Not to discourage you but for 7 years in Elixir I have almost never seen a company looking for a junior Elixir dev. It’s generally expected an Elixir dev to already be experienced with other stacks, and that an Elixir dev should pull a lot of weight. And it seems that many companies caught up with that fact so you’re usually gonna find yourself in small teams where everyone must be a heavy hitter (and some of them negotiate salaries down pretty aggressively – avoid these at all costs unless your fridge is empty!).

I’ve been in contact with a few companies that were open to juniors but cynically speaking IMO that was just because they wanted to pay less. If you know your way around Elixir, OTP tools, Ecto, Phoenix and can make APIs, HTML templates and even LiveView then you are no longer a junior and should demand a respectable salary.

And, maybe this is just my bias here but I’d think that the example @liveforeverx presented speaks in favor of my hypothesis: Elixir dev jobs are very well paid mostly because most salaries are given from medium to senior devs.

As a fellow Eastern European (Bulgarian), I hear you and I was in such situations a good number of times.

Though have in mind that changing the way you conduct yourself in interviews truly works. As long as you are NOT in a super rush because you’d be hungry if you don’t get the job next week – then be more casual and just chat with people, ask them why do they need the extra programmers, what kinds of problems are they solving, why is their payment not higher (yes you should outright ask them that!), how are the team dynamics, like is there a lot of back and forth or people can be more independent, are people just allocated tasks or next tasks organically emerge after you fix a bunch of stuff, do they have a lot of standups and if so, why… and many, many others.

Here’s a super corny advice: fill out a document outlining all the things you want in a job. Then also fill out everything you could concede on (i.e. I have no problem being contacted outside work hours, as long as it’s not often or require more than 5-10 minutes to resolve – being open to that is in fact a negotiation leverage). Have that document printed out in front of you when you do interviews. Put it on your keyboard and take a look at it periodically as the conversation progresses.

We the Eastern Europeans get uncomfortable when it comes to negotiations. I am 43 at the moment and finally started overcoming this and the results are very encouraging after I started talking with companies again. Things truly look and feel different.

Don’t be ashamed, don’t be uncomfortable, ask for the things you want, mention what you are willing to concede, be casual and treat the interviews as a friendly chat, and never promise stuff you would hate doing afterwards. Find your own way of doing it. There are rules in business communication (like don’t be an ass and don’t talk in a conflict-y manner i.e. with ultimatums) but 80% of it is your own personality and style – and that too matters as lot. You can do it, dude!

Stay strong and work on rewiring your brain, it will pay you huge dividends!

Quoting from another thread on the same topic:

Everyone’s path will be different, but ask yourself what you can realistically do to make yourself stand out/be more attractive to an employer.. then follow your gut