Things that will help you grow and get a high tech salary
Apart from the job title and the years of experience you have, your interview has a significant effect on your paycheque. Below, we've mentioned a few intricacies, working on which can help you get a high tech salary.
Show off your technical skills!
Acing the technical part of an interview can work wonders in your favour. Be it the whiteboard interview, a coding challenge or pair programming, show your coding skills off and let the interviewer know that you’re the best candidate for the offered role. This will not only increase your chances of grabbing the job but will also lead to an offer with a higher compensation.
You might be competing with a topper from your batch but if you have what it takes to be a good coder, you’ll have better chances of getting the job. So, if in case you are in for it, make sure you practice as many algorithms and data structures as possible. Brush your technical skills up and practice solving questions from coding challenges. To land a higher tech salary, you’ll have to show them that you’re worth it.
Be a good communicator
Where it is true that technical skills are important during interviews, communication is another key area which matters when it comes to defining your salary. Being a good communicator implies that you’ll gel better with the other employees and will be able to work better in cross-functional collaborations. This surely benefits employers where they need the candidate to work in teams and achieve lofty goals. In addition, techies are often taken to be socially awkward individuals. Being one which outstands that definition will definitely add brownie points to your pocket.
To ensure that you’re able to communicate well during the interview, practise explaining your codes out loud, in front of the mirror, prior to the interview. Keep in mind the fact that you might have to explain your codes to people from a non-technical background. Get well-versed with the use of a whiteboard to simplify your explanation. Pro tip: Do not be scared of clarifying questions. This indicates that you know how to communicate your ideas well.
How big the company is
One major factor that goes beyond interviewing is the size of the company and the revenue it generates. It often goes by the rule: “more employees + more revenue = more compensation”. Larger organizations like Facebook, Netflix, etc. generate an annual revenue of $2 billion. Thus, tech professionals who work at such organizations, get paid better. Startups and other smaller companies fail to offer this.
But what goes beyond mere compensation are perks like extra vacations days which the other smaller companies offer. Prioritize your needs accordingly!
Now that you know what can get you a higher tech salary than the others, let’s dive into the factors which don’t. This is essential to evaluate yourself better and to not put efforts in the not-so-worthy places.
Being overconfident or underconfident
There might be instances where you’d think that you nailed the interview and that you knew answers to all the questions! On the contrary, in some places, you might not be positive about the interview because you think you didn’t answer well enough. Surprisingly, none of these opinions matter when the interviewer states your salary. A survey accounted that candidates who were either overconfident or underconfident about their interview didn’t make any more than the ones who weren’t.
This clearly signifies that how you reflect upon your interview performance does not matter much in regard to your compensation. So, make the most of your interview, stay confident. Don’t let yourself down in case you aren’t able to answer well in a few places.
Making the salary offered your first priority
Management responsibilities
People often have a misconception that managers get paid better than the ones they oversee. Where this might be in true in some cases, this often does not hold significance in the tech industry. Surprisingly, the gap between the contributors and their managers has significantly narrowed in recent years. This has been visualized with the rise of experts in this field. There often are times when individual contributors have more experience than their managers. In such cases, both of them are paid fairly. In cases where companies allow dual career tracks, employees have the choice to either contribute individually or become a manager. Here, equivalent salaries are assigned to both roles as both of them contribute at an equally high level.
So, when it comes to taking managerial positions to earn better, it might not be the deal-breaker for you. Even though it might affect salaries in many instances, but it definitely does not depend entirely on that ground.
Making more money in the technical field requires relevant skills. Moreover, it requires your ability to compile them and put them all in one plate. Other than practising and working towards it, there is no easy way out. Take into account the points we’ve mentioned to pave your way into your dream job offering a high tech salary. Get ready to soar high. All the best!