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I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... - Our typical junior makes $50 - 60k - A typical mid makes $65 - 75k - Seniors

by throwaway2016a 10y ago

I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... - Our typical junior makes $50 - 60k - A typical mid makes $65 - 75k - Seniors (including CTO) make $90 - 110k In greater Boston. It is VERY difficult to hire at those rates. We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...) and he accepted another offer for $150k. At our scale he would be making $75k at MOST. It takes us 6 months to find a single hire. But I'm not bitter at Google. I think the market is valuing the workforce fairly. Which means... - We are probably priced out of the market - We should / do offer higher percentages equity - We need to hire the people who the Googles of the world won't hire and train and mentor them That last one works really well. We hired a few people that couldn't get jobs elsewhere that after two years with us left for a job that pays over twice more but they wouldn't have been able to land without our training and mentorship. We actually congratulate and celebrate those people even though we are VERY sad to see them go.

comstock 10y ago
Increasing equity is great, but in general my view is that increased equity does two things: 1. It compensates for the increased risk of working for a startup (you don't have as much runway as google, might fail to raise your next round). 2. It gives the employee a stake in the company, and aligns their interests with making the company successful. I.e. Not just doing whatever they're told, failing to raise potential issues because "it's not their job". It doesn't really compensate for reduced pay in my opinion.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  I actually agree with you. I am in disagreement with our CEO on that one. But unfortunately it's all we can afford to give so at least it is something. I have had a number of heart to hearts with devs to make sure their expectations on stock options are set right.
  - pbecotte 10y ago
    This statement makes no sense. If you feel that the company doesn't pay enough, there are two possibilities. 1. You get paid way more then your teams rate, proving the CEO is not being truthful (there is more money if people negotiate hard enough) 2. You are also underpaid and are doing yourself a disservice by staying
    - throwaway2016a 10y ago
      Unfortunately it is #2. I am underpaid by over 75%. The average on the team is under by about 30 - 50%... so not only am I underpaid I am underpaid quite a lot more than others in the company. I do, however, have quite a bit more stock options. And the CEO from what I understand went two years without a paycheck. But he is independently wealthy (I am not). I stay for various personal reasons. Reasons that the other people on the team don't have. And because 75% underpaid is still enough to support me and my family with a modest lifestyle.
      - poikniok 10y ago
        Honestly this sounds terrible. From what you have said it seems fairly clear that you are being exploited by the CEO / others. And what does it even mean that the CEO (who presumably owns a large portion of the company) went without pay for two year when he is independently wealthy? You sound quite intelligent so just think about it, if he was paying himself a salary it would just be transferring money from his bank account to his bank account again, all while being taxed. The fact that this is used as a mitigating factor to argue that you are not getting screwed is absurd, for your sake I hope you go out to the marketplace and get paid what you deserve.
        throwaway2016a 10y ago
        Thank you for your concern. I am well aware of the situation... I am actively considering options.
- beisner 10y ago
  I think it can depend on the size of the operation, and your mindset. If I'm employee #100 at a well-funded startup, I'd tend to agree with you and value equity as a risk adjusting factor. But if I'm employee #5, I probably would take a pay cut in exchange for a significant chunk of equity - if I was even considering such a risky operation, I probably wouldn't be in a place in my life where job security was especially important to me.
  - comstock 10y ago
    If you think it would be an interesting experience, or like the people, or think it's a fun problem it makes sense to take a pay cut. If you're thinking increased equity will compensate for reduced salary in the vast majority of cases that doesn't make financial sense.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
meddlepal 10y ago
Have you considered alternative comp mechanics? For example, I know it may sound unorthodox, but short work weeks is an awesome perk and worth a lot IMO. Other things like guaranteeing to ship engineers off to a conference per quarter of their choice and paying for a day and night of travel expenses + a day off so they can explore the destination is pretty cool too. How does your company handle IP assignment also for personal projects? If I can work on side projects freely without worrying about legal junk that weighs heavily into a decision. All of these things have value and if combined can make a killer compensation package.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  I would trade at least $15k/year for a four day work week.
  - alexc05 10y ago
    That would be a no-brainer for sure! At $75k/year $15k for a day off a week would be roughly "break even" on the hourly rate trade off. Someone on $100k taking a pay cut to 4 days would see their time valued at an increase in hourly rate. Since you're getting 15% less money in exchange for 20% less time. Broad brush strokes on the math there but you get the picture.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    I thought about this myself as well. To me a 20% reduction in work days is well worth a 20% reduction in pay. This is an easy perk that is offered at no large companies. Sadly it's not widespread. And I fear most companies wouldn't be well prepared to actually execute on it.
    - dmoy 10y ago
      I have coworkers (at Google) with that arrangement. I have family members at top5 bank with that arrangement. It won't be publicly broadcast, but if you ask around it is an option.
jasim 10y ago
You'll get programmers from developing countries with a good 10 years on them for $70k if you can build a company around a completely async remote culture. And I'm not talking about fad-following framework-crazed devs, but rugged pros who'll cost a premium if they were in a developed country.
- deepGem 10y ago
  I can attest to this. A good dev in India with 10 years exp will cost about 40 lakhs - about $60K. You gotta keep in mind the ridiculous inflation in India and the rest of the developing world. So in like 2 years you could be paying at least 30% more.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  Yeah. There is significant management overhead. And things like standardized QA and requirements become very important since a miscommunication can cost a whole day due to timezone differences. I have been working hard to improve our processes but we aren't there yet.
- spapas82 10y ago
