I worked for a tech company last year and in Dec, my boss told me his hands were tied at giving me a cost of living raise because I was at the top of my title range. I ended up putting in my notice, for one, I was doing multiple job duties outside of my title and for two, I knew my male coworkers with the same title were making roughly 20% more than me.
Now, 8 months later, they still hadn’t been able to fill my seat and reached out to me to reapply. During the process, I asked for a desired salary of about 35% of what I had been making. They came back saying that 10% above is the max for the title, which was more than what my previous boss offered but still less than my male coworkers made. I stuck to my guns and doubled down on my number after a few rounds of very positive interviews.
I ended up negotiating a 20% raise, which was 10% more than the max the HR lady insisted on at the start of the process and sits at the salary range of my male coworkers. I also negotiated full and indefinite remote and an additional 10% sign on bonus to make up for the fact they couldn’t match my 35% ask.
It feels really good to have made it to the other side of this even though I’m still upset that I had to do so much work to simply make the same amount as my male coworkers. I don’t understand how these sorts of tactics can be legal given multiple areas of the business claimed I was already at the top of my title when it clearly wasn’t the case. Even in the application process, they said 10% more than what I had been making was the “top”. The constant moving of the needle is just so infuriating and I’m mad at myself that it’s took me 14 years in the tech industry to actually start advocating for myself. For reference, I live in Oregon where I thought we had strict “equal pay for equal work” laws but clearly there in no oversight
I wanted to say thank you to this sub for giving me the confidence to ask for my worth and for giving me the inside knowledge that these companies CAN offer you more.
TLDR; I negotiated a 20% raise and a 10% bonus after being told multiple times that I’m at the top of my title salary range. This put me on par with my male coworkers.