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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

danluu.com

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#111

Post by ilyanep »

tomasien wrote: post #98

Getting a job at Google as an engineer is ridiculously hard. The guy that wrote Homebrew couldn't even get hired even though 90% of their engineers use his software. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 If you can get a job at Google, it's very different than getting a job "at a big company" and has historically actually increased your odds of success later on (via the propensity of investors to fund Xo…

You shouldn't confuse "getting a job there is hard" with "the interview process is random and skewed toward false negatives, with an especially bad job done with experienced candidates"

---

"Second problem: every 'experienced' interviewer has a set of pet subjects and possibly specific questions that he or she feels is an accurate gauge of a candidate's abilities. The question sets for any two interviewers can be widely different and even entirely non-overlapping." -- http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

"I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself?" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10757186

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#113

Post by Cymen »

The last couple rounds on this have talked about experience at startups but they neglected to go into the value of that experience. From the startup side, people will say the experience is valuable and what they mean is the experience of getting to make more technical choices and experiencing what it is like to have to make compromises to get something shipped in an early stage company.

So the startup people talk about experience in the context of assuming you will also want to do a startup.

The author of this piece kind of ignores the value of having to make those difficult choices in the face of shipping something. But that value is only towards actually starting a company. It's not nearly as valuable at a large company.

So that bias shows through in the writing although I agree with the rest of it. It's just a tiny argument towards the value of startup experience that in context for some people does have immense value while for others it is negligible.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#114

Post by huangwei_chang »

jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

It guess it also depends on what level one is when joining the company. I guess this article is for people with an undergraduate degree in CS?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#115

Post by lafay »

bri3d wrote: post #79
lafay wrote: post #77

I've worked at both startups and big companies since I first came to SV in 1999. And some startups that became big companies. For me, there's much more than the practical & financial considerations laid out here. Deep down I know that I enjoy taking risks -- I like the roller coaster ride, and having a very real and visible impact on whether the company as a whole sinks or swims. Know yourself and don't ignore your i…

If you think you're that good at picking financially successful startups, why not invest just money rather than time AND money?

Because I enjoy the work and I like being part of the action. I invest my money too, but it doesn't meet the same need.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#116

Post by johnward »

vlunkr wrote: post #106

Don't forget that there are other options. I work for a small consulting company. Our size allows us to have the agility of a start-up, but without the long hours and the stress of your product failing.

Consulting without long hours? Does that exist?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#117

Post by logical42 »

jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

I think people are actually really out of touch with bigco pay scales. 250k is pretty easily achievable in a bigco. At Facebook you'll hit 250k+ in total comp at level 5, at LinkedIn you'll hit 250k+ in total comp at Staff level. If you also factor in stacking allotments of RSUs, your pay can easily exceed 300k at these levels given a few years of tenure.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#118

Post by dsacco »

rdtsc wrote: post #100
jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

Yeah I saw that and thought, ok maybe if you are on of the known or maintain a popular open source package, a conference speaker. But 250k in year 5 is not a number that rings true. Or, maybe I am doing something wrong here and am underpaid...

Are you a senior engineer? Are you at a large company in a metropolitan area? Is your salary less than $250k?

If you answered yes to all three, yes, you are probably underpaid. That doesn't mean you're doing something wrong if you love your job, but know that you could earn more.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#119

Post by arborday »

jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

I think the median after 5 years is closer to ~225k. (source I've worked at Google 5 years after joining right out of school).

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#120

Post by dhd415 »

georgefrick wrote: post #82
dhd415 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to remember that HN seems to focus on the experience of the 95th percentile developer (which is not to say that you are not one of those). The numbers in this blog post are well beyond the reach of even a 75th percentile developer. The GAFAs and YC startups of the world aren't even going to interview a 75th percentile developer let alone hire and compensate him or her at those levels. If you lo…

I don't disagree (or claim to be 95th percentile). The question I have in regards to your comment would be - so then isn't it an article about how he is getting ripped off? What I mean to say is, my thought is that a developer in the 95th percentile would make their own product/business. I've never thought of myself as an 'average' developer; but then again most people say that about their driving. It does make me wo…

I think the point of the article is just the three points Dan explicitly makes -- he's questioning the common wisdom that startups (for a top developer) offer better compensation, more interesting work, and better work experience than larger corporations. I suspect that if he thought he were being ripped off, he would easily move to either a large corporation or a startup where he was getting a better deal.

As for 95th percentile developers making their own products or businesses, that's a completely independent skill with little correlation to software development ability. Beyond writing the software, you've got to market and sell the product, set up distribution channels, support the product, etc. I'd consider myself a respectable developer, but I have no delusions that my development skills translate to any of the other skills required to build a business. I'm generally content to execute in a software development role for someone who has the broader vision and skills to build a business around that product.

And lastly, I wouldn't base an assessment of your skill as a developer on your compensation. In current and previous roles, I've seen a number of salary lists, and there was zero correlation between pay and talent. Some of the most highly-paid developers were near worthless and some of the most solid developers were paid 25-40% less. While it's sad that being a good software developer is not enough to be paid at the top of the scale, we generally have it pretty good in that the decent ones of us are likely to have salaries well above the national average.

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