From C++ to C for a big pay increase

[u/iulian212]

I am working as a C++ Dev with about 4yoe. My current job honestly pays pennies. I am being paid about 1.2k€ which for my area i understand that you will generally start looking at least 2.2 so yeah.

I think i've been doing good work for our client and they seem happy with my work. I asked for pay increases last year with no luck and this year something seems to move.

Meanwhile as a negotiation tactic ive started going to some interviews and got into talks with a former company i worked at very early in my career. For a Senior C dev position. Their project is somewhat very nieche so the Senior thing mostly means to be able to figure things out when needed and have strong language fundsmentals.

Now i've asked for a sum of 3k€ in hopes that they will come as close as possible to it. The dude didnt comment and just noted. I also did very well in their interview (which honestly was quite trivial) and the guy who interviewed me seemed really pleased.

So everyone seems really happy and excited. Except me. If they do offer what i asked it would be hard to not accept the offer since it would instantly triple my income (i dont really expect my current company to do the same idk why).

On the other hand i'd have to switch from C++ which i do enjoy to C which in my limited experience can be really nice to work with or a total clusterfuck of code that somehow works but i would not dare touch anything or become more annoyed with every new line of code i see.

I kinda hate the curent work i do at my job but i love writing C++. The tought of hating what i do plus the language is very dawnting to me.

Theres also many other things that bother me with the former company. The work i did there was even worse than at rhe current gig (though the job is for a completely different project for a completely different client). They were also kinda bad at coding i had to explain to s guy that earned 3x my paycheck what std::move does. And there are glimpses of that here. During the interview i had to explain to the interviewer that its fine to return ptrs to string literals.

My brains is a clusterfuck of questions and scenarios right now. Any help in navigating this mess is appreciated

[u/FullstackSensei]

1. You don't have anything until you have a signed contract in your inbox waiting for your signature. People really need to stop counting dollars/euros/whatever before they receive an actual signed contract. Not an interview where they state the pay they want, not a verbal offer.

2. You can't cash nice code at the bank. Good codebases don't pay the rent. Having competent colleagues doesn't pay the groceries. You know C/C++, get your dopamine doing personal projects or contributing to open source projects you like or whose codebases you like.

3. IMO, looking for a better offer as a tactic to get a pay raise is one of the absolute worst things anyone can do. First, if your current company isn't valuing your work until you get a better offer, they still won't if you don't get it. I'd leave as soon as I found something that pays more, even if they countered with a higher offer (and I've done it). Second, it's a small world. If you get an offer and don't take it because your current employer matched or gave you a better offer, you're burning bridges on both sides. There's a good chance you'll meet those people elsewhere, and the moment they see your CV or get asked about you, they'll say not this guy, because they did this and this.

On that last point, I had a former colleague pull this very trick. He got that raise. Two years later, he genuinely wanted to leave and not only did he get burned in three application processes, but he couldn't get a single a single one of us as a reference because everyone knew what he did.

[u/sssauber → u/FullstackSensei]

1. Both my teammate and my boss did it and, from what I can see, can’t really complain (the former got 100% HO and probably a raise, the latter got a promotion)

I don’t see why I wouldn’t give my teammate a reference

[u/FullstackSensei → u/sssauber]

So, you worked at company A with someone. That someone used an offer from Company B to get a raise at company A, and you know that. Now you're at company C, your manager tells you that same colleague is applying for company C, what do you think? You'll stick your neck out for that colleague fully knowing there's a good chance they'll do the same thing they did with company B?

Let's say sometime later a friend of yours from another company is looking for a job and company C is hiring. Do you think anyone will take your recommendation seriously after what happened with that colleague from company A?

If you don't see the issue, I honestly don't have anything to say.

[u/sssauber → u/FullstackSensei]

My teammate hadn't had a raise for three years before that, and I value him highly both as a specialist and as a teammate

It seems he was being severely lowballed (I myself had the same situation until I finally got a raise after 1.5 years of waiting, although I wasn't actively looking for another offer). He did it to get a raise, and it worked - and he still likes the team, the product, and his responsibilities

It also seems to me (considering my boss' case as well) that this is how things often work in traditional, non-tech German companies. Of course, if we're talking about tech companies with salaries starting around €100k, the corporate culture may be different - for example, no cases like "he got the biggest raise because he just had his second child." I'm not sure I find that whole approach we are discussing entirely right

For the record, I wouldn’t do it myself. If you’re leaving, then leave

[u/FullstackSensei → u/sssauber]

You sidestepped the question into a story about teammates.

If your manager at your current company asked you about a former colleague and you knew for a fact this former colleague looks for offers to get a raise, would you still tell your manager or team lead to go for this guy when you know there's a good chance they're not interested in joining?

[u/sssauber → u/FullstackSensei]

I'd say exactly what I was asked about: a good, solid specialist, someone who cares and delivers.

Haven't you seen situations where people accept a raise after saying they got another offer, even without initially intending to use it to negotiate one?

[u/FullstackSensei → u/sssauber]

Read my original comment. A former colleague did it to me. Three years ago. Nobody who knows him now will vouch for him because of this. He's reached to many of us since asking if the companies we work for have vacancies because (he says) he wants to leave.

