My most efficient salary negotiations to date (2.5x, net)
This Friday I attended Product Camp Berlin 2025.
The whole event deserves a separate post, but here I just want to focus on a particular story.
One of the first talks I joined was hosted by Michael Martens, and it basically was a round table where we were openly speaking about money — how much, how difficult, etc. Unfortunately, in 20 minutes the whole thing transformed into a 'men vs women' gender gap discussion, but the talk awakened some fun memories from 10+ years ago. I wasn't able to share it during the talk, thought I might share it now.
The story
It was in 2013, if I recall correctly. At that point in time, I was working for a body shop acting as a vendor for a major bank. Let's call it 'Magical Services' for the sake of our future story.
Despite Magical Services being a body shop, things were OK there. The atmosphere was nice, my project was relevant and interesting, and I was bluntly young.
In the very same city, we also had a competing body shop, serving many other clients, including the very same major bank. Let's call this body shop 'Pupesoft' for the very same reasons. There were some talks that the atmosphere in this body shop was not as good as in ours — projects were opened and closed, people were easily put on the bench and more frequently 'let go', time trackers and screen recorders were used, etc. Yet the salaries were higher.
Back then, I already wanted to work on products. I also wanted more money, but wouldn't ever consider joining Pupesoft, even though their HRs were reaching out to me at least every 3 months, due to the fact that Pupesoft was trying to hunt people for their banking division.
2013 for some reason was quite challenging for Magical Services. Our salaries got delayed, first for 3-4 days, then for weeks, etc., but the atmosphere was still nice. I had some savings and no kids/mortgage at that time, so I was not bothered.
Then I was asked by my company to go on a business trip to another city, to visit the very same major bank's office. Fine. But when my colleague and I arrived at our destination point, we realized that the hotel was booked but not paid for, that it was a 1.5h drive (public transport, not taxi) from the client's office, and that our trip money was 'almost transferred to our cards', yet never got there for the whole duration of our business trip.
This time I was quite pissed off.
When I returned from that business trip in a few days, I got another email from a Pupesoft HR, and this time I agreed to talk. Imagine my surprise when they told me they had plenty of ex-colleagues of mine, and we didn't need to do any formal rounds of interviews — just find me a team that would fit best. I picked a day in a week from the contact time, came to Pupesoft's office, indeed met plenty of my ex-colleagues, had one or two short and sweet discussions with people managers, and immediately got feedback: you are OK, we want you. Give us your number.
In the meantime, things were getting steadily better for Magical Services. We got our salaries. We got our travel money. We got our 'apologies'. There were some new projects in the pipeline assuring there would be money in the future. Don't get me wrong, I wanted something better, but I didn't want to exchange one semi-body shop for another true body shop, even for bigger money.
I was thinking about the number to give to Pupesoft. I assumed they would have some idea of how much I'd been getting at Magical Services, but that didn't bother me at all then. After a bit of consideration, I asked them for 2x the money I'd been earning at Magical Services, expecting to hear "sorry no, we know you earn way less than that."
They thought for a couple of days, and then they returned and said — yes. Let us put it in writing, but we are waiting for you in our 'big friendly family'.
Shit. Shiiiiiit. © The Wire
I could easily double the money (and, just in case, we are speaking here about post-tax money already, very 'clean' and all completely in your wallet), but still I didn't want to join Pupesoft.
I was on vacation when I got the 'we'll give you the money you want' call from Pupesoft. I was standing and looking at a beautiful evening lake, and then I pinged my manager at Magical Services, asking for a call.
We had a very good relationship — we still meet when we find ourselves in the same city — and I explained everything to him. My loyalty, my frustration with the recent business trip, my 'product aspirations', my unwillingness to join Pupesoft, and how I tried to dump their offer by asking for an unrealistic amount of money.
He listened carefully and asked, "What did they offer you?"
I have no idea what was in me back then, but I thought I was a bit underpaid, didn't have much experience in salary negotiations, and another company had agreed to pay me twice the money I had. So I told him they offered me 2.5x the money.
He paused and told me, "Don't sign anything yet. I will speak to our senior management and will try to make it work for you."
In a day, I got a call from him. Senior management approved. I got my 2.5x increase, net, from the next month.
I stayed with Magical Services for another 2.5 years, which were happy and fun, and only left them for a startup product company in CPH, Denmark — but that's another story.
Lessons learned:
- I was quite underpaid for some time at Magical Services.
- It is truly great to have your manager on your side.
- Bad situations can lead to nice outcomes. If not for that business trip, I'm not sure if I would have responded to another email from Pupesoft in the near future.