> Very few counteroffers are serious counteroffers (serious as in they will keep you on indefinitely at the new salary).
Hell, I bet most of these don't even get honoured. "You understand, we need to get budget, some bureaucracy, but don't you worry, we'll sort it out asap!"... weeks pass, the new money is not coming ("eh, we had some problems, but don't you worry..."), and eventually you get kicked out. Meanwhile, your original offer has probably expired.
Offers for programmers don't expire, unless someone magically made a bunch of new programmers overnight.
And to avoid the situation described in the first paragraph, you get the counteroffer in writing, of course. I know people that ended up doing 2 to 3 iterations of counteroffers. It worked out fine for them.
It depends on the level of programmers we're talking about. I agree that offers for the likes of Steve Jegge don't expire, but ones for "VisualStudio Joe" certainly do, at least outside the Valley.
To clarify, by "expiring" I mean the company finding another suitable candidate.
Hell, I bet most of these don't even get honoured. "You understand, we need to get budget, some bureaucracy, but don't you worry, we'll sort it out asap!"... weeks pass, the new money is not coming ("eh, we had some problems, but don't you worry..."), and eventually you get kicked out. Meanwhile, your original offer has probably expired.
Never accept counter-offers.