Latest / The Career Change Podcast with Fexingo: Switching Fields, Bootcamps, and Reskilling / How Bootcamp Grads Can Negotiate Salary Offers
Transcript
- Lucas: You go through a twelve-week coding bootcamp, build a portfolio, grind through hundreds of applications, finally get an offer — and then most people just... accept the first number. Luna: Yeah, and that first number is almost always lower than what the company was willing to pay. Lucas: We are talking about salary negotiation — specifically for bootcamp grads entering their first tech role. And there is actually new data on this. A report out this month from a nonprofit called Tech Equity tracked offer outcomes for over 1,200 bootcamp graduates from 2024 to early 2026. Their finding: the average grad who did not negotiate left $12,000 on the table. Luna: Twelve thousand dollars. That is life-changing money for someone making a career switch. Lucas: And the ones who negotiated? They added an average of $8,300 to their base salary. So the gap between negotiating and not — it is not trivial. Luna: We are able to have conversations like this because we do not run ads on this show. If you have gotten value from these episodes and want to support keeping it that way, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a simple way to keep the podcast independent. Lucas: Appreciate that. So let's talk about why bootcamp grads in particular tend to under-negotiate. It is not just lack of confidence — though that is part of it. It is also lack of information. Many of them do not have a frame of reference for what a junior developer or data analyst should make. Luna: Right. If you are coming from retail, hospitality, education — you might have never seen a base salary above fifty, sixty thousand. So when a company offers seventy-five, it feels like a win. Lucas: And it is a win — relative to your old salary. But relative to the market for that role, it might be below the twenty-fifth percentile. The Tech Equity report showed that bootcamp grads who used salary data from sources like Levels.fyi or Glassdoor negotiated an average of $4,200 more than those who did not. Luna: So the first step is just knowing what the role is worth. What is the actual number you should be targeting? Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a concrete example. There is a woman named Priya who was on episode five of this show — the librarian who became a data analyst. She shared her negotiation story with us after the episode aired. Her first offer was seventy-two thousand dollars for a junior data analyst role at a mid-size insurance company. She had done her research and found that the median for that role in her city — Chicago — was eighty-three thousand. Luna: So she was eleven thousand below median. That is a big gap. Lucas: She asked for eighty-five. The company came back with seventy-eight. She then used a technique that is surprisingly effective: she asked for a non-salary item instead of pushing further on base. She asked for a five-thousand-dollar signing bonus to cover the cost of a certification she wanted to take. They agreed. So her total first-year compensation ended up at eighty-three thousand — right at market. Luna: That is really smart. She did not burn the relationship by hardballing on salary, but she still got to a fair number. And the signing bonus — that is a one-time cost for the company, so they are often more flexible on it. Lucas: Exactly. And this brings up a broader point: negotiation is not just about the base salary. Bootcamp grads should also consider equity, signing bonus, performance bonus, education stipends, remote work stipends — anything that can be flexed. The report found that bootcamp grads who negotiated on multiple dimensions increased their total compensation by an average of 14 percent, versus 6 percent for those who only negotiated base. Luna: What about the fear that if you negotiate, the offer gets rescinded? I hear that a lot from career changers. Lucas: It is a real fear, but the data says it is extremely rare. A separate survey from the recruiting platform Greenhouse found that offers are rescinded after negotiation less than one percent of the time. And that includes all candidates, not just bootcamp grads. For bootcamp grads specifically, it might be even lower because companies hire them at a lower cost basis and want to retain them. Luna: So the risk is minimal, but the upside is huge. What is the actual script? Like, what do you say when you get the offer? Lucas: The key is to be gracious and specific. Something like: 'Thank you so much for the offer. I am very excited about the role and the team. Based on my research of similar roles in this market, I was hoping for something closer to X. Is there flexibility in the offer?' The magic phrase is 'Is there flexibility?' — it opens a conversation instead of making a demand. Luna: And you should have a number ready. Do not say 'I was hoping for more' — that is too vague. Lucas: Right. Have a specific number based on data. And if they come back with a small bump, you can still push for a signing bonus or a review at six months instead of twelve. The report showed that bootcamp grads who asked for an earlier performance review — say, at six months instead of one year — effectively shortened the time to their next raise by half. Luna: That is a great tactic. I also want to mention the power of having a competing offer. If you are in a bootcamp job search, timing your applications so you have two offers around the same time gives you incredible leverage. Lucas: Absolutely. The report found that bootcamp grads with a competing offer negotiated an average of $14,500 more than those with a single offer. That is even bigger than the gap between negotiators and non-negotiators. But not everyone can get two offers — so what do you do if you only have one? Luna: You can still use market data as your leverage. 'I see that the median for this role is X, and I would like to be closer to that.' That is not a threat — it is a fact. Lucas: One more thing. The report also broke down negotiation outcomes by gender. And the gap is real. Women bootcamp grads negotiated less often and asked for smaller increases. When they did negotiate, they were just as successful as men — but fewer of them did it. The recommendation from the report was clear: practice negotiation scripts out loud before you get the offer. It changes how confident you sound. Luna: So, practical next step: before you even start applying, research salary ranges for the roles you want. Use Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, the Blind app, and the bootcamp's own outcomes report. Have a target range in mind. Lucas: And when you get the offer, take a breath. You do not have to accept on the call. Say 'Thank you, I would like to review the details and get back to you tomorrow.' That buys you time to prepare your counter. Luna: That pause alone can be worth thousands of dollars. Lucas: Alright, I think we have given listeners a solid playbook. If you are a bootcamp grad about to negotiate your first tech offer — go do it. The data says it works. Luna: And if you have a negotiation story — win or loss — we would love to hear it. You can find us on the Fexingo Business network. Lucas: That is it for this episode of The Career Change Podcast. We will be back next week with another angle on making your move into tech work for you.