Was this site used in your search? It seems geared toward sf startups: https://www.startupers.com/
Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
131–140 of 144 posts
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#132Here's a suggestion, as an experienced developer, why don't you take a risk on yourself and start your own company?
That makes very little sense. You shouldn't start a company unless you have a very strong idea, evidence that it makes sense, capital etc.
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note: I originally posted this reply about 2 hours ago and then deleted it. But actually, I think it's worth leaving up. I really respect Joel Spolsky's accomplishments (I've mentioned him recently in my own comments), but I found the blog post you cited wrong at best and offensive at worst. It perpetuates one of the most frustrating things I experienced while job hunting: the stigma of unemployment. Even though I vo…
As someone who used to be very pro-self-taught programmers, I changed my mind after actually working with some (and having to maintain the code of others). Most of the ones I've run into have holes in core skills that are taught as part of a CS degree, like threading, pass-by-reference vs pass-by-value, DB normalization, separation of concerns, basic optimization, etc... To be fair a lot of CS grads haves holes too (…
Why is it a bad idea to parse a Turing-complete language using regex expressions? I have implemented the XScript language from Age Of Mythology and AOE3 with that approach; it seems to be quite efficient and flexible, is there something I should look out for?
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In short: you know too much. These salaries are taken by fresh college grads who don't know better, and think the adventure of "a startup" is better than working for a larger company (it can be, but there's no guarantee). While you are right, you make it sound like $90K is underpaid for someone right out of college. $90K is pretty good for a promising kid with a fresh degree but no real experience. More than fair; t…
I got $85K at a Boston company not known for paying top-of-market, just out of college, in 2010. A junior dev not getting $100K right out of college in SF is being underpaid even worse than is normal in this industry.
if you think it can be normal to be underpaid... you are using words differently than I am. In this context, by 'underpaid' I mean "getting paid less than the prevailing wage for the work you are doing" - and by 'normal' I mean 'average or median- usual'
Using my definitions, it's impossible for it to be normal to be underpaid. You are only underpaid if you are getting less than the normal wage.
Some people use 'underpaid' to mean something that has to do with the cost of living, and some people use 'normal' to mean "correct" - but that makes for a very different sort of conversation.
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who used to be very pro-self-taught programmers, I changed my mind after actually working with some (and having to maintain the code of others). Most of the ones I've run into have holes in core skills that are taught as part of a CS degree, like threading, pass-by-reference vs pass-by-value, DB normalization, separation of concerns, basic optimization, etc... To be fair a lot of CS grads haves holes too (…
Why is it a bad idea to parse a Turing-complete language using regex expressions? I have implemented the XScript language from Age Of Mythology and AOE3 with that approach; it seems to be quite efficient and flexible, is there something I should look out for?
(This comment is pretty informal; if you want to know more, look up terms like "context-free grammar", "Parsing Expression Grammar", "Backus-Naur Form", "regular language", or even "formal language theory".)
The problem is not "Turing-complete" (roughly, "can express arbitrarily complex stuff"), but "context-free" (roughly, "you can parse without considering what you've seen so far").
For instance, Brainfuck is Turing-complete (in the "Turing tarpit" sense) but really easy to turn into tokens (in fact, an informal approach may not even distinguish between "+" and "the token 'increment'"). Even realistic languages like C can be parsed without using anything much more advanced than regexes (you need some ugly kludges to support typedefs, and you should pretty much ignore newlines; one would typically use something more like yacc, but that's still not a very sophisticated tool.)
On the other hand, XML or HTML (which are not Turing-complete, and, informally, "not that expressive") are pretty much impossible to usefully parse without extensively considering context - gives and are "very different 's".
I don't know XScript, but regexes may be a completely viable approach. In fact, if your current approach works, it's likely good enough - it requires some theoretical background to express why you can't parse HTML with regexes, but you'll run into lots of trouble if you try (leading to stuff like http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-...). Of course, there's value in finding out your approach won't work before you've spent weeks of effort. ;-)
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it a bad idea to parse a Turing-complete language using regex expressions? I have implemented the XScript language from Age Of Mythology and AOE3 with that approach; it seems to be quite efficient and flexible, is there something I should look out for?
