ManchesterDev

Yeah completely forgot about this angle too. Losing 780 hours per year of free child care per child really racks up.

You get significantly punished for breaching that 100k. So if you’re going to tip over, you needs to smash through it.

Which angle is becoming more common in London? Losing equity if you leave or the opposite?

Agreed - I didn’t feel like I had much knowledge to negotiating power at the start and definitely got ripped at a .2%

Thanks for calling it out - we all need more educating on this

Fantastic perspectives thank you. I don’t feel like going too hard on BATNA because it’s a sensitive and positive environment. If I get mugged off, I would walk away, but I wouldn’t enter with this stance.

Answers to your questions: - 3 of 5 founders strongly technical, one exceptional, one strong but she is not involved with my line of work/ probably couldn’t do it, on par with the other, and above all other devs. - trying to be modest, but almost definitely ideal for next phase of growth if they want to maintain momentum and trajectory. Would be a big hit to lose me. 3 months to hire a new lead, 6-12months to get up to speed, but longer to understand the industry/code which is nuanced, often weird and undocumented. - 1-2% is how I feel too, but just feel they would never give this. I’m very critical and pessimistic, but genuinely feel this is the one which could break through.

I just don’t believe the decision makers believe that any head of role justifies more than 100k or more equity so it’s going to take a lot of educating..

This is the sort of reply I was hoping for, thank you. I have a few follow ups:

- Do you have any sources for where you’re seeing salaries at 100k upwards? Anything online, or is this offline advertised roles? I’m going to need some evidence points to support my counter offer. I think a few senior salaries to solidify a low of 100s and a few head of salaries to set a benchmark will be helpful if I can find them.

- It’s not an AI business, but does leverage it. I think the 100k-400k at 0.2% isn’t a game changer, but double or triple that would be. Where are you getting your ARR multiple estimates from? I don’t doubt you, it just helps me assess my position.

Yeah I feel my equity offer is probably unfair, but didn’t know any different when accepting it sadly. Do you have any resources I could read to educate myself more about what I should be specifically asking for in a negotiation and how it works.

That’s helpful, I’ve never thought about it like this before. It’s kind of what you believe is the best alternative out there and using that. A bit like hypothesis testing and gathering evidence.

Probably easier to be as aggressive as you were if there has been a significant negative change in the company vs a positive friendly environment which I have.

I think I got about 60% of that, but the penultimate paragraph helped a lot. I’ll have to get a beer and mull over what those best alternatives might look for me if it’s a no to salary.

Very interesting thanks

Thank you for the thoughts lots to mull over.

Agree 200k isn’t going to be life changing when looking over the lifespan of a career, just quite a bit of fun, so won’t let that be the biggest sway - and it’s probably a best case scenario.

Dilution is something I’m very nervous of in perusing an equity strategy, but just don’t know how to calculate my exposure to it. I just don’t understand the topic enough.

There will be something that feels bitter if the company does sell for that figure and the guys/girls cofounders all land on a few million and me on 200k despite having done a significant amount of the code leg work. But probably bigging myself too much there.

I agree with both the comments. At the moment there are no progression paths which don’t involve moving up into doing more management, but I’ll still be spending 75-80% of time writing code. If the company was larger there may have been other options internally to focus on technical roles.

I live in South Manchester, role is technically in London. We don’t have a permanent office as the team are fairly remote. When we meet it’s in London and the team hire out some rooms/desks at a cowork. I occasionally travel down, 2-3 times a month for these meet days. Centre of gravity of employees and activity is London, but we have people flying in from Scotland and France too.

Thanks for the suggestions! I could definitely shop around. I don’t have time in this round of negotiations as need to give a counter offer next week. I also really enjoy working here, it’s a good set up.

“You may have been thinking that the highest rate of income tax payable was 45%, at which point the rate of National Insurance is 2%, giving an effective tax rate of 47%.

But did you know you could be subject to an effective combined rate of income tax and national insurance of 62% if you earn over £100,000?

The 62% tax trap refers to the income band falling between £100,000 and £125,140 on which the employed or self-employed will effectively experience an income tax rate of 60% alongside national insurance contributions of 2%.

This is because for every £2 you earn over £100,000 per annum, you lose £1 worth of your £12,570 tax-free personal allowance. Your tax rate only reduces to the additional rate of 45% after the entirety of your personal allowance for that year has been eroded, i.e. on income above £125,140.”

Source: https://www.theprivateoffice.com/insights/have-you-fallen-vi....

Useful response thank you. Hard to know what a realistic sale price would be. For example if it sold for £100m in 3 years, that would be 200k under current conditions minus capital gains. That’s probably higher than the additional salary would bring under the same timeframe, but is £100m a realistic valuation if the company got to £10m ARR probably not.. so likely lower.

Agree 5-10% is too much of an ask. I’m not sure what is suitable for an early employee but that’s not going to float.

Do you mind expanding on your story here? Did the company just falter before you were able to realise your gains or was there something else more convoluted?

Agreed about having frequent time off to enjoy life. I think the number of days I’d want to take are somewhat capped by my wife’s annual leave too. For example if she gets 25, I don’t know if I’d want an extra 25 on top of her as we love doing things together. Maybe an extra 5-10 for trips with other friends or a day/two pottering doing some DIY.

Really interesting insight - something I’ve always suspected and my only hypothesis is that those likely to share will also be those on ordinary salaries. For example, your high achievers on unique salaries probably won’t post as they will be identifiable, and/or are unlikely to post because they are happy at the company and there is no need to (most reviewers do it on switching co or if they are unhappy).

I do agree with this. But bluff will be called about other offers, and not enough time to get any active before supplying my response.

It’s a good response! But I should have added more context that the side income is passive/ only requires maximum 15 hours work per year so isn’t a heavy burden.