--- title: "Increase Your Salary | Engineering Leaders | Marian Kamenistak" description: "For capable engineering leaders stuck below their ceiling. Build provable market value, put it in language a CTO and CFO respect, and negotiate the raise or offer. Based on Marian's 12-step method." url: "https://www.marian.coach/increase-your-salary-and-value/" lang: "en" image: "https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-40.C42wvuNe_Z1yteTS.jpg" --- Engineering leaders who are underpaid for what they can do # Increase Your Salary. Build the value you can prove, then negotiate the number. You're good and you know you're good. You've also watched louder, less capable peers take the title and the number while you stayed so valuable where you are. Two years of keep doing what you're doing isn't loyalty being rewarded. It's your market value falling behind quietly enough that nobody has to mention it. Value you can't prove doesn't pay. We build the portfolio that makes your impact hard to argue with, put it in language a CTO and a CFO both respect, and rehearse the negotiation until the number moves. 3,400+ mentoring sessions, ex-VPE at Mews, ex-Manta acquired by IBM. [Book the intro →](https://www.marian.coach/meet) **9.2/10** from 300 mentees who rated the work. ## Five situations behind a stuck number Composites rather than case studies: real patterns, real numbers, invented people. Comp conversations are about as confidential as it gets. ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-01.BaBhsinu_Z1Ehb3c.webp) ### Competence turned out to be a career trap You're the one the team leans on when something breaks. Somehow that has made you too valuable to move. Two years of strong reviews and the same band, while the people who talk more get moved up around you. There's a mechanism behind this and it isn't personal. Reliable people generate no incidents, and organisations allocate attention to incidents. Being the reason nothing went wrong is genuinely invisible in every system a company uses to decide who gets paid more. So the work is making the invisible thing legible, and it's more mechanical than it sounds. Thirty-odd impact statements covering the last two years, each translating what you did into what changed: money saved, time recovered, scope absorbed, risk removed before it became an incident. Most people find this excruciating for the first hour and then can't stop. What you end up holding is a case a decision-maker can't wave away, and specifically one your manager can carry into a room you're not in. That's the actual bottleneck: not whether they rate you, but whether they can prove it to somebody else at short notice. Related reads - [10x your market value as a tech leader](https://www.marian.coach/blog/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps/) - [The promotion secret weapon](https://www.marian.coach/blog/want-to-get-promoted-the-software-developers-secret-weapon-for-advancing-in-your-career/) - [Being valued, not just relied on](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-02.BQRj2gmR_10nbng.webp) ### Somebody asks your salary expectations and your stomach drops You genuinely don't know what your role pays at the top of your market. So you anchor low, or you dodge the question, and either way the money is gone before the conversation properly started. We calibrate against real data rather than the averages that come up first: Levels.fyi for the global picture, Platy.cz for Czech roles, and my own network of tech-leadership comp across CEE, which is the part you can't google. You walk out with a band you can defend line by line and one specific number inside it. The number matters less than being unbothered when you say it. That's the bit we rehearse. Related reads - [What fair compensation looks like](https://www.marian.coach/blog/the-right-compensation-model-for-your-dev-team/) - [Reading your real market band](https://www.marian.coach/blog/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps/) ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-03.80EmKxtE_WBn5T.webp) ### Your work is a nine and the way you describe it lands like a five In the review, or the interview, it comes out as task language. I led the migration. I managed the team. You could feel it land flat and you don't know how to say it better without sounding like you're bragging, so you undersell it again, and the CFO in the room stopped listening about forty seconds in. Two separate skills are missing here and they need different work. One is a vocabulary problem: leaders buy outcomes, tradeoffs and unit economics, and you're describing activity. The other is a permission problem, which is the one that takes longer, because you were probably trained somewhere that describing your own impact accurately is immodest. We build the differentiator sentence first, the one that says what you're for in a way a CTO respects and a CFO understands. Then the business