How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool • Hacker News Board

Re: How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool

#51

Post by svdad » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 4:14 PM UTC

Evbn wrote: post #50

svdad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In SF Bay area, my experience in the last year or so has been that salary comp is pretty much the same between start-ups and big companies, the only exception being super-early-stage startups (i.e. pre-series A) where they really don't have the money yet. The difference is that at bigco, they add bonus and equity grant that have real value, while at startup, they add some % of equity with unknown value. Companies lik…

Amazon pretty famously does not adjust base salaries upward compared to other big companies.

Yeah, I think I misspoke somewhat, but not entirely. The Amazon comp structure, at least for the first four years after you join, as far as I know is something like this (and take this with a grain of salt, I haven't worked there):

Y1: Base + large annual cash (non-perf) bonus + 5% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y2: Base + large annual cash (non-perf) bonus + 15% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y3: Base + 40% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y4: Base + 40% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

So yeah, they don't adjust the base upward, but they do give you extra cash in the first two years to compensate for their back-loaded stock vesting schedule. That's what I meant.

Re: How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool

#52

Post by dsolomon » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #19

dsolomon wrote: post #15

What a load of crap. If companies paid that much then unemployment would be next to nil.

I've noticed you make comments like this every time salaries are mentioned around here, with usually the same reception. You seem to honestly believe what you're saying, and you seem to be genuine when you say that you've observed lots of low salaries in your portion of the industry. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dsolomon But you'd benefit from knowing that it's not like that, pretty much anywhere else in th…

I have a low tolerance for BS.

Re: How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool

#53

Post by dsolomon » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 1:47 AM UTC

strlen wrote: post #36

jasonkester wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed you make comments like this every time salaries are mentioned around here, with usually the same reception. You seem to honestly believe what you're saying, and you seem to be genuine when you say that you've observed lots of low salaries in your portion of the industry. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dsolomon But you'd benefit from knowing that it's not like that, pretty much anywhere else in th…

I think you meant "for a private sector company". What dsolomon is saying sounds completely incredulous to me: I've yet to hear of a single company that requires employees to purchase their own hardware or software. This is true not just of the top tier SV companies, but of _all_ companies who are aware that building software is their core competency. That's simply the difference between software being a cost center…

Citation needed.

Re: How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool

#54

Post by dsolomon » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 1:48 AM UTC

noahc wrote: post #35

jasonkester wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed you make comments like this every time salaries are mentioned around here, with usually the same reception. You seem to honestly believe what you're saying, and you seem to be genuine when you say that you've observed lots of low salaries in your portion of the industry. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dsolomon But you'd benefit from knowing that it's not like that, pretty much anywhere else in th…

You sucked me in! I didn't recognize the name, but I remember him as the "DC Guy With Clearance". I browsed his comments over the past year, and it's pretty clear to me that he either enjoys being underpaid and views it as a badge of honor or is so completely mistrusting of other people that he thinks that we are trying to screw him over when we (tens if not hundreds of people) suggest that he can easily get a higher…

So what's the link to the needle in the haystack?

Re: How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool

#55

Post by strlen » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

dsolomon wrote: post #53

strlen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant "for a private sector company". What dsolomon is saying sounds completely incredulous to me: I've yet to hear of a single company that requires employees to purchase their own hardware or software. This is true not just of the top tier SV companies, but of _all_ companies who are aware that building software is their core competency. That's simply the difference between software being a cost center…

Citation needed.

1) Re: equipment

Typing this on a work supplied Macbook Pro, 16gb of ram, 256 gb SSD. Cost to me: $0.

I am ssh'd into my development server which has 78gb of ram. Cost to me: $0

I have IntelliJ Idea Professional (price comparable to -- if not greater than Visual Studio) open in another window. Cost to me: $0. I didn't even need to submit an expense report, just asked IT to provide me with a license.

I have Windows 7 installed in a VMWare Fusion VM. In this case, I didn't even need to request it from it, there was a self-service application that I used to install it. Cost to me: $0.

I have an Android Nexus Galaxy 4G LTE phone on Verizon for work purposes. Could have an iPhone if I chose to. Cost to me: $0.

Google is my employer's primary talent competitor, so I can't imagine they (per game theory) can be any different when it comes to this. I have not worked at Google, but I do know anecdotally (many of my friends work at Google) they're very generous when it comes to equipment.

2) Re: hours/flexibility. I am currently at home typing this and it's ~11:30 am here. I can chose to work from home where are no meetings scheduled and can come in/leave whenever I'd like. Earliest recurring meetings I've ever had scheduled had been at 11 am.

3) Re: salary. Look up my employment history (titles and employers), then see Glassdoor figures (same title at same employer). They're actually lower (on average) than what my own base salary had been at those companies.

You can choose not to believe me, but in this case, you're simply being paranoid.

tl;dr Get out of defense contracting/working for the government or traditional (non-technical) corporations. You'll fare far better working for private sector technology companies.