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Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

neomindlabs.com

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Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#341

Post by Aunche »

game_the0ry wrote: post #266
Aunche wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all companies need $500k engineers or can afford them. An optimization at Netflix that improves performance by 1% may save them millions of dollars. The same optimization at a medium-size company may only save them a few thousand. Also, it's much more difficult to quantify the impact of a software engineer compared to investment bankers and consultants. The latter two are directly making money for the firm.

> Also, it's much more difficult to quantify the impact of a software engineer compared to investment bankers and consultants. The latter two are directly making money for the firm. Yes, it is difficult, but possible. Here's quick and dirty analysis - consider Sears, Walmart, and Amazon: - Amazon pays its engineers near top of market - $1.5T market cap. - Walmart has a pretty good engineering culture. They acquired a…

I meant quantifying an individual's impact. For i-banking that's easy. The more money an i-banker the raise, the better they are. There isn't a simple metric you can use for software engineering. Some terrible developers write a lot of code. Some amazing developers barely write any code.

Of course there is still meaningful signal you can use to differentiate developers, but it's going to be fuzzy. I-banking and consulting increase wages for their employees by firing everyone who doesn't meet a certain bar. In addition to creating a toxic work environment, this practice isn't possible with only fuzzy signals.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#342

Post by whatshisface »

mcguire wrote: post #282
whatshisface wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google is willing to pay $200k over your current employer for you, your employer is paying you $200k under your market rate.

Let's say your value to most employers is $100k---this is the amount of money you make for them balanced against the amount you want in order to work for them. Then the Goog enters the picture and is willing to add another $200k premium to that, in order to prevent you from working for that employer. This isn't sustainable; you're still you and your direct value to Goog is only $100k. The additional amount represents…

This economic theory depends on the idea that Google is the only well-capitalized software company... In reality there are several.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#343

Post by Tainnor »

reaperducer wrote: post #304
game_the0ry wrote: post #23

I agree with the author's point about using popular tech stacks to alleviate the ramp-up time for new hire productivity, but that is not the optimal solution. The optimal solution is for management to not let high-productivity talent from leaving - increase their comp to whatever offers they might get in the open market. That's how labor economic works - it's a market. Investment bank and management consulting figure…

The optimal solution is for management to not let high-productivity talent from leaving - increase their comp to whatever offers they might get in the open market. That's how labor economic works - it's a market. Life is not that simple, and cannot be boiled down into "it's a market." People are messy. They leave companies for all kinds of reasons. They just broke up with someone and want to start a new life. They do…

While this is all true, comparing the turnover in the tech industry with other sectors - even high-paying sectors - our industry does seem a bit crazy, so it's worth figuring out why this is happening and what we could do to fix it.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#344

Post by zten »

xenihn wrote: post #230
zten wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this really a thing? There's outrageous equity offered by like 5 companies. Everybody else is getting stock option grants worth 5-10% of what Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are offering (the situation is a little different for Netflix). > Am I a giant dumbass for staying in Colorado? Probably not, Colorado is great.

There are a few other companies that consistently give offers with TC approaching $500k to senior engineers, where the non-salary portion of the comp consists of RSUs that are immediately sellable upon vesting (like FAANG), as opposed to stock options. I'm sure I'm missing some, but these are the ones that I could think of off the top of my head (verified with levels.fyi): - Snap - Pinterest - Lyft (though their stoc…

I appreciate the fixes to what I said. I mistakenly thought Microsoft offered a more generous RSU package.

What I wanted to emphasize, mostly, was that there exists a tier of companies that offer stratospheric compensation primarily through equity, but there are many more people working at other publicly-traded companies that offer RSUs that are worth closer to what you might consider to be a yearly bonus.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#345

Post by [deleted] »

thesuitonym wrote: post #255
JoshTriplett wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating the two creates a perception that employees shouldn't be paid as much as they're worth. An employee being paid $500k/year is probably producing even more value to their employer than that, and if anything, the goal should be to close the gap between value and compensation, not widen it.

>is probably producing even more value to their employer than that That's the crux of the argument, though. Google can afford to take a loss on the employee's salary for years, just to keep them from a competitor. We're not talking about Google arbitrarily paying a developer more than their competitors, we're talking about Google diverting funds from other business units to cover costs.

[deleted]

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#346

Post by dqpb »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #123
dqpb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way of saying it: > Never underestimate how much better a person's life can be by working for a FAANG instead of working for you Edit: For those who are downvoting, I'm simply saying this is what's implied by the quote. I'm not making a statement about FAANGs.

> Never underestimate how much better a person's life can be by working for an AANG instead of working for you FTFY.

