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Want good programmers? Then pay them.

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Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#91

Post by [deleted] »

accountoftheday wrote: post #53
seclorum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Vienna and work for a local startup in the mobile application development scene .. and yeah. Pay-rates are definitely not what they should be, here in Austria. I think it has a lot to do with the "Kollektiv-vertrag" prices being set too low by the government itself ..

one way to think of it: with your average salary you are propping up all the people not as good as you who still get the same salary. if you cannot feel good about this you then move away from your socialist country. I did.

[deleted]

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#92

Post by DominikR »

accountoftheday wrote: post #53
seclorum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Vienna and work for a local startup in the mobile application development scene .. and yeah. Pay-rates are definitely not what they should be, here in Austria. I think it has a lot to do with the "Kollektiv-vertrag" prices being set too low by the government itself ..

one way to think of it: with your average salary you are propping up all the people not as good as you who still get the same salary. if you cannot feel good about this you then move away from your socialist country. I did.

Well, I've been thinking about moving from Vienna to somewhere more competetive for some time (though its not about the money, I'm paid really well here - just about competition, which I happen to enjoy a lot), but the reasons for not doing it are some of the features you get when living in a more "socialist" (though I wouldn't call Austria socialist) country.

Security, low crime rate, very few homeless people, drug addicts etc.. I can basically go to a party, get drunk there and take a walk after that in any part of the city during night without being afraid that some homeless person will attack me. If you ask me, thats a big pro for staying here. Sure, I would probably earn more if I did the same job in San Francisco, but then I would have to deal with a much worse social situation, and I would have to be more cautious.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#93

Post by Apreche »

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets.

Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this.

Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week.

The other thing that gets me is how companies expect you to really want to work for them. The fact is you need me more than I need you. I'm not going to spend my time solving your cute little puzzles and what not. My experience speaks for itself. If you want to hire me, you should be the one jumping through hoops to convince me I should quit my job and work for you. Only the past naive college version of myself thought otherwise.

TL;DR: if you want to hire me, pretend that I am a doctor and you are a pharmaceutical company.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#95

Post by kamaal »

jacquesm wrote: post #46

I've seen crap programmers get paid insane amounts of money and incredibly good ones get paid peanuts... If only there was a strong correlation between programmers self-assessment with respect to their value and what they're actually being paid. That would help everybody and would make salary negotiations a lot easier.

Programmer salaries are decided most of the times by people, who don't know a jack about programming.

I know a lot of people make money just by being the manager's 'best man', Just polish the managers boot and he will give you the title of 'best team player' around.

On the other most good programmers tend to concentrate on their work, poor social skills and merely delivering stuff that doesn't get highlighted. You can do a lot of fire fighting at work, no body above your immediate manager will even know about it. There are a lot of people around you who are known to level above you manager just because they can make more noise and blow their trumpet louder than anybody else.

Perceptions drive a lot of things in this world.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#96

Post by PaulHoule »

Apreche wrote: post #93

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets. Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this. Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you…

I definitely hear from startups who are hiring and will pay O.K. but it seems to me that for every startup that pays, there are 3-5 that won't.

I get myself fired up on this issue because I hear from enough companies that I need to quickly qualify opportunities. I'm a curious and generous person, so I'm inclined to listen to these people, but I don't have the time.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#97

Post by mryan »

skrebbel wrote: post #87
pmjordan wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is also a strong bias against employing non-natives (or at least non-Germanics) in Austria, orthogonal to the other issues, which was quite shocking after living the previous years of my adult life in the UK, which has a much more liberal culture. This bigotry is much less of an issue (I'd almost say a non-issue) in actual technology companies though. It's telling that the proportion of immigrants among th…

Interesting! This is nearly a 180 degree opposite in the Netherlands. Companies can't find the talent they need inside (because they pay them too little, but ok), so they try to attract foreigners. Foreign "knowledge workers" also get tax benefits for the first many years, and many employers (particularly consultancies and larger OEMs) have people specialized in getting foreigners a worker's visa.

Ah, the "30% ruling". For those that haven't heard of this wonderful piece of legislation if means you only pay tax on 70% of your salary if you qualify as a knowledge migrant. Yes, you get 30% of your salary tax free. There are also other benefits, e.g. you don't pay income tax on dividends from your home country.

It's not just consultancies and OEMs that will help apply for this - I work at a startup and I am classified as a knowledge migrant.

Any Django/Python devs who are interested in living in a beautiful city and only paying tax on 70% of your salary, please get in touch - we're hiring!

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#99

Post by throwaway1979 »

Apreche wrote: post #93

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets. Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this. Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you…

I'm really glad you mentioned "cute little puzzles". I am sick of them. I'm not really sure who has sufficient time to spend blazing the employer with feats of their programming prowess (I was going to say only undergrads would do that - however, many undergrads in top programs have little time to bathe).

If this was big companies being stupid, I'd get it. The HN crowd ... some of the smartest hackers around do little better sometimes. I was very interested in Stripe after hearing some of their folks speak (I don't mean to single them out ... they are a pretty amazing bunch from what I've seen) and saw the cute puzzles (https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer) as a listed way of impressing them. I immediately hit the back button and decided not to apply there. Perhaps it means we would not have been a good fit. Or perhaps, we need more respect in the recruiting process. I understand the need for fiz-buzz tests and all ... but things have gone a bit too far.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#100

Post by daeken »

kaib wrote: post #45
zeemonkee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a similar experience in Finland - the shitty salaries (and lack of interesting work that isn't somehow tied to the sinking ship that is Nokia) are one reason I avoid Finnish companies like the plague, and just work for foreign clients. This is the reason Finnish companies don't advertise salary, which is common in the UK and US for example - it's all collectively bargained in some way out of your control.

Just a quick heads up. If you are interested in distributed systems, computational geometry or working on a custom WebGL app fire me an email, we might have something interesting for you at Tinkercad. Our tech team is based in the heart of Helsinki and we are actively looking for new talent. If we aren't a good match for you I know a bunch of other interesting startups that I can put you in touch with. Ping me at kai…

Not to hijack the thread too much, but with the sort of thing you're doing, I'd seriously consider reaching out to people from the demoscene. There's a pretty large demo culture in Finland, and they'd be perfectly suited to the task, particularly the computational geometry and WebGL side of things. I'd be interested myself if I were in Helsinki.
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