Negotiation Strategies

Constant collaboration between Product Management & Engineering

This article discusses a problem faced by one company where Product Management and Engineering were in constant conflict due to misalignment of deliverables. The author, a Director of Engineering, implemented rules of engagement, chunking down and chunking up models, and invited Product Managers to Engineering meetings to help resolve disagreements. The article also highlights the importance of building trust between Project Management and Engineering to ensure smoother delivery and more effective negotiation.

The Power of Acquisitions

This article outlines the steps taken to acquire businesses, customers, content, and users. It emphasizes the importance of research, sending emails, asking business questions, and building relationships. It also encourages CEOs to look for other points of leverage besides money when making acquisitions.

Why I Made My Company’s Compensation More Structured

Pilot has implemented a new compensation process that eliminates negotiation components and rewards employees based on their skills. The company has also taken steps to ensure that employees are not discriminated against based on their location, by benchmarking salaries to the most expensive country they are comfortable hiring in. The key lesson learned is to focus on creating a fair compensation scheme that does not rely on negotiation skills.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

I managed to convince top notch engineers to accept my offer

In a tricky negotiation to hire three rockstar engineers from a failed start-up, the negotiator leveraged different aspects to convince them to accept the offer. These included emphasizing the challenging role and professional growth, showing that the stock value would be higher, putting them in contact with people who had faced a similar situation, and looking for positions for their significant others. The negotiation was successful, and the negotiator learned the importance of listening to the person's concerns and finding ways to show that the company cares about their wellbeing.