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Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

bbc.com

11–20 of 84 posts

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#11

MyPinPad needs 100 software engineers in Cardiff to roll out a new product Roll it out, or actually get it written? What kind of product needs 100 additional engineers to launch?

They just raised £15 million in series B, enough to pay those 100 engineers £100k each for... 1.5 years, assuming zero overhead and no other expenses?

Edit: also assuming no revenue, so I don't know. Is that normal startup math?

Double edit: Crunchbase revenue estimate is $20.9M.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#12

MyPinPad needs 100 software engineers in Cardiff to roll out a new product Roll it out, or actually get it written? What kind of product needs 100 additional engineers to launch?

The kind of product that needs a lot of bespoke customization for each customer.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#13
I am continually amazed at the cynical attempt by hiring managers to try to pretend that the laws of supply and demand shouldn't apply to non-exec level staff. If you can't hire the people you want for what you're offering that should be a signal to pay more, not to whine that you can't force your idea of a reasonable wage on others.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#14

In the article they say they are offering London salaries. Fine. But Cardiff is not the same as London ! London is huge comapred to Cardiff. Cardiff has about 500,000 people in its urban area compared to 10,000,000 in London, and Cardiff is about 30 square miles compared to almost 700 square miles for London [1]. As such London just has a lot more going on - theatre, museums, nightlife, restaurants, sports, shopping,…

Also Cardiff doesn't have London's high cost of living and ridiculous property prices. So if you get a London equivalent wage then you have a lot more disposable income if you live and work in Cardiff.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#15
post #11

MyPinPad needs 100 software engineers in Cardiff to roll out a new product Roll it out, or actually get it written? What kind of product needs 100 additional engineers to launch?

They just raised £15 million in series B, enough to pay those 100 engineers £100k each for... 1.5 years, assuming zero overhead and no other expenses? Edit: also assuming no revenue, so I don't know. Is that normal startup math? Double edit: Crunchbase revenue estimate is $20.9M.

Also assuming zero additional revenue.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#16
post #15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just raised £15 million in series B, enough to pay those 100 engineers £100k each for... 1.5 years, assuming zero overhead and no other expenses? Edit: also assuming no revenue, so I don't know. Is that normal startup math? Double edit: Crunchbase revenue estimate is $20.9M.

Also assuming zero additional revenue.

Right, thank you.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#17
Onboarding and dividing work between 100 engineers is hard. Makes me think of Brooks' law: "Adding human resources to a late software project makes it later." [0]

MyPinPad's careers page [1] lists four positions (Android developer, iOS developer, senior devops engineer, and services developer) with the same "salary up to £60,000 per annum, depending on experience" for each position. The higher salary makes for a good news article (and a good advertisement for their recruiting team), but I wonder if they could increase their application rate by showing the same salary as the one they advertised in the article.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law

[1]: https://www.mypinpad.com/careers/

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#19

In the article they say they are offering London salaries. Fine. But Cardiff is not the same as London ! London is huge comapred to Cardiff. Cardiff has about 500,000 people in its urban area compared to 10,000,000 in London, and Cardiff is about 30 square miles compared to almost 700 square miles for London [1]. As such London just has a lot more going on - theatre, museums, nightlife, restaurants, sports, shopping,…

> who would give up London to go to Cardiff to get the same salary but a culturally and socially moribund (by comparison) experience?

Me. But then I'd much prefer to have lots of open space around and orders of magnitude fewer people.

Re: Cardiff tech firm: 'We'll pay £100k, but can't get staff'

#20

In the article they say they are offering London salaries. Fine. But Cardiff is not the same as London ! London is huge comapred to Cardiff. Cardiff has about 500,000 people in its urban area compared to 10,000,000 in London, and Cardiff is about 30 square miles compared to almost 700 square miles for London [1]. As such London just has a lot more going on - theatre, museums, nightlife, restaurants, sports, shopping,…

Or this is the same kind on insanity that you see with the Bay Area? Or hell, even Vancouver.

Everyone's rushing there for the same reason, with all the cultural things that's suppose to be going on in the big city, only to find that the high CoL make life actually quite a bit more difficult to enjoy.

It gentrifies the area quickly, the commute is either long (in the case of the bay area) or being one of the sardine in the Tube.

The disposable income ends up being lower, so there's less money to actually enjoy the things that actually attracted people to the cities.

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