Compensation as a Reflection of Values • Hacker News Board

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#61

Post by fallous » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:28 AM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #29

If folks are interested (and in the spirit of keeping things positive), I'm happy to answer any questions here about our comp philosophy or about Oxide more generally.

This may be fine for an initial hiring practice, but as you note it will become problematic in the future. Interestingly, you dodge the real source of the problem (and its possible resolution) by hand-waving the "career ladder."

Once you have an employee and a history of experiencing their work within the company you have the basis for deciding where pay diverges and what career ladder they wish to follow. The fundamental question you should always ask yourself regarding compensation for an existing employee is "what would it cost me to replace the value they deliver to the company?" That isn't based on title or prior work experience, it should be based on a real understanding of their work, initiative, and the other aspects of their involvement with the company that delivers value (along with a balance of possible deficiencies that reduce that value).

Does that tend to produce valuations for existing personnel that may be higher than possible new hires? Sure, but then bringing on a new hire has its own costs regarding training, accumulation of institutional knowledge, etc but those are real costs that must enter the compensation equation.

If an employee wishes to gain more compensation, their career ladder is to find ways to deliver more value. That isn't dependent on titles or checklists of certifications, it's based on what directly contributes to the success of the company.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#62

Post by lettergram » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #29

If folks are interested (and in the spirit of keeping things positive), I'm happy to answer any questions here about our comp philosophy or about Oxide more generally.

I’ll be interested to see how this works out.

My 2-cents, I think you should always pay well, but differentiation needs to occur somehow. Perhaps it’s more vacation (because good workers get their work done faster), a bonus at the end of the year, something.

I say this because it’s difficult to keep good workers. I work very hard, I work with people who work half as hard, and produce a fourth as much. While some are okay making the same wages, I personally only work places where I make significantly more.

It’s important to me to teach this to my children (harder work = more benefits). It’s important to provide more to my family. It’s important others understand they can also earn more by working harder.

I understand you may have a different philosophy and I am curious how it works out... but I suspect this will lead to (as through all history) resentment, anger, and eventually significant harm.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#63

Post by bcantrill » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

fallous wrote: post #61

bcantrill wrote: post #29

If folks are interested (and in the spirit of keeping things positive), I'm happy to answer any questions here about our comp philosophy or about Oxide more generally.

This may be fine for an initial hiring practice, but as you note it will become problematic in the future. Interestingly, you dodge the real source of the problem (and its possible resolution) by hand-waving the "career ladder." Once you have an employee and a history of experiencing their work within the company you have the basis for deciding where pay diverges and what career ladder they wish to follow. The fundam…

Seems like more of a comment than a question?

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#64

Post by bcantrill » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:50 AM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #62

bcantrill wrote: post #29

If folks are interested (and in the spirit of keeping things positive), I'm happy to answer any questions here about our comp philosophy or about Oxide more generally.

I’ll be interested to see how this works out. My 2-cents, I think you should always pay well, but differentiation needs to occur somehow. Perhaps it’s more vacation (because good workers get their work done faster), a bonus at the end of the year, something. I say this because it’s difficult to keep good workers. I work very hard, I work with people who work half as hard, and produce a fourth as much. While some are…

I would say that we're very big on intrinsic motivation and teamwork -- and that these two things (coupled with our transparent compensation) serve to give people reward from their work that is something beyond what differentiation provides.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#65

Post by fhrow4484 » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #44

fhrow4484 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your desire for employees meeting more-than-basic needs, while the company equity is currently monopoly money. Is "commitment to excellence" not a value? If one were to join Oxide but was mediocre, they would surely get fired. But on flip side, if they use their unique combination of skills & discipline, potentially at the expense of some personal sacrifice to bring a ton of value to the company, while s…

Well, as a clarification: one doesn't join Oxide, but rather gets hired by Oxide -- and we have a deliberate hiring process that is designed to assess candidates with respect to their fit for our mission and values. This leads to a deeply intrinsically motivated team, which addresses some of your concerns. As for potential upside: yes, everyone has an equity component; if we succeed together, there is more than enoug…

Thanks,

> This leads to a deeply intrinsically motivated team

If you managed to achieve that, then hats off!

> if we succeed together

Hope you all do! :)

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#66

Post by bcantrill » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #60

bcantrill wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, none -- it really just came out of our own experience (e.g., I have always been a believer in not paying people differently by geography), and it evolved exactly the way I described in the blog entry. And indeed, we had no intention of writing about this at all, but when asking for how we could improve our hiring process, one of the consistent pieces of feedback was that we didn't specify the pay -- and tha…

You made Oxide a first choice company on every engineer's list, worldwide, by adopting that policy. Post Covid is going to be a huge gold rush for remote talent, as some big players start playing games with CoL and lose some of their core contributors over it.

