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066 How Do I Get A Raise As A Software Developer? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get a raise as a software developer?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do I present my request for more money in a way that my employer will accept?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is a question that sometimes people ask and sometimes people don't ask.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's an important question to ask, and it's definitely an important one to think through so that you know how to be intentional about getting more money in your position.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk through on this episode of Dev Questions, getting a raise in your job.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's five big ways you can get a raise.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And number one is just give it time.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: You may find that your employer has a schedule and you're just on a certain schedule.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll be evaluated every six months or a year, and based upon that, your employer will say, Here's how much of a raise you will get every year.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a great system, and it's not one that I would encourage you to leave at that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: But that is one way to get raises, just give it time.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: But number two is hey, just ask.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't ask, then your employer is not going to be thinking about, oh, I should give that employee a raise necessarily.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, maybe you're on number one, which is just give it time and wait for it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: But what would happen if you say, hey boss, can I please have a$5,000 a year raise?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: What would they say?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes or no.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's pretty much what they'd probably say.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of danger there in asking for that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if there is, maybe you already have things to work through with your with your manager or your boss.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So just ask for it can be a valid solution, but I think there's even better ways to to go about that than just straight up asking.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, straight up asking is a big part of it, but it's not the only part I think you should think through when looking for a raise.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, number three is get another job.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is one that has become much more common in today's culture.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be that you would get a job at one manufacturing plant or one uh employer, and then you'd stay there for the rest of your life.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how it works anymore.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It if you want a pay raise, often the best way of doing that is to get a job somewhere else, where you take your skills and abilities and move to a different employer who is just starting you out, but is looking to get all the benefits of your skills and your time and experience.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're willing to pay more to get you in that role.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you can just shift over to a different employer, get a raise, and maybe sometimes even shift back at some point later down the road to your first employer and get another raise.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you can actually balance up the ladder that way, whether it just two employers or in multiple.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that is an acceptable or a third way of going about getting a raise.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But number four is one that I think people often overlook, and it's a big one, especially if you're going to ask for a raise.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So number four is to make yourself indispensable.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Make yourself out to be an employee that your employer says, I couldn't stand to lose them.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you walk into your boss's office and you're barely functional as an employee, and your employer kind of wants to replace you anyways, and they think they could with a random person off the street, well, getting a raise out of that situation probably isn't going to happen because you're easily replaceable, because you are not giving enough value to the company.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: But if you make yourself indispensable, if your boss says this place would not function without you, then when you say, Hey, can I please have a$5,000 raise?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it is well within the normal pay range for a person in my position.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's much more likely to be seen in a positive light because of the fact that you're saying, This is what I'm worth, I see, and I would like to get to that point.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I am in the meantime providing you with so much value that you couldn't do without me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So do a good job in your role.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, however much you're getting paid for it, do a good job in your role.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: That will greatly help you when it comes time to looking for that pay raise.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe looking for a job somewhere else.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you aren't doing a good job for this employer, the next employer over probably is not gonna want to see you do the same thing for them, it's just gonna scare them off.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right, number five is show that you add value.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is a huge one.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you can show that you add value well beyond what you're asking for, it makes it an easier call for a manager.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: If I have an employee that comes to me and says, Hey Tim, I want a$5,000 a year raise, and here is why I think I am worth that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: In the last quarter, I did this extra task, or I did this extra thing, and I made the company$40,000, or I do this regularly, and this brings in an additional ten thousand dollars a month in revenue.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as an employer, that makes sense to me.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense that I'm not losing money, I'm making money.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, giving a small portion of that to you seems like a much easier ask than just saying, hey, give me an extra five grand a year.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you can't find those areas where you add value, that's gonna be a harder sell.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because really, again, we talked about this this in the last episode, your market value has to be greater than what your cost is, meaning the the value you provide to the organization needs to make them more money than what you cost the organization.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can't find that value, it's even harder to sell to say put more cost on this side of the scales, because the other side has to balance out and actually well exceed that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So figure out how you can add value, and sometimes that means creating new things, finding new ways to add value to the office, to the system, to your process.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: For example, if you can figure out a way to save people time, that saves the company money.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can figure out how to uh change a deployment, so deployments and software development can be long drawn-out affairs.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you can automate that process or show how to automate the process and help the company move that direction, and take a deployment from let's just say four hours with two hours of downtime.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you take that and automate it, so now it takes 10 minutes with no downtime, that's a massive win, especially if you're doing multiple deployments a month or even a week.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: With that speed, you're providing a huge value to the company.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: You are providing a better experience to the customers, you are providing a lot more time for the developers to spend on development versus deployment, you are making the process better and less error prone.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: All those things add up to money.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you can come to the boss and say, I have saved our department an average of 20 hours a week, 20 hours of one person's time a week, well, what's 20 hours worth?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start adding that up and go, wow, that's a lot of money.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, 20 hours of developer's time, yeah, maybe it's spit over 10 developers, and so it's two hours per developer.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: But the combined 20 hours, that's half a salary.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at half a salary and say the salaries are$100,000, let's say$50,000 a year, well, you're saving the company$25,000 a year.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: 20 hours half of that full salary.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you can get your boss and say, I have objectively saved the company$25,000 a year in saved time, plus I have made it better for customers, plus, I have made it less frustrating for the developers.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's worth$5,000 a year.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's worth$3,000 a year in a race.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a good negotiation place to be.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can prove your value, if you can prove the value you add to the company, or the additional over the top that you did that provides value to the company, that's a big deal.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go back to the beginning and talk about the five different ways.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, you can just wait for it, spend the time, put your time in, and hope that you get a raise.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not the greatest.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can ask for it, which can work just out of the blue.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that if you um skip number four, number three is get another job, but skip the number four and make yourself indispensable.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Asking for the raise is easier.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then number five, if you show that you've added value in some way, that also makes asking for it easier.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the five different ways to uh to get a raise in your current position.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully that answers the question.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you can find one that you can do, and don't be afraid to ask.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid to go to your employer and say, I think I am worth this.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: You may get shot down.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some employers do not do this.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: In that case, maybe number three is for you find another job and say, you know what?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I found another employer that has has more value for me or values me more as a developer, and maybe change jobs.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't, then you can't, and that's where you're stuck.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But give us a shot, try it out.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know until you try.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And just waiting for a raise probably isn't the best solution.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for the question.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you appreciated the answer.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you found value in it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can find some action steps to take out of it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Dev Questions.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a question about being a developer, then look in the archive.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's tons of questions that have been answered so far.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't find the question that that best fits your question, then either if you're watching on YouTube, post a comment down below asking your question.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're listening on a podcast, then go to HTTPS, imtimcorey.com slash podcast.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I believe just go to imtimcorey.com and look for the podcast link.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in there, you will see a button for asking your own question.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Fill that out, and hopefully you'll see your question being answered on a future episode of DevQuestions.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 13:00
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• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.