Here's how you can negotiate a promotion or raise with your boss in software testing.

If you want to negotiate a promotion, performance check or salary increase, you have to be prepared well. Look at your current duties and compare it with what you did in previous cycle. Look at job market and compare your current salary with that. Understand what goals have you achieved and you were above and beyond. And be honest and demonstrate concrete examples where you were proactive and what in the results. Once you have done with this home task you can initiate discussion with your team lead or high management for the salary or performance negotiation.

Preparing well for a promotion or raise involves gathering evidence of your achievements, such as completed projects and added responsibilities. Review your contributions and how they’ve benefited the company. Practice your talking points to clearly present your case, including your accomplishments and future goals. Being well-prepared helps you make a strong, convincing argument for why you deserve a promotion or raise.

Time matters. Obviously you should not ask for salary negotiations if company faces difficult times, short deadlines or layoffs. You have to be patient and wait for the right time and right place and moment. Normally, performance check happens once or twice a year and you can start your “home task” and prepare yourself few months ahead.

Very important to speak clearly and send a right message with your thoughts and ideas. Your message should be consistent and valuable. Communication is a key to success. If you are struggling to do so, better to prepare and try it out with right person first. For instance, with a person whom you can trust. You can also try progressive ways and ask ChatGPT to provide you some advice or examples.

Listening is a key as well as communication. While listening you have to take a notes in your mind and understand a message with advices, recommendations and, which is more important, critic. If person with whom you have conversation is open and honest, you will find valuable feedback that could help you in the future.

It's crucial to keep a log or diary of the tasks you're handling and your achievements. This will help you craft a strong self-appraisal report at the end of the year. Regularly connect with your manager to gather feedback and document it. Use these meetings to highlight your achievements, and follow up with an email summarizing the discussion. Managers often remember issues that occurred just before appraisals and may raise them during the evaluation. To avoid surprises, address any issues or escalations promptly and clearly, ensuring they don't resurface later. This proactive approach will help you manage your appraisal process more effectively.