I certainly agree with you! My reason for not adopting geo-based pay actually dates back to the beginning of my career: one of the senior engineers I worked with in Menlo Park needed to move from California back to Massachusetts to save his marriage. Our employer applied a geography multiplier to pay; as per company policy, when he moved, his salary was adjusted based on the new geography -- which meant his pay was docked by 5%. Of course, he was doing the exact same work -- and it very much felt to him that the company had simply taken advantage of an already difficult personal situation. And indeed, the five percent was not at all meaningful from the company's perspective, and was not even terribly economically meaningful from his perspective -- but it was emotionally gutting. I made a mental note: never, ever do this.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#67

Post by neilv » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #43

gfodor wrote: post #27

The big question of this is if it's creating "culture debt" that carries interest or not. Specifically, when the time comes to introduce varying comp, will there be blowback and possibly worse dynamics than if it had been that way from the beginning? Will anyone ever make less than $175k? I think unless you are certain you want to maintain this forever (and it doesn't sound like Oxide does, they see this as probably…

If I think as a leader who has seen an org policy change or ten, I predict that they’ll make that change slightly too late, such that it will be obvious to everyone why it’s practically mandatory to do so. If it’s done from a position of strength and obvious need (“we’re growing so fast that we need to bring on a commissioned sales team!” or “we now have thousands of customers who need support but aren’t willing to p…

In the business-is-booming scenario you mention... could tech support and physical security be done in such a way that it's feasible to pay those people the same comfortable salary as the senior engineers? Such as with help of technology, and making the positions small in number and high in skill?

I haven't thought it through, but my initial gut feel is: possibly, if you did it from the start in an org.

My next question: if you're successful with creating that warm-fuzzy equitable utopia, but it can't be extended to the whole of society (due to scalability, entrenched interests, conventions, or whatever), then what's the moral and emotional situation around hiring going to be like?

For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability?

For an emotion example related to that, let's say you can only hire one person, but there are multiple awesome candidates. This is not an unusual situation, and one normally feels a bit bad, but how much worse will you feel, if you're turning people down for a dream job that's "well above market" that they won't find anywhere else? (I'm not suggesting one shouldn't become a doctor because they'll feel bad when they can't heal all their patients, but the question seems worth considering. And maybe the question helps to better understand or articulate what it is everyone believes and wants to do, and what the scope it. Is it explicit that we think such-and-such is a good model for humanity, and we've decided can best tackle that within our little microcosm and whatever example (and market pressure) it sets, and so we're scoping it this-and-that?)

BTW, I'm not so worried about retaining the senior engineers, when the person with the (in some ways harder, some ways easier) job of custodian makes as much money as them. If the salary is good, and the work is good, I suspect there's plenty of highly-skilled engineers who'd want to work in a cultural environment like that. And who knows what all effects that might have, or what other crazy, appealing ideas might be pursued there.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#68

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #67

sokoloff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I think as a leader who has seen an org policy change or ten, I predict that they’ll make that change slightly too late, such that it will be obvious to everyone why it’s practically mandatory to do so. If it’s done from a position of strength and obvious need (“we’re growing so fast that we need to bring on a commissioned sales team!” or “we now have thousands of customers who need support but aren’t willing to p…

In the business-is-booming scenario you mention... could tech support and physical security be done in such a way that it's feasible to pay those people the same comfortable salary as the senior engineers? Such as with help of technology, and making the positions small in number and high in skill? I haven't thought it through, but my initial gut feel is: possibly, if you did it from the start in an org. My next quest…

> For example, if hiring for a particular role would elevate dramatically the economic situation of a typical person with that skillset, how do you weigh that motivation to hire as many of those people as you can, against, say, better profitability?

Even if you had that laudable motivation, I’d argue that if the going rate for drives a golf-cart security is $25K/yr, you do way more good to hire 3 of them at $66K/yr than 1 of them at $200K. Maybe to the point that hiring 1 @ $200K is arguably less ethical than hiring 3 @ $66K.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#69

Post by person_of_color » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #56

person_of_color wrote: post #55

Do you support anywhere remote? Can you setup a smart lab for remote systems SWEs?

Our job listings have this in it: > We are very supportive of remote work. About half of our team is outside of the San Francisco Bay Area; our only requirement is working hours with a significant overlap with Pacific Time. I myself am in Austin, Texas.

I guess Europe is out then.

Re: Compensation as a Reflection of Values

#70

Post by caslon » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #29

If folks are interested (and in the spirit of keeping things positive), I'm happy to answer any questions here about our comp philosophy or about Oxide more generally.

What exactly is Oxide doing? Which parts of Sun is it trying to take after? I'm guessing hardware isn't the majority of its focus, since most people who've publicly acknowledged being hired are software people, but the Oxide landing page makes it seem like it is.

Love the podcast, by the way! Off-topic, but on the note of retrocomputing and Sun appreciation: Would you consider putting that copy of Spring you have on the Internet Archive? It would be a wonderful act of preserving the history of computing: there isn't a single copy on the Internet.