- Money and salaries and paychecks
It's all very taboo isn't it
to talk about how much we get paid?
And that's exactly what I want to do in this video
because I don't think that money talk
should be a thing that we avoid.
The more we talk about how much we earn
the more we can help each other to be paid what we're worth.
So right now I want to take you
through my design career so far and my history of raises
and negotiations and talk about the different changes
that led to my different salary increases
over the past eight years.
(upbeat electronic music)
A few disclaimers that I want to make
before we get into this video fully,
I am going to be sharing real numbers in this video
because why the heck not.
But what's more important is the context
surrounding those numbers
so that's what I want you to focus on okay.
My career has been in different countries
different currencies and location has a huge impact
on how much you're paid for certain design jobs
so just keep that in mind
when I'm talking about these different jobs.
I'm gonna tell you where they were in the world
and that should help you for context there.
I'll be converting all my salaries into US dollars though
just so we've got a constant going throughout this.
Different areas and disciplines within design
can also be paid very differently
so what I'm sharing with you here
is my personal experience as a web and graphic designer.
I also want to note that the only reason
I feel comfortable talking about this now
is because the company I currently work for
has standardized salaries
so I feel confident that I'm being paid fairly
but I haven't always felt that way.
So please don't take any of these numbers
that I'm sharing with you as a benchmark
or as my advice on what you should ask for
in certain stages of your career
Cool? Alright
With that out the way, let's get into it.
My first ever full-time job as a designer
was working as a graphic designer
on the marketing team at a reseller
of Mitsubishi Electric products in New Zealand.
I worked there part time while I finished my studies
and basically as soon as I finished
my last university classes they offered me a full-time job
for 35,000 New Zealand dollars.
I did not negotiate that salary at all
which spoiler alert is unfortunately a common theme
throughout my career history.
But honestly I was just thrilled
to be earning a full-time living doing design work.
After I'd been there a few months
they gave me about a 14% raise
and I can't remember if I had any other raises
while I was at that company
but the next big jump I had in my salary
was when I left that job to start my career in tech.
So this first job in tech was a marketing design role
at an accounting software company
based in Wellington New Zealand called Zero
The company had I think around
350 400 employees worldwide when I started there.
And I was making this transition
from print to web and when they asked me
my salary expectations I said that
I wanted to make over $50,000
and what they offered me was 60,000.
So well over what I offered
I was obviously undervaluing myself
and I appreciated that Zero didn't take advantage of that.
I took that offer again without negotiating
because it was a 50% increase on the salary
I was earning at Mitsubishi Electric
and so I was stoked with that.
I know now that I should've negotiated
because one it can't hurt to try.
Right? Might as well.
And two when you get a raise at a company
it's usually based on the percentage
of the salary that you are on.
So when you come in you're sort of
setting this baseline for what you're getting paid
and your raises that you get on top of that
will be building on that initial salary.
So the higher you can negotiate
for that initial salary to be
the more you'll get in your raises essentially.
But you live and you learn.
So not negotiating when you first start out
can limit your potential earnings at the company as a whole
which is unfortunate so learn from my mistake.
Zero was also a company though that offered bonuses
both in the form of a catch bonus yearly
where it was like a set amount
and then you get a percentage of it
based on how well the company did.
So you might get like 80% of your cash bonus
for that year for example.
And they also had what they called
a long-term bonus in the form of shares
because Zero was a publicly traded company.
So I've got some Zero shares for my time working there.
I'm not gonna go too deeply into benefits in this video
but it's important to note that
the overall package is what you should look at
when you're evaluating a role
not just the pure number of salary.
I've got a couple of raises at my time at Zero
through just performance reviews
and as the company grew my 10 year there
sort of became more and more valuable
and I ended up being paid 73,000 New Zealand dollars
by the time I left New Zealand and moved to London.
Now the cool thing about this move to London
was that Zero had an office there
so I was able to transfer within the company
and not have to look for a job in London which was cool.
But my biggest mistake here was that
I treated this move too much like
Zero was doing me a favor
and not enough like I was filling a vacant role
at the design position in the office in London.
They didn't have any designer there anymore
when I moved over to fill that.
Zero didn't help with any relocation costs for this move
because they said it was a self initiated thing
so that's why they weren't gonna pay for it.
And yea basically just I have some regrets
about how I handled that situation.
It was all very complex, but yeah.
I think there were some things that I could've done better.
Anyway I didn't know that living in London
I was gonna have a higher cost of living
and Zero knew this too and so what they offered me
for this transition for this move
to do the same job essentially
that I was doing in New Zealand but based in London
They offered me 42,000 pounds as my starting salary.
So that was about a 15% increase
from my salary for the same role in New Zealand.
Now I've done my research and found that
the cost of living in London was about
27% higher than in New Zealand.
And so that's what I was hoping for in a raise
and what I did speak to my manager about but
this is what we ended up on and I took it
and I don't regret that because it did allow me
to move to London pretty seamlessly
to turn up in a country on the other side of the world
with a job was pretty great.
My next salary increase came about six months later
when I actually left that job at Zero
to start working at a London-based tech company
Now in this role the mistake that I made
in this process was actually answering them
when they asked me what I was earning currently.
This is something that a potential employer
is always gonna ask you in an interview.
And I would advise you not to be
the person who says a number first.
