Salary Negotiations

[maneki-neko]

Hello everyone!

I have a sort of strange situation regarding salary negotiations. I currently work at a consulting firm, and I am looking to make the move off of my current team but I am trying to stay within my company. I have a very specialized skill set and I am fairly in demand. I recently applied to another position internally at my company and have begun the interview/negotiation process.

- With my current team I am making $93,000/yr.
- New team gave me a verbal offer and the PM is very excited to bring me on, but wanted to discuss with my current PM per corporate rules.
- Current PM does not want to lose me because I am a key part of our contract. He counter offered $103,000 before I even received an official offer package from the new team.
- I have a friend in HR who told me what they are planning on offering me salary-wise for the new job, which is $96575.

Is it acceptable for me to let the new team know that I received a counter offer? I want out of my current role, so honestly I would be happy with the $96575 but keeping my Mustachian goals in mind, it seems foolish to not at least try to match the salary.

[kayvent]

Is it acceptable for me to let the new team know that I received a counter offer?

Wait until you get an offer from the new team and counter with a number between 100K and 103K. If your current PM wants you to accept the counter before you even get an offer from the new team, I recommend switching teams.

I want out of my current role, so honestly I would be happy with the $96575 but keeping my Mustachian goals in mind, it seems foolish to not at least try to match the salary.

I disagree with some people on these forums. I don't think a person should toil away in a job they don't want for years (decades even#@!$%). We shouldn't be wage slaves. We're highly skilled individuals with particular talents; we can simultaneously find jobs that we like and that pay well.

/begin a lot of napkin math with many errors

Reading your other posts, you are 25, make 7.9K a month, and have $3400/mo to pay down debt and one day save with (you have existing savings that eclipse your current debt).

So you "save" 3400/month or 40K a year. That gives you a 41% savings rate.
You could retire in 22 years. If you took 100% of the difference between 96575 and 103000 to put it into savings, you'd only go up to 45% and 19 years.

Would you work 22 years in the new position or 19 years in the new one? Is three years over twenty worth the job you like less?

/end a lot of napkin math with many errors

To be real for a second, I don't think it matters which one you take. What's the average tenure of a video production contractor? In my field, staying at a company for  three years is considered typical. Is it possible you are working somewhere else in six months and it's irrelevant if you take the "more money, less like" job or "less money, more like" job? If so, and this is me being half serious, flip a coin.

[maneki-neko]

The situation is sort of weird because our teams have collaborated a lot in the past.

My old PM seems pretty desperate to keep me on his contract. Under this “deal” there would be a few stipulations like:

1. I would remain upstairs in my current office.
2. I would support the new program 100% of the time.
3. Occasionally if there is a huge need I would work overtime and surge support my old team.
4. After a year or two I would be allowed to move downstairs and sit with the new team which I will already have been supporting for a while.

The way I see it, either way, the new program would be paying the same amount. If I made $103,000 but was paid through my old team, that $103,000 would still be coming out of his contract dollars, plus the markup that my current program charges to farm out our services. If I moved downstairs and made $103,000, it would be less of an administration headache, but I would still be making $103,000 from his contract dollars.

I totally agree with you that people shouldn’t work in sucky jobs forever because they pay well. I had a job offer last month for $105,000 + $10,000 signing bonus and an awesome benefits package but I turned them down because my commute would be over an hour each way and I currently commute 10 mins.

I get what you’re saying with your napkin math, but I think (and very well could be wrong) but after I pay off my debts I will be saving a lot more than 40k a year. According to my numbers I plugged into the networthify calc that is in the MMM article you linked to, my savings rate would be ~66%, or 10.2 years. If you include the ~$20,000 I currently have in my 401k and my $80,000 in VTSAX, that bumps the time down to 8.7 years. That’s also including never getting a raise again. You are right though, the difference really only bumps like

I am honestly not so sure about the average tenure in government consulting. I work with a guy who is basically a lifer on my team but there are other people I work with who have had 4 jobs in the last 10 years.

I am going to take the new job no matter if they stick with their original offer or if they match what my team countered with. I just wanted to know if it was acceptable to try to squeeze a little more out of them.