for the position you are hiring for is X but since I know and have done XY and Z, I expect 10-40% more. What is the company paying devs at the company now? It would be awkward if my pay was too different from others.

    You can be sure that when a company is hiring that they have their current team working at their limit and as they have shortage of devs the current devs would be able to have increased their pay and benefits as much as possible. Because recruiting processes are costly and time consuming, the first thing you should do when you land a job is to learn what others are being paid. If they make less than you, encourage them to reach your pay level and if they make more than you, you ask for that pay within a year. The sooner they finished a hiring round the less interested are they to start a new one.