When they ask you what you're earning
or what you want to earn,
it's always good idea to ask them
for what the range is for this role
and then you can give your answer based on that.
If you go in there and lay a number
down on the table first
then you are setting that benchmark
and it's potential that the company
could take advantage of you in doing that.
Honestly what you are currently earning
should have no impact on what your value is
in a role at a new company it shouldn't play a part.
So don't be the first one to say a number.
Anyway I told them that my salary package
I was earning currently at Zero was 45,000 pounds
and they said well you're probably
actually getting paid pretty well
for where you're at in your career
and they ended up offering to match that.
In a stroke of boldness though
I decided I was gonna try and negotiate
and I asked them for a whole thousand pounds extra.
I asked for 46,000 pounds and they agreed
pretty much immediately and that's when I knew
that I obviously should've asked
for way more than that in the negotiation.
I know, I tried.
This is what I hate about this
whole salary negotiation process
is that you end up being paid a lot of the times
based on your negotiation skills
rather than your design skills which I think is lame.
But anyway this ended up being about
a 9.5% increase on my base salary
from my role at zero.
But because Edited didn't offer
any bonuses or all that sort of things
as part of the salary package
I was ending up being paid around about the same
which was a good salary to allow me
to live comfortably in zone two in London.
Sadly I did not get any sort of raise
or even a performance review that I remember
in the whole 18 months I was there.
I don't know the company wasn't great
at career development I will say that.
But so my next change in salary
my next increase came when I changed roles
to my current job that I have now at ConvertKit.
This is my first remote role
and it's also a US-based company
so theres a whole lot of different factors in there.
The company was about twenty something
people I think when I started.
Oh and for context Edited was maybe about
40-ish when I started just to give you
some context for that salary that they offered me.
Anyway I was really excited with this
new job offer to be working remote
and to not be having to commute every day in London
because that was taking up a lot of time.
But I did want to make sure that I was being paid
enough to sustain my lifestyle in London
and to keep up with the cost of living there.
I ended up starting at ConvertKit
on just a few thousand dollars
more than I was making at Edited.
But ConvertKit is a company that
also has some great that benefits.
Like they do a vacation bonus they do profit sharing
you get to share on the profits of the company.
So I felt confident that it was a smart decision
salary wise and that I was gonna be making more
as well as having a better work life balance
with this whole remote thing
In stark contrast to that previous role
where I had no raises I've had quite a few
increases in salaries since I've been at ConvertKit.
I ended up getting an 8 to 10% raise
every six months for the first little while
until the company did something that I really like
and introduced those standardized salaries
that I talked about in the beginning.
So this is based on data collected by Radford.
They put together a report on the industry
for lots of different roles within Tech.
They give you an idea of where the market is at
what the market range is for
different roles at various different levels.
Companies can purchase access to this data
and choose what percentile of the market rate
they want to meet when paying their employees.
So when this got introduced I was set
as a Level Three Web UX designer
and my salary increased to 85,000 US dollars.
Now like I said negotiation hasn't really been
much of the through line in this salary history has it?
But I got a chance to practice
some negotiation skills earlier this year
when I decided to advocate for myself
to be moved up from Level Three to a Level Four.
Each level within these standardized salaries
has a description of the skills and responsibilities
that you are expected to have and
be responsible for at each different level.
So I essentially took a look at
what the Level Four ones were and made a case for myself
and talked to my manager and he agreed
that it was time to move me up a level.
This resulted in a 23.5% increase in my salary
which is very cool and I was proud of myself
for having advocated for myself, you know.
We just recently got in a new years worth of Radford data
and they remapped all the salaries in the levels
and that sort of thing and so I ended up
getting a little bit of an increase there
because the market rate for my job has increased.
So right now my salary is 115,000 US dollars
which is 9.5 increase on what I was earning previously.
And because those salaries are standardized
I can expect that I'll stay at that level
either until the market rate for my role changes
until the company decides to change the percentile
at which we're meeting of these industry averages
or until I get a promotion to be moved up a level again.
This way of doing things means that
I'm not getting those 8 to 10% regular every six months
raises like the ones before but I like a lot better
because I know that I'm being paid fairly
and I know that everyone else on my team
is being paid fairly as well and that's important to me.
I don't know if these numbers are surprising to you at all,
either surprisingly low or surprisingly high
depending on where you're coming at this from.
I know that I could be earning a lot more for my role
if I wanted to work at a bigger tech company
or perhaps one of the hot start ups
with the low VC funding that sort of thing.
You can get some some very high salaries
at those sorts of companies.
But what's more important to me is
quality of life, working for a mission driven company
that I believe in and doing work I love
So, yeah I'm happy with where I'm at the moment.
I hope this is interesting to you
to hear about my career history from the salary perspective.
Keep in mind like I said at the start that
none of these numbers should really be used as a benchmark.
There is location and experience
and inflation even to consider.
But yeah I hope it was interesting
for you to hear about nonetheless.
Thank you for watching I've left a link
in the description to a podcast episode
because if you didn't know I have a podcast
called Design Life with a cohost.
My friend Pamka who works at Uber, she's a product designer.
And we did an episode where we talked
about compensation and negotiations.
So if you want to dive more in depth
on all that stuff, be more about it
then go give that a listen through the link below.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye!
(upbeat electronic music)