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Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

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Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#131

Post by arcanus »

eldavido wrote: post #109
nicholasjarnold wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friends and I discuss this all the time. There are always people trying to get us (software engineers) to join various startups around town/country, but the comparatively low salaries coupled with the exceptionally low possibility that any offered/granted equity will be "worth it" some day leads almost all of us to follow more traditional routes with companies that can pay us today, not MAYBE tomorrow.

Devs seem to be realizing this, at least the ones I know (new thing). Seems the endgame's going to be higher equity grants. If VCs won't fund something unproven at 350/head and devs won't work for peanuts, higher equity grants seem the only option. I think it'll be just like Hollywood, in that projects are evaluated as much for who they've managed to recruit (e.g. a movie with Brad Pitt is fundable) as on other busin…

> That might be true if you're running a pizza joint but it couldn't be farther from the truth building a software company, or making a movie.

Or starting a medical practice

Or starting a hedge fund

Or starting a law firm

It might be the most important thing for any new venture, across history. There is a good reason that the start of the story about Jason and the Golden Fleece describes assembling his crew of Argonauts.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#132

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Bahamut wrote: post #115
drewg123 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew several people in roles like this when I was there. They had somebody who had done a PhD in OS research working on startup scripts.

I have a former colleague from academia with a PhD in math (his focus was algebraic number theory) who works at Google...writing a lot of JavaScript - the kicker is he enjoys it a lot more than his time in academia (I feel the same way as a PhD dropout myself - I primarily write JS/manage engineers now).

I definitely believe that there must be people who enjoy this, in fact they are probably in the majority. It's just that some of us don't, and these are who startups should be pursuing.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#133

Post by throwaway2016a »

matz1 wrote: post #130
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 $…

How do I apply for the job ? What is your email.

I'd love to stake applicants. But this is a anonymous account and I can't answer that question without giving it away. I wish you the best of luck, though.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#134

Post by jboggan »

eknight15 wrote: post #9

It's about location. Google salaries in Boulder, CO are not that high.

Boulder isn't that bad, isn't it only a 10-30% cut off base salary? The good strat is to get hired in MTV and then transfer to Boulder, your GSUs will still stay the same size. The better strat is to get hired in Zurich and then transfer, even bigger bonus!

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#135

Post by mixmastamyk »

As long as startups refuse to hire unless they find a young white/asian guy who's good on the spot/whiteboard with trivia questions you'll have a hard time hiring---google or not.

I've twenty years experience and couldn't get hired last year, so gave up and joined a freelancer site. Getting lots of work now, no questions asked, and guess what? Five star reviews, and work from home. I'm not interested in games and prefer to get work done.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#136

Post by meddlepal »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #88
meddlepal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We have flex hours. We've toyed with short work weeks but it hasn't taken off (yet). We do have the typical stocked fridge and beer and foosball. But so does everyone else. We've actually found that given the choice between a perk and more money, people almost always take the money up to about $100k. After that priorities change. > How does your company handle IP assignment also for personal projects? If I can work o…

Flex hours aren't really the same as cutting the work week by 8 hours. It also requires you do not just expect people to make up the lost day by putting in 10-12 hour days on the regular. It's a deeply cultural thing and requires top-down executive and mgmt buy in.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#137

Post by ghaff »

watertom wrote: post #66

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…

Which is part of a reasonable benefits package. So you're arguing that, in addition to underpaying base comp, they also want to bypass a competitive benefits package--but that may not be obvious to young people who don't think they need insurance.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#138

Post by garethsprice »

Toenex wrote: post #62
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…

Not sure about Google but other large/well-known tech firms seem to pay their UK engineers on par with their US ones based on speaking to my UK friends who work for SF-based tech companies.

I hear contracting for day rates in London is the route to ££ in the tech field over there (or working for a US-based company), but the salaries/equity on offer in the US even for non-rockstar positions dwarf what UK employers are able or willing to provide.

The UK massively undervalues and under-compensates its technical talent, it's a big part of why I left the country.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#139

Post by bluedino »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40
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…

I've heard that Google often has A class talent doing B or C class work; e.g. an expert in PL will often be working on ads. Sure the pay is great, but it can feel soul sucking. A startup can be appealing to some talented people if the work is interesting, even if the pay isn't as good.

Does the class A talent describe their education or their work ethic?

I've been on projects with incredibly knowledgeable and talented people that just couldn't stay on track, and I've been on projects with people that weren't the best and brightest but they were focused and put in a lot of work. You need both kinds.

Re: Big Tech Company Salaries Are Hurting Startups

#140

Post by thesmallestcat »

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…

The problem is there's no way to know how true the promises are. What do "flex hours" mean to them? Is it conditional, if so, on what? How far does their trust really go?

Compensation doesn't have this problem. You can't offer me $160k and then pay me $120k six months down the road. I mean, you can, but not with a straight face.

The soft benefits you described are one CTO/manager/investor change, or engineer bus accident, away from vanishing and it's not looked at the same way as cutting pay, furloughs, and things of that nature.

While I want to take one of these "work to live" jobs, I always end up taking the salary. I have a much easier time carving out a bastion of sanity in a given company that doesn't advertise the benefits, than to take a significant pay cut along with the risk I just described.

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