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Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#121

Post by dnh44 »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #108
eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels to me like a rationale for trying to get something for nothing, to be honest. Why would a quality engineer with an understanding of their worth stay at a company for two years when the next company's offering 20% more after twelve months? "Make hay while the sun shines."

Why would I spend money hiring and training someone that I expect to leave before they contribute anything significant? Contrary to what most people think of themselves, they aren't capable of hitting the ground running. This is even more important in a senior dev position where they need to know how everyone under them actually performs. I don't hire monkeys, I hire employees. They should be a benefit to each other…

I guess you'll have to pay more than bananas then.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#122

Post by lloyd-christmas »

dnh44 wrote: post #121
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I spend money hiring and training someone that I expect to leave before they contribute anything significant? Contrary to what most people think of themselves, they aren't capable of hitting the ground running. This is even more important in a senior dev position where they need to know how everyone under them actually performs. I don't hire monkeys, I hire employees. They should be a benefit to each other…

I guess you'll have to pay more than bananas then.

What you pay them is irrelevant if they are only using you for the 10% boost from "my last salary was...". It's a personality trait, not a salary issue.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#123

Post by lloyd-christmas »

flukus wrote: post #118
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I spend money hiring and training someone that I expect to leave before they contribute anything significant? Contrary to what most people think of themselves, they aren't capable of hitting the ground running. This is even more important in a senior dev position where they need to know how everyone under them actually performs. I don't hire monkeys, I hire employees. They should be a benefit to each other…

If they can't contribute anything significant in 6 months then that's a problem with the company.

In my career, I've only seen one person contribute significantly within 6 months, and they got a 10% pay boost that quickly. "Contribution" is a lot more than just "Hey! I deployed some code!". The first year for an employee is mostly just breaking even on the cost to hire them. Hiring is expensive^. For a junior role, it's probably 1x salary. For an experienced hire, it can easily be 2x salary. That means that hiring someone at a 100k salary has actually already cost you 150k by the time they leave 6 months into their job. I sincerely doubt they've managed to contribute 150k revenue to your bottom line.

^ This is why nepotism is so strong. I got my job through my brother, which was effectively free for my employer. Beyond just that cost, it makes me more likely to stay. The next hire cost us 70k, and he ended up leaving after... you got it! 6 months.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#124

Post by eropple »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #122
dnh44 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you'll have to pay more than bananas then.

What you pay them is irrelevant if they are only using you for the 10% boost from "my last salary was...". It's a personality trait, not a salary issue.

You are trying to turn economic transactions into "personality traits" and it's kind of really disgusting. What you pay them isn't irrelevant if you are dedicated to paying them what they can get elsewhere. Because it's an economic transaction. Be more desirable, pay market rates, and people won't bounce. But nobody wants to invest in their people and nobody wants to pay market rates once you've signed on the dotted line. No, "yearly reviews" to get a five or even ten percent raises are not sufficient.

I create a lot of value--in much less than six months, at my last full-time job by the time six months had elapsed I'd built out a deployment system that reduced developer time for every deployment by literally seventy percent and gotten an "attaboy, maybe at the next perf review", which never happened because I got a new gig with a sixteen percent comp increase, before options in a publicly traded company no less, that would never have been matched by that perf review. This is why I consult now, as it happens: because I can parachute in and create a lot of value, because I don't need a bunch of ramp-up time, and I can get paid literally double per-hour to do it. (And it's why I can work three-ish days a week and make more money than my last full-time job.)

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#125

Post by eropple »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #117
LyndsySimon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So If I'm paying you a salary of $100k, In six months I've actually spent $150k. When you put the numbers on paper, anyone viewing them would call me an idiot. What I see is that the person's salary is not the biggest part of their total cost to you as an employer, particularly in the first year or two when you're amortizing out your acquisition cost. If you're paying them $100k, six months in your total cost is $1…

> What I see is that the person's salary is not the biggest part of their total cost to you as an employer This is exactly why salaries are pretty negotiable. > If they are qualified for a job at another company that pays $150k We address this once a week on HN. People don't pay for qualifications, they pay for most recent salary. They'd still stick around for 6 months and then look for their next 10% bump. A "6 mont…

> A "6 months here and there" person isn't magically going to change their perspective on life just because they finally had the opportunity to work for me

I've seen those people stick for multiple years when they found the right fit. Of course, they got paid for their time and their employers worked to keep them happy because that right fit understood their value.

I'll be real with you: from every post you've made in the thread, this isn't the employee's problem. This is a you problem. You want to hire people who actively work against their own interests. That's super gross.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#126

Post by eropple »

derefr wrote: post #80
eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels to me like a rationale for trying to get something for nothing, to be honest. Why would a quality engineer with an understanding of their worth stay at a company for two years when the next company's offering 20% more after twelve months? "Make hay while the sun shines."

Boy, what I'd give for a career trajectory that looks like that. But I'm not moving to the US any time soon (my family is quite happy here), and my local market caps out at ~$110k for "senior" devs. It's annoyingly hard to find remote jobs working for US firms that pay US salaries.

