Every once and a while (at least once a week) I stumble upon some essay heralding the euphoria of working in a good team, or on a good project, or of spending your life solving projects. They all seem to have the same underlying tone, that engineers don't care about money, they care about the work they do. Sometimes I wonder if these articles are some creative, subtle, under-handed manipulation to convince young engineers to feel guilty for demanding to get paid a fair wage for the value of their services.
Am I the only engineer out here that wants to scream, "fuck you, pay me" whenever somebody rambels on and on about how wonderful it is to drink the kool-aid at flickr, google, twitter, or zynga? (and for the record, all of my friends at these 4 companies feel very under-paid).
For a while I'd argue on the basis that being freelance is more expensive, equipment is expensive (substitute training courses or whatever), taxes and cost of living all force me to set a price X...but I realized that this kind of argument was putting me in an inferior position and giving the power to the buyer. So now I just say that I like really, really high quality hookers and blow, and that such luxuries don't come cheap. Although this is a joke, it serves two purposes: first, it reminds the recruiter/ producer/ publisher that you have concerns of their own, about which they know nothing and which they are not competent to evaluate; and second, it's aggressive enough to make the other person uncomfortable, by demonstrating your lack of shame about your own worth, which is a great negotiating tactic.
It doesn't have to be hookers and blow of course, that's just a funny cliche in my business. It could be solid-gold golf clubs or putting juice in your Ferrari or whatever. The point is that you're a busy person and you are the sole arbiter of how your time should be valued, and that for some kinds of things, the price is what it is. If you can't pay, then you don't get to play.