Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#61

Post by johngalt » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

First off don't bother trying to outbid google/facebook/amazon. Instead look to the good engineers that they can't hire. Large companies can afford to put a large list of requirements down and throw out anyone who doesn't check all the boxes. Zero in on a frivolous requirement that the bigco's commonly use to reject good candidates and target those engineers.

Secondly the real elephant in the room is equity. The path between early employee in successful startup and payday is narrower than ever and filled gotchas. There is a reason we tell startup employees to treat equity as worthless.

Bluntly it's a 'tragedy of the commons' type problem. Individually each startup will have large incentives to keep all the dollars at the top while constantly delaying any possible payday for early employees. Collectively trust in equity grants has collapsed to zero. It doesn't matter if you individually are a good startup, because an engineer isn't going to gamble away a 300k salary on the off chance that this time it is different.

You also can't simply solve this problem by saying: "engineers should have known X about Equity". No thanks, instead I'll take the cushy big-co job with benefits, reasonable schedule, and cash on the barrel today. Sounds easier than trusting that I've found all the ways I could get screwed by professional business people who do this every day.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#62

Post by Toenex » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:54 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #21

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 $…

For comparison, what do Google et. al. pay in the UK?

I work in a small medtech in Manchester UK (like a scaled down Boston!) and simply currency adjusting these numbers would make for attractive offers here. For example I've a PhD in computer vision, 20 years building and selling medical device approved imaging software in the EU & US and have yet to be offered anything close to $100K (yes dollars) and options that would impact on anything I do. I'm good at what I do too. I just think the UK investment attitude is totally different.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#63

Post by AlexC04 » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:54 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #27

krschultz wrote: post #7

If you are a startup and are trying to compete head to head with Google / FB / Amazon / Apple / Microsoft for the same people, you are going to have a really hard time recruiting. But there are plenty of great engineers that don't want to work at those companies for various reasons. There are plenty of great engineers that want to work remotely and don't have that option at the large companies. There are also plenty…

As well as mid-career engineers who don't have a time nor willingness to prepare for CS-riddle based interviews.

Ugghh... this exactly. I recently turned down a "we will fly you to the west coast" interview with one of the big five because I couldn't be bear the idea of spending weeks preparing for the 4-8 hour day of whiteboard coding (only to not get selected anyways).

Spent the time hanging out with my girlfriend instead. Worth every minute.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#64

Post by WalterSear » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

inputcoffee wrote: post #20

Here are some options, but notice how controversial they are: 1. Employ younger, inexperienced people and train them 2. Import immigrant developers 3. Hire people in different geographies As an alternative, why not: 1. Hire older workers 2. Hire the unemployed American workers 3. Hire in America? Well, because it costs more? Does it? I don't know, I am just trying to open up the conversation here. Edit: made language…

Yes, it costs more.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#65

Post by canistr » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

The other problem is that with so many startups nowadays, none of them offer a compelling enough vision or mission that would entice someone away from the Google/Facebook/Microsoft's of the world. A lot of them are either still working on their product-market fit in a niche field or they are hire front-end devs for some CRUD analytics tools.

I'd much rather go work at a non-profit, NGO, or government-based organization where there's a better mission statement or something you're doing for moral reasons.

If you're a startup who can't hire but you're still doing whiteboarding problems to screen candidates, you're doing the equivalent of using vanity metrics.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#66

Post by watertom » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

The biggest thing hurting startups is the fact that big companies provide health care. Having Businesses provide health care, IMHO, is the biggest issues facing job growth in the U.S.

Having been on the ground floor of 3 startups, the biggest issues wasn't salary it was health care, the only people that you can recruit are those young enough not to care, either because they are single or they don't have children. If you want to hire experienced employees the roadblock will be health care. I've lost more people than I can count due to health care issues.

Big businesses actually like to provide health care, they bitch and moan, but if they didn't want to provide it they would drop it. Big business controls the job market by providing health care, it limits employee's freedom to change jobs and start companies. Business provided health care also makes our products and services more expensive decreasing our ability to compete globally.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#67

Post by jartelt » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

bla2 wrote: post #5

Sounds like the market is telling startups that early engineers are worth more than 0.1% of stock options.

Yep, I think people are starting to realize that unless you are (a) a founder with 20-30% equity or (b) an early employee at one of the few startups that successfully exits for >$1B without any down rounds, your equity most likely will not be worth more than $100k. If your equity is only a $100k bonus after 7 years, it doesn't make as much sense monetarily to take a pay cut to work at the startup.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#68

Post by RamshackleJ » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

znq wrote: post #17

krschultz wrote: post #7

If you are a startup and are trying to compete head to head with Google / FB / Amazon / Apple / Microsoft for the same people, you are going to have a really hard time recruiting. But there are plenty of great engineers that don't want to work at those companies for various reasons. There are plenty of great engineers that want to work remotely and don't have that option at the large companies. There are also plenty…

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…

I'm always curious about companies who talk about "caring about things other than just money". Maybe I'm missing somethings but if you are a for-profit company by definition you care about money, any claims other wise feel like marketing.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#69

Post by canistr » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:58 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #21

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 $…

Alternatively, you could hire remotely or move your office to somewhere where the cost of living is lower.

Perhaps even move to Toronto where those salaries in CAD would actually be in line with market prices.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#70

Post by gtrubetskoy » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 2:59 PM UTC

Traditionally, startups had the advantage of compensating with equity/options that in time would be worth a lot of money. But ever since the laws passed after the dot-com bust equity is mostly worthless unless you're one of the founders or investors. That IMHO is the real problem here, not the big company salaries.