A potential employer just sent me an offer with a 20k reduction in base salary, but 20k added on in bonuses if I meet expectations. Anyone in CTO/programming/IT capacity work this way?
Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
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Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#2I've never heard of that and unless you are happy with the worst-case base salary I would renegotiate. Having been a part of many bonus systems, I never plan on the bonus money to actually hit my bank account.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#3I'm not sure why anyone would take such a deal, it's not uncommon for developers to have bonuses tied to performance but I would expect that to be on-top of a competitive base salary and not in-lieu of it.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#4What about benefits? My current employer values benefits at 22% of one's gross salary. I'm a contractor so they figure if I am going to be an employee that I should work for X - 22% + a non-guaranteed performance bonus of 7-15%.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#5[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#6What about benefits? My current employer values benefits at 22% of one's gross salary. I'm a contractor so they figure if I am going to be an employee that I should work for X - 22% + a non-guaranteed performance bonus of 7-15%.
Benefits are all buy in at group rates, no equity options, so that may be moot in this case. Good point though.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#7I'm not sure why anyone would take such a deal, it's not uncommon for developers to have bonuses tied to performance but I would expect that to be on-top of a competitive base salary and not in-lieu of it.
That's exactly what I was thinking as well.
In context of CTO-level work, pay-for-performance would also seem to encourage meeting reward goals at the expense of a thousand other unmeasured tasks.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#8I've never heard of that and unless you are happy with the worst-case base salary I would renegotiate. Having been a part of many bonus systems, I never plan on the bonus money to actually hit my bank account.
Good advice, thank you. I told the employer that since this is a reduction rather than addition, it's more like a punitive system.
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#9You won't get it unless it's up front. Common sense should prevail here, why structure it like this except they don't want to pay you?
Re: Ask HN: Are any of you salaried under pay-for-performance?
#10I'm not sure why anyone would take such a deal, it's not uncommon for developers to have bonuses tied to performance but I would expect that to be on-top of a competitive base salary and not in-lieu of it.
That's exactly what I was thinking as well. In context of CTO-level work, pay-for-performance would also seem to encourage meeting reward goals at the expense of a thousand other unmeasured tasks.
Most CTOs (and generally all senior staff) have incentivized bonuses.