vocabulary underneath it so it survives a follow-up question. Then we record you saying it, repeatedly, until the outcome language comes out automatically and the cringe has worn off, which usually takes about three sessions and is the least dignified part of the work. Related reads - [Value in the language leaders buy](https://www.marian.coach/blog/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps/) - [Speaking the business, not just the stack](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-excel-in-engineering-management/) - [Building the vocabulary that pays](https://www.marian.coach/blog/great-people-are-active-in-self-learning/) ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-04.DW02JUAo_J9dPP.webp) ### Three cycles of next cycle and you still like it here Every time you raise comp it's budgets are tight, or next review. You don't want to threaten to leave, because you genuinely like the place. And you're finished with being the cheapest senior person in the building while training people who out-earn you. The thing that unlocks this is rarely a better argument. It's a deadline that exists whether or not anybody agrees to it, because next cycle works as an answer precisely as long as it costs nothing to say. So we build the case, which is the impact log plus the market band plus one specific number. Then we write the if-not-X-by-Y-then-Z, in advance, on paper, where Z is something you'd genuinely do. Then I play your manager in the dry run, including the deflection you've heard three times, so the real conversation isn't the first time you've said any of it out loud. You come out of it with the conversation held, a number on the table, and a documented fallback if the answer is still no. The fallback is the part that changes how the first two land. Related reads - [Moving a manager who keeps deferring](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-influence-my-manager/) - [The comp logic behind the ask](https://www.marian.coach/blog/the-right-compensation-model-for-your-dev-team/) ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-05.BrINwYEC_ZmuMrk.webp) ### You take the first offer out of sheer relief An offer lands, somebody said yes, and the relief is so strong you accept on the spot. Weeks later you find out one question would have been worth 20%. You don't know how to push without spending the goodwill you just earned. You can't spend it, in practice. Companies expect a negotiation and quietly price for one, which means the candidate who doesn't negotiate simply funds the one who does. Nobody rescinds over a well-mannered ask, and if anyone ever did, you learned something important about them for free. So we run mock negotiations with me as the hiring manager: the anchor, the silence after it, the second ask, the walk-away, and what your BATNA genuinely is rather than what you'd like it to be. For an internal move we work scope and title alongside the number, because those compound and a one-off bump doesn't. It's a thirty-minute skill that pays for about a decade. Related reads - [Building leverage before the offer](https://www.marian.coach/blog/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps/) - [Leaving well, arriving strong](https://www.marian.coach/blog/cto-exit-strategy-10-proven-steps/) - [Pricing yourself for advisory too](https://www.marian.coach/blog/consultant-advisory-guide-on-client-ground/) ## The questions I hear most from Engineering leaders who are underpaid for what they can do These are the exact asks from mentees in the last 12 months. Bring one to the intro call and we start there. - I am underpaid and "too valuable to move." How do I break out? - How do I prove my impact instead of just listing what I did? - What does my role pay at the top of the CEE market? - How do I talk about my value without sounding like I am bragging? - The raise keeps getting pushed to "next cycle." What now? - How much should I ask for, and how do I not take the first offer? - How do I get promoted when quiet competence keeps losing to louder peers? - How do I build the business vocabulary a CFO respects? - Should I get a competing offer to move my current comp? - How do I turn two years of stuck into a real jump in one quarter? ## How mentoring with me works Free 30-min intro. Two KPIs to move in 3-6 months. Small homework after every session. The full method, step by step: [See how mentoring works →](https://www.marian.coach/#how-it-works) ## Frequently asked Is this just salary-negotiation coaching?+ No. The negotiation is the last thirty minutes and most of the work happens well before it: building value you can prove and then say out loud without flinching. A brilliant negotiation on a weak case still loses. We fix the case first and the ask second. What if my company genuinely can't pay more?