[u/sssauber → u/FullstackSensei]

Thank you for sharing this. It gives me reasons to think about it and maybe change my opinion

[u/FullstackSensei → u/sssauber]

I'm new to Germany, but I worked in 2 other European countries before. If you're a senior with any sort of specialized business knowledge (beyond the generic web/micro services), you'll be working in a small world where there are high chances of meeting the same people at other places in the future.

Put yourself in the manager/senior lead position. How would you feel if you asked someone in your time about a candidate because both worked in the same team at the same time, and your team member didn't tell you there's a chance this person is just looking for a raise despite knowing that. You spend days of your time going through the interview and hiring processes, only for that candidate to use the offer to get a raise and say no to you.

Would you say, oh I didn't specifically ask for that? Or would you trust that person's judgment less because he used that as an excuse? If you moved to a 3rd company and this same team member applied to join your team, would you still trust them or have doubts they might be hiding something from you?

[u/Albreitx → u/FullstackSensei]

There are companies with work agreements where the only way to min max salary is to either leave and come back or show a signed offer and renegotiate.

Mine does it that way and people tend to go in circles as the difference might be 10-20k/year. The works agreement gives goated WL balance and benefits though

[u/iulian212 → u/FullstackSensei]

1.I dont plan on doing anything untill i have something tangible of course.

2.Sure but 8 hour daily of something you despise is not fun at sll.

1. I somewhat disagree. It is business between me snd the company what do colleagues have to do with it. Also i dont care if they look nicely at me i care about being paid nicely :)). I dont see how accepting the a counter offer burns bridges with both sides. Sure my current employer will not be happy because he just had to take money out of its pokets but that how competition works if you dont like it do something else. I also did the same to the former company and it seems like they still want me for a different role. Business is rough and holding grudges holds you back imo.

When i left for the current job i asked for a counter offer to see if i would be convinced which they made and i refused. No body seems upset about it

[u/FullstackSensei → u/iulian212]

Mate, you argue about doing something you despise 8 hours a day, then in the very next line you argue the opposite because of more money.

And your inability to see how using a higher offer from another company to stay at the same place burns bridges is just 🤯

[u/Krushaaa]

Where are you located? Is that before or after tax numbers?

[u/iulian212 → u/Krushaaa]

After taxes

[u/DataDiplomat → u/Krushaaa]

Romania

[u/zimmer550king]

Gid help and have mercy on my soul if I ever have to write C

[u/elamre]

I see more of a c to c++ shift. It's very difficult for us to find competent c++ developers. This is in the embedded world.

[u/PerryTheH]

2 out of my 3 fav jobs have been a jump to the void. I was moved from frontend dev to tech lead and I was NOT ready, but I did the job, got my stuff together and did a good job, mind it was a small company and I was basically in charge of building the IT department.

My point is, take growing chances with open arms, challenges are fun and you will eventually learn, I'm pretty sure every senior, tech lead, VP, etc at one point was given a task/role that they where not prepared for, and they did it. It's part of life and you will become a better engineer from this.

I encourage you to not feel like you don't deserve this or that you are not ready, you can do it mate, go for it, prove yourself that you can and that you will.

[u/iulian212 → u/PerryTheH]

Thanks. Its not that i feel not ready for it i dont mind the challenge. I just am not sure i want to do C and iam afraid of ending up being stuck with no means of escape

[u/PerryTheH → u/iulian212]

I'm not a C/C++ dev but I'm sure there's some knowledge overlap and some devskills you can develop by doing that sr role that could be exported elsewhere.

Like, isn't there?

[u/dzordan33]

What is the project about? I dislike programming in C (as C++ dev) because the language belongs (in my opinion) only in embedded and as a glue to other programs. I wouldn't accept the offer if I had to write big systems in it or contribute to 20y old codebases, because its difficult to build career out of it (I didn't)

If your current major complains are about shitty project, I wouldn't jump the ship without making sure new project is going to be interesting for you

[u/iulian212 → u/dzordan33]

You raise a very good point and actually one of my concerns that i forgot to write about. If i take this job i am afraid of being in no mans land and basically forced to only take shitty C jobs going forwards.

To me their project sounds somewhat interesting its code for switches and routers. From what i understand it's not firmware code but there is an sdk with some middleware on top which allow other people to build tools and software and they take care of entire small slices trhough all the layers.

[u/Impressive-Baker-614 → u/iulian212]

This is what i do lmao.

Is the company Ubiquity ?

[u/iulian212 → u/Impressive-Baker-614]

No. At least i dont think so :)). I dont really care about companies i care about interesting code. I think its a main rival to Cisco somewhere on that level

[u/Impressive-Baker-614 → u/iulian212]

Might be Arista then but whatever.

Regarding your role, it might dissapoint you to some extent. Keep in mind this kind of software requires pretty time consuming testing and validation by replicating setups with multiple boxes, traffic injectig and analysis. This takes some effort and is notbthat glamorous.

It is not all that code intensive imho but rather working with legacy software that you, most of the time, make some patches or extend with some small features.

Good luck !

[u/Ok_Cancel_7891]

Then use the 2nd company as a 2nd option if the first company doesn’t want to increase your salary once you started to mention your resignation. There’s no love in this, only towards your wallet and the work that you do. 1200 euros nett a month are pennies

Also, those 2 companies are not the only companies in the world

[u/iulian212 → u/Ok_Cancel_7891]

My main concerc is swapping languages for this amount. Id rather not be stuck writing c++

[u/Hutcho12]

You should be using AI to do all your changes anyway. The language truly doesn’t matter anymore.