41–50 of 348 posts
Sounds like the market is telling startups that early engineers are worth more than 0.1% of stock options.
Why would someone work long hours for low pay with higher risk for 0.1% of high-risk small business?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. For both of our companies [1][2] we pay a fair salary plus a quarterly bonus on top of that based on what we can give (based on the company's quarterly profit results). We also offer remote retreats (so far Cape Town, Thailand, Martinique, Spain and Skiing in the Alps) and the biggest contributor to everyone's satisfaction is that we let everyone work from where ever they want and as much as they want as l…
Out of curiosity, what makes your salary "fair", if it results in an offer that's significantly lower than BigCo? How do you decide what's fair?
Your startups... aren't doing any of that. Most of them pay shit-all for equity and salary, even for early engineers, even for senior-level employees. On top of that, most of them fail, leaving engineers with worthless stock and a hole in their bank account balances.
I'm sorry, this is a simple game of economics - if you want those engineers, you need to give them more in their package. Deal with it.
The idea that software engineering is a "talent" strikes me as wrong. Knowledge of algorithms and data structure is attainable by anyone willing to put in the time to read a book. Hire people, incentivise them to learn what's important to the success of your company. Pay them to practice their new skills. Being congenitally "smart" is not the only path to being useful and innovative in a company. Being curious, willing to learn, and having a company that knows how to steer its workforce is.
I don't think the average engineer with 5 years of experience makes 250k; not even in the top 10%. And startups DO pay that much, it's just reserved for powerful exec hires. Just pay more if you want the best engineers. Asking for a world where top talent works for less money is stupid.
I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... - Our typical junior makes $50 - 60k - A typical mid makes $65 - 75k - Seniors (including CTO) make $90 - 110k In greater Boston. It is VERY difficult to hire at those rates. We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...) and he accepted another offer for $150k. At our scale he would be making $…
I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... - Our typical junior makes $50 - 60k - A typical mid makes $65 - 75k - Seniors (including CTO) make $90 - 110k In greater Boston. It is VERY difficult to hire at those rates. We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...) and he accepted another offer for $150k. At our scale he would be making $…
I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... - Our typical junior makes $50 - 60k - A typical mid makes $65 - 75k - Seniors (including CTO) make $90 - 110k In greater Boston. It is VERY difficult to hire at those rates. We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...) and he accepted another offer for $150k. At our scale he would be making $…
Have you considered alternative comp mechanics? For example, I know it may sound unorthodox, but short work weeks is an awesome perk and worth a lot IMO. Other things like guaranteeing to ship engineers off to a conference per quarter of their choice and paying for a day and night of travel expenses + a day off so they can explore the destination is pretty cool too. How does your company handle IP assignment also for…
Startups want to underpay for talent. Google isn't overpaying... the big companies aren't overpaying, the startups are under paying.
Being a startup isn't an excuse, and you're asking people to take less pay to work at a place that has a decent chance (compared to established places) of going under. You're asking engineers to take on more risk for less pay.
If you aren't funded enough to pay your engineers what they deserve, you aren't funded enough to hire more... end of story.
Absolutely 100% spot on. We don't even interview Googlers anymore for this very reason. They literally think a "pay cut" means 300k+.
Are you suggesting that you want to be paid less on principle?