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Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

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Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#91
post #7

They're not paying $80k, they're paying $80k plus an equity lottery ticket that hopefully has a chance of being worth millions.

what is the proportion of YC startups that have had successful exits where the _employees_ received millions from their equity grants?

Not enough to justify an $80k salary.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#92

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

You wrongly assume normal distribution of pay.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is not as simple as that. There is cost of living and demand supply levers as well. There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

> There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well. Not in my experience. At least not for SV-Caliber talent. Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the US (takes maybe a week for a talented engineer to get one). Therefore, comp has to be priced appropriately. The later can't -a…

Most of what comes as "SV caliber" is mediocre devs.

There are just (way) more of them in Bay Area than anywhere in the world and they know right buzzwords.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#94
post #90
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

In my experience the social safety net doesn’t really matter for highly skilled workers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. In terms of violence you’re statistically unlikely to be the victim of violent crime in the US as an upper class white collar worker.

It doesn't matter until it ends up mattering. Contracting an illness that prevents you from working and needs medical supervision can be life-ruining if your social security, etc. is tied to your employment.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#95
post #7

They're not paying $80k, they're paying $80k plus an equity lottery ticket that hopefully has a chance of being worth millions.

what is the proportion of YC startups that have had successful exits where the _employees_ received millions from their equity grants?

Now that you mention it, what % of YC Startups even "succeed"? Would be fascinating to know. They're public about the companies that get accepted and you could have a few different criteria about what constitutes as success (getting funding? Existing 5 years later? etc)

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#96

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

> median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

That's right and wrong and the same time. If we are talking about non-junior positions: Developers in Spain who earn On the other hand, non-junior Spanish Developers who earn more than $30K/year do so because they know their value. They speak good enough English. They work for product companies (either unknown or globally well-known ones) and hence their salaries are higher than the median salary advertised in the link you provided. These developers can earn $80K/year in Spain (either for an Spanish company or remotely for an EU company), so if they decide to work for an American company (and this means usually a) weird working hours because of timezone differences, b) perhaps working as a contractor instead of as an employee), they definitely know that $50K-$80K/year is very low.

So, yeah, for the Spanish developers that American companies can hire, that salary is low.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#97

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#98
A fully remote position will be filled by the qualified person willing to work for the lowest wages. You'll be competing with the hundreds of thousands of great developers in Spain, or the hundreds of great developers in Botswana, or perhaps the lone great developer working in Vanuatu. Welcome to the global economy

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#99

An example from today was a YC company and they had an ad on the front page. https://deep-ivy-ltd.breezy.hr/p/055a500d0e8701-ml-research-... 45-60k ● Very strong Python skills, with deep expertise in PyTorch, TensorFlow or JAX ● Very strong skills in recursive programming. Check out the Ivy Container class 45-60k would be a Wordpress developer in my opinion, I'd imagine deep expertise in ML cost a lot more.

As they none-too-delicately state in the same blurb: "We are hiring worldwide."

So clearly that's what they're aiming for.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#100

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year Whhhhaaaat? That doesn't sound right. I know a guy in Barcelona making $200k, although he works for a US company. Heck, even in Eastern Europe, with the right knowledge you can make $150k+.

That's the median. It's like saying the median salary for software engineers in US is $120K/year (which is "true" if you Google it)... but then all the Silicon Valley engineers would say "whaaaat? Here the juniors can easily earn $200K/year their first year!"... So, yeah in Europe you can earn as little or as much as everywhere else (of course, Silicon Valley is still the place to earn top money)
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