As above - what strategies have people got for attracting senior engineers to join a company full-time, when it's pretty much impossible to match day rates pro-rata in the contract market for anyone other than the FAANG's?
Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
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Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#2There are many reasons to work for a company and money is not always #1.
Maybe your product is exciting? Maybe your team, tech, industry?
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#3Not enough information. What's your team size? How much prerequisite knowledge is your product?
Otherwise all I can give you is snark: Hire juniors & call them senior engineers. Or hire a senior engineer to do everything & don't hire any juniors
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#4It depends how you define Sr Engineer, but I'd look for people who are less tolerant to volatility in their income stream and value consistently high pay over sometimes consistent extremely high pay. The nature of capitalism is such that is capitalizes on people with bills to pay, and influences them into having more bills to have to pay. So people with families, mortgages, expensive cars etc..
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#5The basic mechanism of capitalism is supply and demand.
When you write: "it's pretty much impossible to match day rates", you mean that your company doesn't want to pay the market rate.
There is no secret strategy. You either pay market rates or hire less capable developers who will work for the rates you are willing to pay.
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#6In Canada, there's a large gap between full-time and contract rates but it's nothing new - it's been that way for at least 15 years.
Companies here address the gap through other forms of compensation like discretionary bonuses, more annual leave, employee stock purchase programs, RRSP contribution matching etc.
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#7What I don't get is why are the rates so different?
Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#8It’s all about the company vision and the candidate believing that they can play an important role in achieving that vision.
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#9Better conditions.
- 100% remote so you can hire people of areas with lower life cost
- part-time, maybe you cannot match the FAANG's salaries for full time but you can pay better for part-time
- exciting product/tech
Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?
#10The basic mechanism of capitalism is supply and demand. When you write: "it's pretty much impossible to match day rates", you mean that your company doesn't want to pay the market rate. There is no secret strategy. You either pay market rates or hire less capable developers who will work for the rates you are willing to pay.
From what I’ve seen, you can attract these people by offering them attractive (to them) work. In the case of my employer, we’ve had one very strong guy taking a perm offer because he only wants to work in Scala, and there are very few Scala contracts in town (he also can’t move).