# Learning negotiation from Jane Austen

DevFeed: [Learning negotiation from Jane Austen](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/learning-negotiation-from-jane-austen-20986.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/05/15/jane-austen-negotiating-guide/>)

Author: Itamar Turner-Trauring

Published: 2019-05-15T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Itamar Turner-Trauring](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/itamar-turner-trauring.md>)

Topics: [Learning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/learning.md>), [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>)

Tags: [article](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/article.md>), [developer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer.md>), [learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/learning.md>), [programming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/programming.md>), [software-developer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-developer.md>)

## AI overview

This article applies ideas about strategic thinking from Jane Austen's works and Michael Suk-Young Chwe's book Jane Austen, Game Theorist to negotiation during a software developer job search. It explains how understanding what hiring managers and candidates want can help both sides pursue their goals.

## Source excerpt

Looking for a job as a software developer can be scary, exhausting, or overwhelming. Where you apply and how you interview impacts whether you'll get a job offer, and how good it will be, so in some sense the whole job search is a form of negotiation. So how do you learn to make a good impression, to convince people of your worth, to get picked by the job you want? There are many skills to learn, and in this article I'd like to cover one particular subset. Let us travel to England, some 200 years in the past, and see what we can learn. Jane Austen, Game Theorist What does a novelist writing in the early 19th century have to do with getting a programming job? In his book Jane Austen, Game Theorist, Michael Suk-Young Chwe argues quite convincingly that Austen's goal in writing her books is to teach strategic thinking: understanding what and why people do what they do, and how to interact with them accordingly, in order to achieve the outcomes you want. Strategic thinking is a core skill in negotiation: you're trying to understand what the other side wants (even if they don't explicitly say it), and to find a way to use that to get what you want. The hiring manager might want someone who both understands their particular technical domain and can help a team grow, whereas you might want a higher salary, or a shorter workweek. Strategic thinking can help you use the one to achieve the other. Strategic thinking is of course a useful skill for anyone, but why would Jane Austen in particular care about strategic thinking? To answer that we need a little historical context. The worst job search ever Imagine you could only get one job your whole life, that leaving your job was impossible, and that you'd be married to your boss. This is the "job search" that Austen faced in her own life, and is one the main topics covered in her books. Austen's own family, and the people she writes about, were part of a very small and elite minority. Even the poorest of the families Austen wri