everyone there seems like some type of PhD in the area that they're developing. So the fact I was able to hang in the interview and at least present myself well must speak well to my communication skills as far as they're concerned. Almost every answer I gave was in the form of "I don't know at all, but...."

I genuinely didn't know the answer to a single question they asked me but I was able to work it out with each interviewer and engage them in a way where we came up with a suitable solution.

I know if it came to raw technical ability I'd rate myself pretty poor so that feedback makes sense to me.

J,

You’re in a win-win situation.

If this thing progresses as expected, you get a job you’re interested in very quickly with no additional effort on your part, and get to change some of your life circumstances you want to change immediately.

If this thing falls through, it’ll take a bit of time and effort, but you can do an actual job search and get a job that’s even better than this one.

****ing gmail, i was halfway through typing out the email and i hit the space bar accidentally and it sent.

A tip I saw once is to always fill in the recipients line of an email last, after content and subject. Since then I always compose that way. It's a simple thing that saves a lot of headache.

why is that even a feature? who needs to fire off emails that fast that they need a really easily accident prone hotkey

J,

Don’t sweat it, everyone has done it before, including them.

But for the future, samuri’s rec is a good one for really important emails.

Especially ones where you’re copy/pasting and changing names/etc.

I don’t think mentioning your prior salary hurts you at all here — you’re switching fields completely. I would also fill in the salary you’re looking for after researching this kind of job and then adding fifteen per cent or so to the average, assuming you’d be happy with that number. I’m not wildly against leaving that blank, but I do not think you have to worry that putting in a number like 80k will blow up an offer. If your number is out of range, they will counter.

Howard,

It prob doesn’t matter at this stage in the process with this company, but putting a wildly out of range number can hurt earlier in the process. Let’s say I’m looking to hire someone for 115, but willing to go up to 125. Three good candidates apply. Two of them put 130 and 135, one of them puts 165. I’ll interview the first two and not bother with the third, because even if I’m able to close them in my range, I’m not confident I’ll be able to find a number where they are really happy to take the job and won’t just be looking around immediately or pushing for a big raise at six months, etc.

Just thought of a concrete example of how much value there is in negotiation. 2016 or so my company hired a data scientist and offered $115k. He countered that he wanted $135k. I was the hiring manager but not the P&L owner so I really didn't give a **** (and even if I did, I really liked this guy so $20k extra was nothing). I asked HR, they were cool with it, we paid the man his money.

Ended up being an amazing hire. The data scientist got his extra $20k/year, has generated a ton of value for the firm, and is probably a little less likely to attrite because he's being paid more competitively and was treated well in the negotiation process.

Joe,

And of course in addition to the 20k for him, all percentage based raises and bonuses (which almost always take that into account to some degree) will be that much higher, his salary history will be higher when switching jobs, etc.

Agree. It’s bad to go wild.

I don't think I'd do this.

-------------

Congratulations! Let's hope the offer is exactly what you want, and any negotiating is just gravy on top.

For desired salary you might put, "negotiable". If they question you, bring up your research, mention you're open to other types of compensation (if true), have something to counter with.

As Howard said, you shouldn't be worried about putting former salary as a captain down; apples/oranges.

From what you're written about them and yourself, I get the feeling that a technical manager/product owner-type role works well for both of you.

Maybe that should be part of the negotiation/acceptance discussion. Describe your vision for this position -- i.e., mention how you feel that the product doesn't necessarily solve the problems of the actual users, and "here's how I think we should alter course." (Pun intended, although it's terrible).

That last paragraph I'm really not sure if it's a good idea or not.

No matter what I do, I can't get gmail to send an email by hitting the spacebar, but turn this on just in case:

J,


Absolutely don’t do that.

The old Captain's salary being apples/oranges is precisely why J should leave previous salary blank. The Captain salary being likely much lower than the new offer will only give the new employer a sense of " we can possibly go low since its still much more than he was making".
It does nothing good for you to put the captain salary on there. For the same reason that if I worked in the library during college, I am not going to put that salary on a job app for full time employment pkst graduation.

This is a 1st post college job but J is much older than your typical first time graduate so the typical #s are thrown out the window. Having all that experience is good and a bad thing especially since you were technically a manager which is helping you getting this job. I think putting it will be fine in this case or leaving it blank will also be fine.

J,


That’s correct.

Yes asking salary is illegal in California and some other states, but as I expected people still ask it because they don't give a ****.

this company is a shtshow and very scumbabsy. he should obv take it, but immediately try to find another job. so many red flags.

I mean, you are a recent grad with no experience and you hung with the questions of academic phds. and they said that was your weakness. like, I am not even close to able to convey how completely and totally utter bs that is.

also, its utterly irrelevant to your job (or 99.9% of jobs).

jmakin, your raw technical ability is insanely high. compared to phd maybe it is low. but like 0.0001% of working devs are working on that level. nor does that level matter a bit for making web apps.

I didn't know that was illegal, it seemed like a pretty generic application form to get my basic info. I'm not sure how hard they're going to pursue references if at all.

I'm not celebrating quite yet but they seemed very eager so who knows what will happen.

It's funny, larry told me to remove the objective statement paragraph in my resume that mentioned my decade of experience on boats and said it would make it seem like I was shooting too high, but then this happens. I think he's 100% right but them offering this position to me just feels so absolutely strange.

maybe. i think you're rating me a little too high based on limited info. They did only ask me 1 coding question and that was the one I sort of knocked out of the park so I'm a little confused as to that specific feedback, but the other stuff I definitely would say I did poorly on. Maybe they're referring to the take home problem they gave me, which I did not do well on either.

I mean look at the email **** up. I'm hilariously bad at using technology and this includes IDE's and general tech usage. I guess I accidentally sent him a blank PDF too.

I'm just a good student and test taker and I've retained almost nothing from school.

Yeah it sounds like a boilerplate form they downloaded from a google search. re: asking for your past salary even though that became illegal 3 months ago, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I don't think it's nefarious at all, people just don't generally care about following employment related rules, and updating paperwork when laws pass in that topic area never happens.

It's because even with laws companies have such an astronomical amount of leverage that zero people will ever even consider doing it for risk of having their name attached to an employment related lawsuit which will render them unemployable.

it is a boilerplate form

the top says

"Application for Employment
The Company Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
All applicants for employment are required to complete and submit this Employment Application.
The Company does not discriminate on the basis of sex, age, color, race, religion, marital status, national origin, ancestry, sexual
orientation, physical & mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal,
state or local law. "


which is why i don't think they'll follow up too hard on references, i think they just wanted my basic information