Dare I say there are non-monetary benefits to being paid at top of market.<p>I&#x27;ve been near the top of band of my particular subfield for the last few years, after working for years at a bog-standard SDE comp package, and IMO there are some pretty compelling reasons to demand better compensation beyond, well, having the money.<p>For one thing people stop fucking with you when you&#x27;re getting top of market comp, for a lot of reasons - many of which are bullshit, but hey. The perceived quality of your work is <i>higher</i> because you&#x27;re demanding (and getting) more for it - and people are more willing to treat your professional judgment seriously.<p>In general companies and the people in them want very much to believe that they&#x27;re getting what they paid for, so being known for being at the top of market (quite unjustifiably, of course) raises the default perception of your work.<p>It also opens the window for alternative arrangements - work from home, more vacation, all that is considerably more on the table when you&#x27;re perceived as a top-dollar high performer.<p>Conversely, willingness to accept less than market seems to signal to management that you can be pushed around on other matters (true or not), and even if you&#x27;re well capable of fending off this jerkish behavior, why not just avoid it <i>and</i> get paid more? I&#x27;ve personally seen founders&#x27; dispositions toward me improve, and just get more professional respect in general, by naming a high price and sticking with it.<p>This isn&#x27;t to say that one should take a horrible job because it pays top dollar, but in the current state of the industry you can have your cake and eat it too - you can work with good people on interesting stuff while staying within the top decile of your niche.