FWIW, I'm not a senior dev, if I went back to FT I'd be somewhere between lead/staff and principal and I've steered my career towards in-demand areas (mobile for a while, then devops/platform engineering). The reason I saw salary bumps the way I did was because I negotiate hard and I didn't specialize, but rather learned the new trends and jumped on them.

That said, I feel you on the lack of remote gigs; a big part of why I went towards consulting is the opportunity to go screw off to somewhere warm for a month or two--I don't have a wife or kids at the moment--and work remotely. If it fits your skillset and your temperament, it might be worth a shake.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#127

Post by lloyd-christmas »

eropple wrote: post #125
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I see is that the person's salary is not the biggest part of their total cost to you as an employer This is exactly why salaries are pretty negotiable. > If they are qualified for a job at another company that pays $150k We address this once a week on HN. People don't pay for qualifications, they pay for most recent salary. They'd still stick around for 6 months and then look for their next 10% bump. A "6 mont…

> A "6 months here and there" person isn't magically going to change their perspective on life just because they finally had the opportunity to work for me I've seen those people stick for multiple years when they found the right fit. Of course, they got paid for their time and their employers worked to keep them happy because that right fit understood their value. I'll be real with you: from every post you've made i…

>I've seen those people stick for multiple years when they found the right fit.

And I've seen them not. I guess our anecdata cancels out.

> Of course, they got paid for their time and their employers worked to keep them happy because that right fit understood their value.

I pay people for both their time and talent. Why would they ever stick around if I treated them or their career poorly? That's just silly. Your assumption is that people who hop every 6 months have a notable difference in talent. That's a very poor assumption. Again, it's just a shitty personality trait.

> This is a you problem.

Even if it is us, it doesn't negatively affect us.

> You want to hire people who actively work against their own interests.

As I've stated, that's simply not true. I want to hire people that want to work for us, not just treat us as a stepping stone.

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#128

Post by lloyd-christmas »

eropple wrote: post #124
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you pay them is irrelevant if they are only using you for the 10% boost from "my last salary was...". It's a personality trait, not a salary issue.

You are trying to turn economic transactions into "personality traits" and it's kind of really disgusting. What you pay them isn't irrelevant if you are dedicated to paying them what they can get elsewhere. Because it's an economic transaction . Be more desirable, pay market rates, and people won't bounce. But nobody wants to invest in their people and nobody wants to pay market rates once you've signed on the dotted…

> No, "yearly reviews" to get a five or even ten percent raises are not sufficient.

Sounds like you've had a shitty work career. None of what I'm talking about is anything like that.

> You are trying to turn economic transactions into "personality traits" and it's kind of really disgusting.... I create a lot of value--in much less than six months...

You talk about it as an economic transaction, but you fail to actually acknowledge the economic transaction that's actually taking place. You don't just magically spring into existence into my company when you drop your resume at the door. The cost to hire you is significant. You simply haven't recouped that cost of hiring you within 6 months, regardless of whether or not you're God's gift to programming.

> I don't need a bunch of ramp-up time, and I can get paid literally double per-hour to do it.

Sounds like you're living the dream, congrats. Most people aren't as talented as you are. Using your experiences to make hiring decisions for the other 99% of society would seem silly, don't you think?

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#129

Post by eropple »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #127
eropple wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A "6 months here and there" person isn't magically going to change their perspective on life just because they finally had the opportunity to work for me I've seen those people stick for multiple years when they found the right fit. Of course, they got paid for their time and their employers worked to keep them happy because that right fit understood their value. I'll be real with you: from every post you've made i…

>I've seen those people stick for multiple years when they found the right fit. And I've seen them not. I guess our anecdata cancels out. > Of course, they got paid for their time and their employers worked to keep them happy because that right fit understood their value. I pay people for both their time and talent. Why would they ever stick around if I treated them or their career poorly? That's just silly. Your ass…

> Your assumption is that people who hop every 6 months have a notable difference in talent. That's a very poor assumption. Again, it's just a shitty personality trait.

I'm making no such assumption. What I am saying, however, is that the idea that "I shouldn't pass up on a huge salary bump that will have reverberations through my entire lifetime's earning potential" is a "shitty personality trait" is absolutely mad. This is irrespective of skill or ability in any way, because it boils down to a simple question: why should someone incur damage to their entire life's income potential to stay at a job (unless you're, like, literally curing cancer)?

It's a business transaction between the supplier and the purchaser. Continuing to sell to you when a worker can otherwise maximize their income (and, let's be real, not suffer a bit in terms of peripherals at 90% of companies) is literally and inescapably self-harm.

> I want to hire people that want to work for us

Wanting to work for you is working against a worker's economic interests. Working for you as long as you offer the deal that is most beneficial to them is not. And in the current market, that means moving on when you can move up the ladder. You are a stepping stone, unless you take active measures to the contrary (pay top-of-market, make people want to be there).

If you don't want to be a stepping stone, then be the desired destination. There are companies that figure this out (your Apples, Googles, etc.), and they don't have silly policies like "must have been at a company for two years."

Re: Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup?

#130

Post by ep103 »

eru wrote: post #83
ep103 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, I've yet to work for a company where management stayed stabled for 2 years, 4 would be a pipe dream.

Google seems stable enough.

Unfortunately, I don't work for Google. But if you're offering... :)
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