Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesnt like to give in easily. When he is not writing hes most probably running front-end UX More aboutVitaly

1. Never Tell Your Salary Expectations First

We often focus on the latest techniques and tooling trying to optimize our workflows and processes. However in the end every single person has their own goals and ambitions and too often our individual goals are left far behind the companys goals and product development roadmaps.

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Over the last few weeks Ive been receiving a few emails asking about the right ways to negotiate salary get promoted and notice red flags early. So I thought that having spent around 20 years in this industry it might be a good idea to write down a few personal observations that I wish somebody had told me earlier in my career.

I started designing and building websites around 1999 just around the glorious era of VRML and Macromedia Shockwave. At the time I had started my first job in a small digital agency where I worked for a few years all around PHP and shiny new CSS layout mostly having barely a clue about what I was doing. I was studying computer science while also earning a bit of money as a freelancer. I did so until early 2006 when I completed my studies and moved on to co-found Smashing Magazine. It seemed to be just a hobby initially but eventually with the magazine came many products from books to conferences to the job board and Smashing Membership.

Throughout the years I would write and edit articles about the web day and night and I absolutely loved every single bit of it. When people asked me about how many hours do I work a week I felt a bit confused because all of it didnt feel like work at all. This hasnt changed a bit today. Yet around mid 2010s I felt like Im missing actual front-end work on actual projects. So around 2014 I slowly started working on projects with companies small and large mostly as a contractor and often on long-term projects. Eventually I launched a video course on interface design and am currently writing a book that I hope to finish by late 2022.

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Over all these years Ive been working with dozens of companies and organizations in various roles and projects from front-end optimization to UX and quite a bit in-between. Over all these years Ive been reminding myself of a few observations that I made somewhere between chains of emails and Slack conversations backroom meetings and stories from colleagues and friends whom I had a pleasure to be working.

2. Switching Companies Is How You Make More Money

Well start with one of the most mundane issues that Ive been noticing repeating over and over again telling about salary expectations too early in the interview process.

Usually it doesnt take long until a recruiter or HR manager asks you about your salary expectations or estimated total cost in an interview. Of course youd like to make a good first impression and my first instinct has always been to provide a slightly discounted ballpark figure.

Google Web Developer

What I didnt realize for many years is that many recruiters and HR managers have their own KPIs and often they earn premiums based on how far they can negotiate down the industrys average salaries or total cost of the engagement. Thats why its not uncommon to see experienced professionals being hired for lower positions with a lower salary but similar responsibilities and similar scope of work.

Salary isnt everything but it is important. Be very careful and strategic when negotiating your salary. If you are asked about your salary expectations politely decline that question and ask for an offer first. You first need to assess the complexity of the project and the inner workings and expertise of the team otherwise your ballpark figure is just guesswork and often an inaccurate one. Most importantly never provide a number right away and defer it to an email that youll be sending later. This gives you a bit of time to think and avoid estimates that you might regret later.

Some HR managers will insist on some ballpark figures early. Thats why its critical to do your research upfront. Dont focus too much on your current salary as it might not account for inflation gender gap and other costs. Instead explore what a reasonable salary for your role is and for your level of experience in your region with Glassdoor and similar sites. You might even increase it a bit to leave enough room to negotiate later.

3. Pay Attention To Your Job Title

Even with these preparations in place though always avoid exact numbers and provide a range that feels comfortable for you. In fact a good way of pricing your work is by asking yourself what salary would make you enthusiastic enough to be heavily invested in the product and deliver your best work.

Sometimes the same recruiters who signed up with you one year getting in touch just a year later with another exciting opportunity from another exciting company. Thats wonderful for climbing the career ladder and salary increases yet as a result often you end up without any ownership at all just because you dont get enough time to contribute and see the impact of your contributions in real projects. And to me thats always been very important and more important than the salary.

In the industry its common to be jumping between companies every 1218 months and in fact thats how you usually would make more money. Sadly what I see as a result is that when some of my colleagues look back at their career they realize that its difficult for them to feel some sense of significant achievement and pride for the incredible work done mostly because they never had a change to really finish what they started. Undoubtedly these achievements reflecting in the incredible wall of incredible companies on your CV but this often doesnt turn into some deep feeling of self-realization.

If you feel valued and appreciated the team is great and salary is fine consider staying in the same company for around 23 years. Feel free to take job interviews in-between of course but you do need a bit of time to become fluent and proficient in a specific companys context. Once you are either grow in your company or do switch to another challenge. Just make sure it doesnt feel like its too early.

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4. Keep Record Of Your Achievements

We often think that titles dont matter as much as the work that we are actually doing. Yet throughout the years Ive been proved wrong over and over again. Titles do matter. In fact in many large companies and organizations titles define salary levels. It might feel acceptable to start from a lower position and grow your way into a senior position yet in practice its much more difficult than I have anticipated more on that later.

Be very careful and strategic about the role that you apply for and the role that you are given in the contract. There are significant differences between UX Designer and Senior UX Designer roles for example.

At first this seems very obvious but for a long time I didnt really pay attention to it until I noticed significant differences in salaries between people doing similar work but hired for different positions. This also applies to responsibilities and most importantly your position in the team.

So why is it so difficult to grow from one role into another Well we often think that if we just work hard enough we will get noticed and we will be promoted to senior positions with the salary and responsibilities adjusted accordingly.

