Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#41

Post by Bahamut » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

thesimon wrote: post #18

Tangential to this article, but >pay outside of the US is often much lower for reasons that don’t really make sense to me). Can someone explain why salaries in for example Europe are so much less? Out of uni salary for example seems to be around 38k in Europe, whereas in US everything under 90k seems very low. Just the difference in purchase power and costs?

I always wondered that too - Europe isn't necessarily cheaper either, and electronics are much more expensive in general.

But $90k is not the norm for starting in the US. I started at $50k in DC for example post-grad school. $90k is perhaps only the Bay Area.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#42

Post by arbitrage314 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat):

If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup.

If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever.

I've considered lots of startup jobs because I believed strongly in the companies. Every single time, however, I was able to get a larger chunk of the company by keeping my current job and simply investing.

To give an example, my current job pays about $250k, and one year, I invested $100k of that into a startup, leaving me with ~$150k of salary. This $150k + startup equity was a better deal than the startup was offering in both salary and equity (BY FAR). Plus, equity bought as an investor is much less tax toxic than equity options received as an employee of a startup.

On the other hand, most people who work at startups aren't interested in money. If that's you, that's totally cool!

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#43

Post by onesixtythree » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

This is a really poor analysis. Making $250k after five years at a large company is not the norm, except possibly in finance. The Googles of the world are littered with people who didn't make Senior after 5 years or who got taken into "The Perf Room" and made quiet, shameful exits.

Startup jobs are massively overrated right now, and most startup offers are terrible because there are so many unqualified people willing to work for next to nothing, but this guy is overrating big-company jobs. The truth is that, in both cases, most options are rotten and most people get a bad deal. It's important to recognize this, in order to fix it.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#44

Post by kisna72 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

arbitrage314 wrote: post #42

I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat): If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup. If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever. I…

Out of curiosity, How much experience do you have, and what kind of work do you do? (eg management, coding, lead engineer?)

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#45

Post by loopbit » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

djhn wrote: post #38

loopbit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could. Cost of living, taxes, benefits... even the "culture" of the country (for lack of a better word) all play a role, but when you are working in a distributed team for an american corp in a different country and see how different the salaries are even between team members doing the same job, it hurts. BTW, I think you'll find it difficult to find a fresh out of college job that pays you 38K€ in most of e…

3k€ per month + holiday extra or bonuses sounds pretty standard for most office work after any university degree (so by default MSc in Europe), I'd say 3.5 to 4 is reasonable with engineering, business, finance, etc. 4-5 in law, 5-7 in medicine.

Good luck finding a entry-level job, any entry level job in Spain that pays you more than 900€ per month in Spain, Italy, Portugal... even France and maybe, Germany (although I have less information there).

From what I see, you might get 2-2.5K€ per month in the rest of Europe. Ireland and UK are, AFAIK, where the highest salaries in IT are and even there you are going to get 2-3K€ per month at most.

Most lawyers I know in Europe start their careers earning minimum wage. And they do that for a few years until they are promoted to full lawyers or open their own practice.

Doctors usually spend their first years with temp contracts of 3-6 months in Hospitals for slightly more than minimum wage. This is after they finish their degrees and do the mandatory internships they need to do to get their MD degree.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#46

Post by kelukelugames » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

arbitrage314 wrote: post #42

I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat): If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup. If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever. I…

How do you invest 100k into a start up?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#47

Post by arbitrage314 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

kisna72 wrote: post #44

arbitrage314 wrote: post #42

I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat): If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup. If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever. I…

Out of curiosity, How much experience do you have, and what kind of work do you do? (eg management, coding, lead engineer?)

I've been out of school 3-4 years, and I work at a large company. I'm about 10% a manager, 10% a resident data scientist, and 80% a coder, and I love my job.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#48

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:31 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #32

vinceguidry wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work is one of those Roman ideas that I just can't bring myself to be interested enough in to try. Sit at home all day with nobody but the cat for company while everyone else is at work / school? Give me a regular desk and let me see my coworkers in person every day. Besides, from what I've gathered from the job postings here, SV startups mostly don't hire remote workers. You're expected to move to Rome. Local…

I'd submit that what you have there isn't that what I've said is wrong, but that what you've "picked and chosen" from the SV lifestyle is nearly the null set. That's fine for you, no sarcasm, I am glad you are happy and I have no great love for SV myself, but it doesn't make my point wrong. Me, I live in the Midwest and work in a quite substantial local office of a SV-based company that is now midsized. I get the job…

I wasn't necessarily arguing with you, just trying to highlight that even just having a little bit of SV startup influence on your life is still "living in Rome". The phrase, "All roads lead to Rome" comes to mind.

You want Rome in your life, having Rome there is way way better than not having it there. But Rome is dangerous, precisely because of the infectious nature of Roman ideas. When you 'live in Rome', you are ceding control over your life over to Rome in exchange for a more exciting future. You've sold the family farm, uprooted yourself and moved to the big city.

I don't want to live in Rome. I don't want Roman ideas controlling my life. I want to live out here in the periphery, maintaining as strict a boundary as I can between myself, my lands, my family, and Rome.

I don't want little bits of Rome on my lands. If Rome wants to come to me, offer me a fat salary and a cush job right inside my kingdom, I'm going to examine that gift horse extremely carefully to make sure it's not hiding a bunch of soldiers inside, or, more likely, ethical failings on the parts of the founders that can wreck my life along with my kingdom. I can't fight Rome, Rome is unstoppable, but by keeping my head up and not falling prey to ego and hubris, I can enrich myself and my kingdom through Rome rather than get destroyed by it.

Hacker News is how I get exposure to that ecosystem while still maintaining control over my life. It's perfect for me, no less than I need, no more than I can handle.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#49

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

exstudent2 wrote: post #2

I don't think you can go into a company as large as Google and expect your salary to double in five years. HR will have set limits to how much of a raise you can get in any given year and even with promotions you would be very unlikely to see that kind of bump. I also don't think the middling programmers he mentions would hit the 250k year mark. Orthogonal to the point of the article, but the only time you can really…

The idea of starting fresh out of school at a company for $130K, doubling up to $250K seems to me ludicrous, besides for a rare few outlier roles at a rare few companies. I can say I've got close to 20 years of experience and I don't make anywhere close to that.

Not saying there are no roles like this--just saying this probably several standard deviations from the mean, and not useful as a "back of the envelope estimation of big company tech salaries in general"

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#50

Post by georgefrick » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all.

His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee.

Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?