(This comment is pretty informal; if you want to know more, look up terms like "context-free grammar", "Parsing Expression Grammar", "Backus-Naur Form", "regular language", or even "formal language theory".) The problem is not "Turing-complete" (roughly, "can express arbitrarily complex stuff"), but "context-free" (roughly, "you can parse without considering what you've seen so far"). For instance, Brainfuck is Turin…
Thanks for the information! Looks like I've got some reading to do :)
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
The expected value of a startup, even pre-Series A, is not 0.
You seem to be confusing the expected value of a startup with the value of one's equity. There is a reason that the vast majority of vested stock options go unexercised when employees leave companies. Additionally, you are not factoring in liquidation preferences. Rhetorical question: what's 10% of $10 million when your investors put in $5 million and have a 2x liquidation preference?
You seem to not understand the notion of expected value.
If the strike price is a concern, it could probably be negotiated down. I had the impression the they have generally gone down anyway.
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got $85K at a Boston company not known for paying top-of-market, just out of college, in 2010. A junior dev not getting $100K right out of college in SF is being underpaid even worse than is normal in this industry.
if you think it can be normal to be underpaid... you are using words differently than I am. In this context, by 'underpaid' I mean "getting paid less than the prevailing wage for the work you are doing" - and by 'normal' I mean 'average or median- usual' Using my definitions, it's impossible for it to be normal to be underpaid. You are only underpaid if you are getting less than the normal wage. Some people use 'unde…
It is normal to be underpaid in this industry relative to the astonishing value a software developer creates, yes. This should not be controversial. $85K is low, even taking that into account, for a new college graduate.
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you think it can be normal to be underpaid... you are using words differently than I am. In this context, by 'underpaid' I mean "getting paid less than the prevailing wage for the work you are doing" - and by 'normal' I mean 'average or median- usual' Using my definitions, it's impossible for it to be normal to be underpaid. You are only underpaid if you are getting less than the normal wage. Some people use 'unde…
It is normal to be underpaid in this industry relative to the astonishing value a software developer creates, yes. This should not be controversial. $85K is low, even taking that into account , for a new college graduate.
>It is normal to be underpaid in this industry relative to the astonishing value a software developer creates, yes.
Your opinion of how much value a software developer creates is irrelevant, except to the extent that it influences wages you are willing to pay to others, or wages you are willing to accept, and only that matters to the extent that there is demand for you and/or how many developers you can hire.
In the real world, median starting salary doesn't even break 70K, much less 85K, according to salary.com, even in silicon valley.
http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-I-Sala...
My point, with this thread, is that while yes, there does exist a group of developers who make bank right out the gate and continue to do so throughout their career, for most of us? most of us are median. For most of us, $200K+ a year is purest of fantasy. And $85K right out of school is not bad at all.
Re: Startup jobs with low salary and negligible equity, what gives?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is normal to be underpaid in this industry relative to the astonishing value a software developer creates, yes. This should not be controversial. $85K is low, even taking that into account , for a new college graduate.
>It is normal to be underpaid in this industry relative to the astonishing value a software developer creates, yes. Your opinion of how much value a software developer creates is irrelevant, except to the extent that it influences wages you are willing to pay to others, or wages you are willing to accept, and only that matters to the extent that there is demand for you and/or how many developers you can hire. In the…
> Your opinion of how much value a software developer creates is irrelevant, except to the extent that it influences wages you are willing to pay to others, or wages you are willing to accept, and only that matters to the extent that there is demand for you and/or how many developers you can hire.
Or to the extent that the capitalist class can collude (with the help of useful idiots who have bought into the narrative) to avoid paying a wage representative of the value created.
Markets with imperfect information are set by the ones with the most information, and that's not the worker. The results are unsurprising.
> In the real world, median starting salary doesn't even break 70K, much less 85K, according to salary.com, even in silicon valley.
That's great. I live in the real world and I made $85K coming out of college, in Boston, at a decent-not-great company in 2010.
In this industry, "median" is fairly terrible.