I happily don't work at a FAANG.

The original quote was about their ability to poach employees.

What does it mean to poach an employee? It means to convince the employee to make the major life decision to work for them instead.

Why do people choose to make such a major life decision? Usually it's because they think it will make their life better.

Why do they think it will make their life better? Because the FAANG offers >= 70,000usd to switch jobs, pays for them to relocate and sell their existing home, offers fully paid health insurance for their entire family, offers hundreds of thousands in stock options, and an unbeatable salary.

This is how they convince engineers to work on the world's most effective attention machines. By making their life better in all these ways and more.

If you fail to understand that, if you fail to engage in any kind deep or abstract thought that isn't summarized by a four letter meme, then you're doing exactly what this article warns you not to do - you're underestimating FAANGs.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#347

Post by ghaff »

jdmichal wrote: post #337
ghaff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And I wouldn't expect anyone in that position to give me two weeks... If I never need to cross that bridge again, what do I care if it burns? IMO that makes them an asshole. But, to your point, sure. If I have FU money then depending on a lot of things including what arrangements I could make with an employer, I might well choose not to work for someone else.

Agreed. A rich, independently-wealthy asshole. But there's also a difference between my moral judgements and my preparations. I can hope someone won't be an asshole, but I will prepare for it.

Sure. And again this comes back to the bus factor. If someone disappears off the face of the earth for whatever reason that will hopefully not precipitate a major crisis at any company with more than a handful of people.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#348

Post by bogdanu »

notJim wrote: post #264
bogdanu wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, tell me about it, I just got from a remote company an offer of 2.2k eur/month as a PHP developer. The drawbacks of being a PHP guy I guess.

I was making ~$200k as a PHP developer, not sure what this has to do with it.

PHP developers always have had lower salaries, you can't argue with that.

Like in retail, it depends on location, location, location; a regular developer will never make that much in Europe - remote (for a EU company) or not.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#349

Post by yourapostasy »

mhneu wrote: post #242
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

But the FAANGs have a huge unfair advantage over startups - their size gives them monopoly power that disadvantages small companies. That's a failure of American governance. Economists used to all know that markets needed to be regulated to make competition fair --- and efficient. But the American right has pushed for 50 years to deregulate everything, and the FAANGs have benefited from this rollback of anti-trust. I…

Please explain how it is unfair to startups when the vast majority of technical staff at startups have a practical zero chance of hitting the lottery odds of making good on their startup options to compensate for the lower cash compensation, lesser benefits and additional risk over taking a FAANG or even F500 position. Startups that complain like this generally want FAANG technical talent without even the realistic promise of above-FAANG payoffs in case the venture hits it big.

There isn't an infinite maw for staffing at FAANGs, they aren't going to suck out all the air for all the technical talent in the room. Just the air for other members of FAANG and maybe the second-tier competitors. Startups that want to pay less than F500 compensation packages for greater job insecurity only think they're in the anoxic depths of available technical talent. They're really swimming in a talent-rich pool, they just want a McLaren for a Toyota price.

You can get a helluva lot done with a well-managed fleet of Toyotas, and done right, you'll get to the point where you will afford that McLaren cash-over-the-barrel should you really have your heart set on such managing such talent. Not every problem in the world requires world-class problem solvers, and in fact, most problems are solved every day by everyday people with sufficient time and determination. It just doesn't make for good copy for VC's to read about in the pitch deck.

In any case, rare is the startup I've seen that can even supply the right infrastructure to leverage FAANG talent. Their benefits aren't delivered de novo like Athena leaping from Zeus' head. For example, if you have a Free Electron personally grinding out non-core code and manning your most senior-level support desk fielding rando calls, instead of teaching more junior engineers and wading in only for the most difficult project-endangering parts, you're wasting your and their time, whether you're a startup or a FAANG.

Complaining about not being able to hire FAANG talent with sub-FAANG compensation packages without any discussion of the infrastructure is cargo-culting the effects of FAANG talent.

If you're a startup that must have FAANG-grade talent in specific positions, then pay the market price for that talent. Otherwise, you'll accommodate for lower-skilled staff like nearly any other manager in the world does, and adjust accordingly. The market has evolved so FAANG talent obtains competent legal and financial advice now, so promises without founder-level or even VC-level protections against dilution and other valuation clawback mechanisms are more correctly priced towards the market-priced zero.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#350

Post by mulmen »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #336
mulmen wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was literally asked "Do you think you are worth $x?" in an exit interview. Obviously I do, since that was the offer. What a strange question.

> Do you think you are worth $x? Yes, actually $x * 20%.

Right? How much am I worth? How much do you have?
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