+ Then we establish that quickly rather than over another two cycles, and we build the outside option. Sometimes the honest answer is that the money isn't available here and the raise lives at the next company. You'll hear which one I think you're in. Can we talk about real numbers?+ Yes. I have tech-leadership comp data across CEE, EU, UK and US, plus Levels.fyi and Platy.cz to calibrate against. We work from bands, not from what somebody's cousin earns. Is this a fixed program?+ It draws on the same sequence I've run across 3,400+ sessions: know your value, make it provable, make it visible, then negotiate it. We run the parts you need in the order your situation calls for, one to one. How fast can the number move?+ A raise conversation can land inside a few weeks. A market jump through a new role is usually a 60 to 90 day arc. The one thing we don't do is wait for the annual cycle, because the annual cycle is where this has already died three times. ## Explore other roles - [Get Hired: Talk to CTOs Directly →](https://www.marian.coach/get-hired-talk-to-ctos/) - [Career path Decision →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-career-coach/) - [Life and Wellness →](https://www.marian.coach/life-and-wellness/) - [CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/) - [Engineering Director, Tribe Lead, Chapter Lead →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-director-mentor/) - [Engineering Manager, Team Lead →](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/) - [Senior or Staff Engineer →](https://www.marian.coach/staff-engineer-mentor/) - [Product Manager →](https://www.marian.coach/product-manager-mentor/) ## Why me ![Marian Kamenistak, mentor for Engineering leaders](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/marian-about.BisGE32e_mbivh.webp) 9.17/10 average across 300+ mentees. 3,400+ mentoring sessions since 2019. - Been in the seat. Built Mews into a $2bn+ unicorn: 8 to 80 teams, roadmap still shipping. Led engineering at Manta before that, acquired by IBM. - CEE-native, US-fluent. 4+ years in the Bay Area as Principal Software Architect at Databricks. - Still highly technical. AI freak. Bullshit me on estimate, effort, code quality or architecture and I'll ask to see the code or your AI skill set. - Financially independent. I don't need your money. I'm financially retired. Seeing you grow is my payoff. - Direct. Mentoring first. I boost you fast. No esoteric loops. [The full story →](https://www.marian.coach/#about) The one discount ## 16 minutes. 16% off. The First quarter lists at €2,580. Build the inquiry with my AI and the same six sessions come to €2,166 — €361 a session. No more than 16 minutes from the first question to a formal itemized offer in your inbox. [Get my offer →](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-chat/) [or connect your own AI assistant](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-ai/) ## Ready to start? Free 30-min intro. No pricing conversation on the first call. We figure out if we can move your specific problem forward. That is it. [Book the intro →](https://www.marian.coach/meet)Or email[marian@marian.coach](mailto:marian@marian.coach) ## From the blog [All posts →](https://www.marian.coach/blog/) - [![10x Your Market Value: The Tech Leader’s 8-Step Playbook](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps.png) ### 10x Your Market Value: The Tech Leader’s 8-Step Playbook Learn how to 10x your market value as a tech leader with 8 proven steps to boost your impact and become an irreplaceable asset in any company. 1 July 2025 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/10x-your-market-value-tech-leader-8-steps/) - [![Full auditorium audience at an engineering leadership conference where Marian Kamenistak spoke.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/speaker-09.Cgx0l7B4_OIr2s.webp) ### Should I Become a Team Lead? A 6-Dimension Answer Six dimensions predict whether the team lead role will fit you, drawn from 3,400+ mentoring sessions. Take the 3-minute test, get a straight verdict. 22 July 2026 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/should-i-become-a-team-lead/) - [![Marian Kamenistak on stage in front of the Engineering Leaders Community logo, addressing a full auditorium.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-43.Dg7RtBjJ_RbnLs.webp) ### How to Become a VP of Engineering: The Three Gaps A VP of Engineering wrote me about his stuck senior EM. The email defines the EM-to-VPE gap better than any career guide. Three gaps, with fixes. 21 July 2026 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/engineering-manager-to-vp-of-engineering/) ## Structured data ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ProfessionalService","name":"Marian Kamenistak | Engineering Leadership Mentoring","url":"https://www.marian.coach/increase-your-salary-and-value/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-40.C42wvuNe_Z1yteTS.jpg","description":"For capable engineering leaders stuck below their ceiling. 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