4 ms·

> You may work your ass off, but if you do, do it because it is the right thing to do and you want to do it. Lana Kane style noooope. Do it for a wage/equity/b

by p4wnc6 11y ago

> You may work your ass off, but if you do, do it because it is the right thing to do and you want to do it. Lana Kane style noooope. Do it for a wage/equity/benefits/vacation package that is satisfactory in helping you achieve your goals. In fact, if you accept anything less than that, you're not just doing yourself a disservice, but also all of your peers because you're sending a market signal that you currently devalue your own labor. If you reached that decision through careful thought and really determined such lesser forms of compensation were OK for you, given other trade offs, then fine, so be it, that is your market price. But that's not usually what happens. Usually it's an inexperienced engineer who had no way to know any better because she/he had never been exposed to the important points of stock options, never knew what or how to ask, and followed some dopey advice like "just work hard because it's the right thing to do" because someone seemingly older/wiser/with more authority kept telling them to stop whining for more compensation and just do the work. It's precisely because a business doesn't have the explicit goal of making employees any wealthier than it has to that we have to be vigilant to demand our full market compensation, whether it means negotiating a better exercise window, or better accelerated vesting terms, or a real wage instead of a but-we're-a-startup wage, and so on.

purpled_haze 11y ago
I thought this way for many years, but don't buy into it anymore. I still want to get paid as much as I can for the work I do, but I'm not any happier because of how much I make. Even today, I'm only happy when I've accomplished something I was trying to do. Sure, I want my family to be happy, but they would be happier if I were happier. Don't just do it for the money.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  But you surely can't suggest that this property of you should generalize to other people? Yes, there is a component of happiness related to feeling productive, but surely it's not 100%, and it varies from person to person. Your advice effectively says to ignore your non-work life goals that cost money because only your work-goals-productivity will make you happy. I doubt this very much, and certainly know that it's not true for anyone I've ever worked with.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  Dare I say there are non-monetary benefits to being paid at top of market. I've been near the top of band of my particular subfield for the last few years, after working for years at a bog-standard SDE comp package, and IMO there are some pretty compelling reasons to demand better compensation beyond, well, having the money. For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp, for a lot of reasons - many of which are bullshit, but hey. The perceived quality of your work is higher because you're demanding (and getting) more for it - and people are more willing to treat your professional judgment seriously. In general companies and the people in them want very much to believe that they're getting what they paid for, so being known for being at the top of market (quite unjustifiably, of course) raises the default perception of your work. It also opens the window for alternative arrangements - work from home, more vacation, all that is considerably more on the table when you're perceived as a top-dollar high performer. Conversely, willingness to accept less than market seems to signal to management that you can be pushed around on other matters (true or not), and even if you're well capable of fending off this jerkish behavior, why not just avoid it and get paid more? I've personally seen founders' dispositions toward me improve, and just get more professional respect in general, by naming a high price and sticking with it. This isn't to say that one should take a horrible job because it pays top dollar, but in the current state of the industry you can have your cake and eat it too - you can work with good people on interesting stuff while staying within the top decile of your niche.
  - purpled_haze 11y ago
    "For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp" This may be true for some, but here is what I've seen and experienced personally + family members and friends I've talked with: 1. You are a full-time employee who is either very skilled or not as skilled but getting paid in the top 5-10% as a senior or principal software engineer. For a while you get to work on whatever you want to as long as it makes the company better, so you write open source projects, etc. Then, something happens. Either your company gets outside investment, or is bought-out/merges/buys another company, or they fall on hard times, or there is competition, or someone in management reads some new book or goes to some conference, or you just get different management, and now you all of a sudden either have been driven to cut corners which leads to a mess, or morale sucks or people buy into management's crappy philosophy which which leads to no innovation and suddenly it feels like no one else is using the crappy libraries and frameworks you had been using, or things for some other reason just suck. In this case, you're still making a lot of money. Happy now? Sure you could have found a new job, but wait hold on a second- you are in the top 5-10% so jobs that pay that well may not come as easily. Looks like you're fucked. 2. You work your ass off as an independent, grow the company, and are doing well working for large company X in NYC. You had an awesome time putting your family through hell in the beginning for peanuts, but somehow you managed to make it past all that. And now, what do you have? You're making a lot and have several guys/gals depending on you and you are still working your ass off and now you feel like if you quit, you take all of them down with you. Maybe even you're still on your own, but if you quit to take a break, your family will suffer because they won't have what they did. What I suggest: do what you believe in as long as you can survive and meet the needs of your family. Push hard or don't, but be happy if you can. This will make the world a better place. You may end up making too much and getting into the same predicament, but if you're lucky, you'll at least not be focused on more money than you need. And if you do get more money than you need- share it. Much good in the world has come from those with money sharing what they have.

