After giving a considerable amount of time to their job and in their profession, you would often hear your seniors and well-wishers advising you to always know your worth when looking for jobs or going for salary negotiations.
That’s definitely key so that no one robs you of the opportunity or fools you into being paid lesser than your calibre. And once you know how much your skills are worth, the confidence of saying ‘no’ to a low pay slip comes automatically to you.
Roshan Patel, the founder and CEO of healthcare startup ‘Walnut’ also once met a woman who knew what she was getting into and how much she should be paid for her capabilities. Hence, when he offered her a job that didn’t fit her criteria, she very cleverly denied the offer. Her witty response to his job offer has stayed with him even after two years of the incident.
Talking to Twitter, Patel recalled the incident and shared a screengrab of his conversation with the female software engineer.
So, in September 2021, Patel was looking for a software engineer for his startup and came across this unnamed woman’s profile on LinkedIn. So, he decided to send her a text to see if she was interested in joining his team. He wrote to her:
“I run a startup increasing access to healthcare by making it more affordable. We just raised a pre-seed round and are looking to hire talented engineers. Any interest in chatting?”
At that time, the healthcare startup had raised funding in a pre-seed round. So, when the woman received a text from the CEO of the company, she did some digging and found out that her then CTC was more than Walnut’s pre-seed round. So, she responded to Patel and said:
“Hi Roshan, I just checked on Crunchbase and my current salary is more than your entire pre-seed round.”
Read their conversation here:
Since then, her straightforward response to him has stayed with him.
Still thinking about this exchange almost 2 years later. pic.twitter.com/YI9b3NZtIV
— Roshan Patel (@roshanpateI) April 26, 2023
Twitter was divided on reading how the engineer responded to an opportunity. While some said she was rude, others came in her defense.
She ain’t wrong. Especially when 90% of start ups fail. Also, at that salary rate, she is well established in her career doing well.
Just noticed the — after the name, comes across like a spray and pray message probably sent by a script as well.
She said what she said. 👏🏽
— Danny Thompson (@DThompsonDev) April 26, 2023
While I respect your person @DThompsonDev I must say this is a really bad take.
There are a ton of ways to communicate not being available or open to take the opportunity. Being blatantly rude shouldn’t be one of those ways.
Rudeness shouldn’t be tolerated.
— Emmanuel Onuoha (@waverchocs) April 27, 2023
Amazing that people put money before purposeful work.
Also, Dear software engineers (making way too much money) – meet AI. 🙃
— Septima Elle (@SeptimaElle) April 26, 2023
How dare people try to earn money to survive – absolutely terrible 😜
Her response was out of pocket but turning down a job strictly because of money is perfectly valid and doesn’t make you a terrible person just because of that
— Roque Deleon (@roqueadeleon) April 26, 2023
Based.
It might seem rude, but good engineers get 10 offers like this per week. It’s always 0.5-1% for a founding eng at 1/10th the salary of big Co’s.
Not worth.
— max (@mSanterre) April 26, 2023
Gotta say, it’s a weird decision to shame someone who’s confident and established because she didn’t respond to your generic message. And feels very intention decision by you to semi-blur the photo.
— BrendΞn Mulligan | PREMINT (@mulligan) April 27, 2023
A bit rude but she did her due diligence, shows something. Did you continue the conversation?
— Karol Horosin (@horosin_) April 26, 2023
Could have gone with “Hey, I’ll have to pass on this opportunity as of now Roshan, but would love to be in touch”
But she went T’her’e
— ShubhamTotu.eth 🎥 (@ShubhamTotu) April 26, 2023
10/10 response. You just gotta respect it 😂
— Matthew Howells-Barby Ξ mhb.eth (@matthewbarby) April 26, 2023
Key word – salary. But that’s type of mindset you either have or not.
— Olga Nesterova (@onestpreneur) April 27, 2023
She’s my new role model
— 1984’s George Whorewell (@EwdatsGROSS) April 26, 2023
Looool this energy >>>> https://t.co/dwnd6xHZeg
— 👨🏾💻 (@ldn_igwe) April 27, 2023
Being rude isn't justified even if one is right.
The "Be kind" people in the replies are being hypocritical again and may not hold the same views if the roles were reversed. Stop being a simp. https://t.co/9yIqftv7Nc
— James Lieu 🇬🇧 (@J_Lieu) April 27, 2023
Founders>employees https://t.co/D3Ehv2S3eK
— Paolo Pontremoli (@itsppontre) April 27, 2023
I don't think she did anything wrong but I also get how he must feel having his startup be a success. Ngl though, that isn't the case for most startups and without knowing the person, leaving your job like that is just stupid https://t.co/x9XoVZSkpM
— Thriving Quetzal🇺🇲🇬🇹🕊️🌷💸 (@QuetzalThoughts) April 27, 2023
What do you think of her take? Was she rude?