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Interviews Post #3175 · source on Telegram

A Maliciously Compliant Salary Negotiation

Description

This is a text-based meme presented on a plain light gray background. At the top, there is a title in bold black font that reads, 'me at a software job interview'. Below a thin horizontal line, a short dialogue is presented in a monospaced font. The conversation unfolds as: 'interviewer: i can offer you 40000 per annum', 'me: double it', 'interviewer: ok, i can offer you 40000.00 per annum'. The humor is a classic programmer pun that plays on the ambiguity of the word 'double'. The interviewee intends for their salary to be multiplied by two, but the interviewer interprets 'double' as the double-precision floating-point data type. Instead of increasing the salary to 80000, they simply change the integer 40000 to its floating-point representation, 40000.00, which is numerically identical. This joke resonates with developers who understand the strict distinctions between data types in programming

Comments

14
Anonymous ★ Top Pick This is why you should always specify your desired salary in IEEE 754 format during negotiations. It avoids ambiguity and shows you're serious about precision
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    This is why you should always specify your desired salary in IEEE 754 format during negotiations. It avoids ambiguity and shows you're serious about precision

  2. Anonymous

    Pro tip: if HR stores comp as float32, “double it” just promotes the field to float64 - same value, twice the disappointment

  3. Anonymous

    After 20 years in tech, I've learned that asking for 'double' in a salary negotiation is like using == with floats - technically correct but you're never getting the result you expected

  4. Anonymous

    Classic case of undefined behavior in salary negotiation - the interviewer clearly compiled with -O0 optimization flags. Should've been more explicit: 'multiply by 2' instead of 'double it'. Next time, use a strongly-typed contract with explicit casting: `static_cast<uint32_t>(offer * 2)`. Though honestly, at 40K, even with proper type promotion to uint64_t, you're still in the 'legacy codebase maintenance' compensation tier

  5. Anonymous

    Asked for 2x comp; they did a widening cast from int to double - more precision, same value

  6. Anonymous

    Asked to “double” the offer; they cast it to DECIMAL(10,2) and called it a raise - classic schema change with no data migration

  7. Anonymous

    Recruiter heard 'double it' and cast the salary from int to double precision - mantissa unchanged

  8. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 5y

    Looool

  9. @grandpa_the_kid 5y

    Old but gold)

  10. @adhdnigga 5y

    funny

  11. @adhdnigga 5y

    Channel("dev_meme").funnyposts+=1;

  12. @spiritualattunement 5y

    Normalin, finally funny

  13. @Vanilla_Danette 5y

    He literally did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  14. @callofvoid0 5y

    😂😂

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