by p4wnc6 11y ago

purpled_haze 11y ago

I thought this way for many years, but don't buy into it anymore. I still want to get paid as much as I can for the work I do, but I'm not any happier because of how much I make. Even today, I'm only happy when I've accomplished something I was trying to do. Sure, I want my family to be happy, but they would be happier if I were happier. Don't just do it for the money.

p4wnc6 11y ago
But you surely can't suggest that this property of you should generalize to other people? Yes, there is a component of happiness related to feeling productive, but surely it's not 100%, and it varies from person to person. Your advice effectively says to ignore your non-work life goals that cost money because only your work-goals-productivity will make you happy. I doubt this very much, and certainly know that it's not true for anyone I've ever worked with.
potatolicious 11y ago
Dare I say there are non-monetary benefits to being paid at top of market. I've been near the top of band of my particular subfield for the last few years, after working for years at a bog-standard SDE comp package, and IMO there are some pretty compelling reasons to demand better compensation beyond, well, having the money. For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp, for a lot of reasons - many of which are bullshit, but hey. The perceived quality of your work is higher because you're demanding (and getting) more for it - and people are more willing to treat your professional judgment seriously. In general companies and the people in them want very much to believe that they're getting what they paid for, so being known for being at the top of market (quite unjustifiably, of course) raises the default perception of your work. It also opens the window for alternative arrangements - work from home, more vacation, all that is considerably more on the table when you're perceived as a top-dollar high performer. Conversely, willingness to accept less than market seems to signal to management that you can be pushed around on other matters (true or not), and even if you're well capable of fending off this jerkish behavior, why not just avoid it and get paid more? I've personally seen founders' dispositions toward me improve, and just get more professional respect in general, by naming a high price and sticking with it. This isn't to say that one should take a horrible job because it pays top dollar, but in the current state of the industry you can have your cake and eat it too - you can work with good people on interesting stuff while staying within the top decile of your niche.
- purpled_haze 11y ago
  "For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp" This may be true for some, but here is what I've seen and experienced personally + family members and friends I've talked with: 1. You are a full-time employee who is either very skilled or not as skilled but getting paid in the top 5-10% as a senior or principal software engineer. For a while you get to work on whatever you want to as long as it makes the company better, so you write open source projects, etc. Then, something happens. Either your company gets outside investment, or is bought-out/merges/buys another company, or they fall on hard times, or there is competition, or someone in management reads some new book or goes to some conference, or you just get different management, and now you all of a sudden either have been driven to cut corners which leads to a mess, or morale sucks or people buy into management's crappy philosophy which which leads to no innovation and suddenly it feels like no one else is using the crappy libraries and frameworks you had been using, or things for some other reason just suck. In this case, you're still making a lot of money. Happy now? Sure you could have found a new job, but wait hold on a second- you are in the top 5-10% so jobs that pay that well may not come as easily. Looks like you're fucked. 2. You work your ass off as an independent, grow the company, and are doing well working for large company X in NYC. You had an awesome time putting your family through hell in the beginning for peanuts, but somehow you managed to make it past all that. And now, what do you have? You're making a lot and have several guys/gals depending on you and you are still working your ass off and now you feel like if you quit, you take all of them down with you. Maybe even you're still on your own, but if you quit to take a break, your family will suffer because they won't have what they did. What I suggest: do what you believe in as long as you can survive and meet the needs of your family. Push hard or don't, but be happy if you can. This will make the world a better place. You may end up making too much and getting into the same predicament, but if you're lucky, you'll at least not be focused on more money than you need. And if you do get more money than you need- share it. Much good in the world has come from those with money sharing what they have.