However your growth heavily depends on how attentive and caring your managers are. Sometimes you might indeed get noticed but more often than not you wont. Managers change companies evolve teams get restructured and as these changes are happening you might not ever get to be promoted. Because everything is shifting all the time and with all the managers coming and leaving its difficult to stay on track around the right time for your promotion or raise. Thats why many people choose a safe strategy and raise salary by jumping from one company to another every 18-24 months.

6. Pay Attention To Your Estimates

Many companies have feedback loops one-on-one s 360 reviews etc. where you get feedback from your team and from your managers a few times a year. This is a great opportunity to raise the question about your personal growth and what you need to do to move to the next level. Use this opportunity in your favor.

Maintain an up-to-date record of your achievements milestones projects and learnings workshops and trainings youve attended articles youve written and talks youve given your help with onboarding new employees your contribution to weekly UX meetings etc. a Google Doc would do. This will help you argue better during salary negotiations. You have to be proactive about your salary increase you are unlikely to be promoted on your own so make sure that your managers provide time and space for you to bring up your question about your career personal growth responsibilities and salary.

Who doesnt want to have a lovely combination of ownership in the team a decent salary with stock options stability great managers fantastic people and a good work-life balance It was quite a surprise to me that getting everything neatly packaged in one job opening was quite an unrealistic expectation.

In a start-up environment you might have a lot of ownership but with it often comes slightly chaotic management with last-minute changes and mid-night fixes.

In large corporations you would have a reasonable salary and stability but you probably wont feel like you make significant contributions to the product. You are likely to be working on tiny adjustments often not even knowing if your work will ever see the light of day. However you learn a lot from your team and grow significantly as a professional.

7. Test The Company During Your Probation Period

As a contractor or freelancer you always need to chase your projects and with it comes a healthy dose of accounting estimates scopes of work and eventually last-minute changes and deadlines. Sometimes you might have too many projects and the next month you might be looking for work. This adds to the pressure and stress levels that you might want to avoid.

What about agencies and outsourcing companies Frankly I wish that in my early 20s Id have worked with them more than I did just around a year really. Mostly because Id love to have learned more about different knowledge domains to be able to apply this knowledge to my ongoing projects. Right now every time I have to deep dive and learn a lot about every single industry and this takes a remarkable amount of time and effort.

There is no magic space where you can have it all. And more often than not its not really needed. Figure out what is important to you. Personally Id choose to work with good people on a great product over salary and stock options any time of the day. The choice of the company would be influenced by this very decision.

Whats the best option There is probably none. To myself Id recommend to start out working in an agency or outsourcing company. Learn different knowledge domains learn how the business works get to know skilled people and make connections.

Then move to a product team to see how products are built and maintained and how teams are working together. Then switch to a larger company to learn from incredible people and understand slightly more complex sides of the product and business.

8. Think About Passive Income Early

Eventually either become a consultant or build a company of your own or move back to a product team. This might not be for everyone but it would make me have ownership over some parts of the product feel stable learn and be surrounded by people I can learn from.

As humans we are incredibly bad in estimating work and the best way to get better at it is to break down the scope of work into smaller units of work. Many managers assume that just because we have around eight working hours a day we are actually working productively during that entire timeframe. That however doesnt account for so many things from routine messaging on Slack and urgent errands to sick days and interruptions.

When asked to estimate the amount of time you need to deliver I always try to count on around 66.5 productive working hours a day. Feel free to underpromise and overdeliver but always include the cost of over-delivery in your estimates.

I definitely spend more time in spreadsheets these days compared to the early days and that might be one of the bigger changes throughout the years. It pays off to invest enough time into writing detailed scope of work explaining

Most importantly make sure that everybody understands that you are estimating delivery for a fixed scope of work and late changes will be expensive and might delay the delivery. In fact you might want to repeat that last sentence multiple times in your scope of work and make sure that you get an unambiguous sign-off from your client preferably with a signature.

We often think about the probation period being a test for us as employees but you can also see it as an important test for the company too. Watch out for red flags do people leave for strange reasons Do managers change frequently Are designers and developers being listened to in the company What are some of the recent changes that were implemented based on users feedback

Engage in conversations about what the impact of work is just to make sure that you dont put your hard work and efforts into something that might not even be worth your energy. You are talented skilled and hard-working and there are plenty of good uses for your skills out there.

When you are in your 20s its easy to dismiss the notion of passive income. After all you have all the time in the world to make your financial decisions later. But I cant stress it enough do think early about your passive income the earlier you start investing into ETFs or creating digital products templates and books the more you can accumulate over the years. Thats a valuable and the most important investment of your time for the decades to come.

Your best asset is the time you have and the longer you keep investing the more impactful your interest is going to be after just a few decades. You dont need much money to start building up your passive income. Even putting aside 100 a month will pay off long term.

Also find like-minded people and start cultivating your user base. Once you know what you like doing try to do as much as possible around that niche to make sure that when the topic comes up your name or the resources that you have created come up along with it.

This requires visibility writing publishing releasing and open-sourcing. Set aside a bit of time every week to invest in it its worth every second of your time.

Of course everybody has their own experiences so the things Ive mentioned here might not be quite what youd recommend and might not align with your current situation.

However I strongly believe that many of these points will be important to consider or think about before switching companies confirming an offer or passing the probation period.