  Hello, this is not only true for developing countries but even for developed countries. I'll speak about my country, Greece. The average wage for a junior developer is a little less than 20 000 euros per month (around 1000 years/month x 14 months + 4000 for insurance etc) while for a senior may be a little more (but probably less than 30 000, depends on years and kind of work). Wages of more than 35 000 euros are seldom found for developers and are mainly reserved for management positions. The wages are more or less the same on most Southern Europe countries (Italy, Spain etc) and are definitely much less in less developed European Countries (Bulgaria, Hungary etc). So, if you focus on developers from similar countries you can get top talent (and I mean that, there are many great developers here, most of these people are better than the ones in Silicon Valley since they are working in their own country which the jobs are not much instead of migrating to a different place to find a job) for less than 40 000 euros / year. The only drawback would be that they'd want to work remotely (or else they'd have already migrated). So the best course of action is to create your company's culture to not only allow but to embrace remote work (i.e by trying to only hire remote people -- this'll also save you money). Also, another idea is that migrate the start up offices instead of trying to convince developers to migrate! Greece is a beautiful country after all :)
Toenex 10y ago
For comparison, what do Google et. al. pay in the UK? I work in a small medtech in Manchester UK (like a scaled down Boston!) and simply currency adjusting these numbers would make for attractive offers here. For example I've a PhD in computer vision, 20 years building and selling medical device approved imaging software in the EU & US and have yet to be offered anything close to $100K (yes dollars) and options that would impact on anything I do. I'm good at what I do too. I just think the UK investment attitude is totally different.
- pm90 10y ago
  If you have a PhD AND 20 years of job experience, I am sorry to say you are doing something really wrong if your base salary has not crossed the six figure mark. Maybe companies in the UK don't pay as much as those in the US; I wouldn't know. If that is the case though, I would suggest that you work in the US for a few years and maybe move back and try to negotiate a better offer. Having EU/UK citizenship makes it much easier for you to work in the US and I would implore you to make the most use of it.
  - ryanpepper 10y ago
    The starting salary for a new graduate in the UK is probably in the range of £25-£33k, unless you're really lucky and do something like investment banking which is about half of what comparably qualified grads make in the US. On the other hand, there are additional things that are paid for because of various legal differences between the the UK and the US (such as paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, and employers have to pay a tax for each employee called National Insurance which effectively funds the state pension system). The law also gives all employees 5.5 weeks of holiday (though there often some restrictions on when it can be taken).
    - pm90 10y ago
      We do have a paid maternity and sick leave in the US (well, at least in the tech companies. In my current company (IBM), we even have paid paternity leave). How expensive is the National Insurance tax? I can't imagine it being much more expensive than what my company pays for health insurance for its employees (although perhaps I'm wrong here). > The starting salary for a new graduate in the UK is probably in the range of £25-£33k, Are you talking about starting developer salary? That seems really really low! Why wouldn't UK devs simply relocate to the US where they could make a lot more right away? Apologies, I don't mean to pontificate...it just befuddles me why a UK developer wouldn't want to move, if only for a little while.
canistr 10y ago
Alternatively, you could hire remotely or move your office to somewhere where the cost of living is lower. Perhaps even move to Toronto where those salaries in CAD would actually be in line with market prices.
tibbon 10y ago
Ooof, those rates are indeed pretty low. I get why you're doing it, but could having access to more engineers easier maybe help get you to profitability faster? I find interviewing a bunch of good people, making offers and then having them turn down the position because of money to be a big waste of time/money. How many hours/dollars do you spend in that 6 months? I had students leaving my classes at General Assembly in 2014 start between 50-90k, with a pretty good bell curve between. I think the market has gotten tougher for them since then, but whenever a strong student got an offer for 50k I told them to push for 65k. I'm a senior engineer at my current startup, live in the Boston area and yea... a 90k salary would have me turning down the position likely, unless you had some really good benefits. I'm trying to think creatively about benefits that would make me consider a 90k salary. If you were able to get some bulk rates (making it cheaper than just paying more $) for employees, and paid for things like: laundry service, some amount of Uber credit per month, parking, crossfit membership, phone plans, tax preparation, auto insurance, etc... that could perhaps entice me. Find the pain points in my life and help me fix them. Perhaps this is just the state of health insurance, but I've been finding my health insurance getting worse and worse too; and even with a 'decent' PPO, I find myself getting random bills for junk the insurance wouldn't cover. Some type of employer-filled reimbursement/savings plan would help there. I don't think I ever got a medical bill 10 years ago. The #1 thing that could entice me, over salary, would be some way for my employer to help me secure a decent mortgage and help with the down payment. I'd like to buy around Boston, but 20% down payment on $600k is a kick in the teeth (I'm aware you can do lower, but then there's PMI and such). If an employer helped me secure that, and make part of the down payment... as long as the salary paid my mortgage / student loans / food, then I'd be happy camper for a while and not complain about what the technical income number was.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  > A 90k salary would have me turning down the position likely You and most other people. But not ALL people. That's why we fill our positions it just takes a lot of time and patience.
  - tibbon 10y ago
    That time == money though. I'm curious how you calculate what's really worth it.
holydude 10y ago
"We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...)" Exactly. Do not be so cocky. This is free market and while you are entitled to your opinion why should a candidate try too hard to get a position that pays less than half of what he will get elsewhere just because his skills are not up to your standards ? You cannot really assess my skills in an interview the same way I cannot really asses whether it's actually worth taking your offer. Money talks bullshit walks. Eventually at the end of the day all of us unless really financially secure are in it for the money.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  Don't be so quick to judge. Placing someone at mid / senior / junior is not "cocky"... it's pretty subjective if you do it right. The guy missed questions that over 50% of our applicants knew the answers to. I'm not talking the "implement this obscure algorithm from scratch on a whiteboard" kind of question HN is so fond of. The hardest coding question we ask is Fizz-Buzz. But we can't / won't pay him more than we pay other employees with similar or higher skill sets. If we drew a bell curve of all the applicants we had, this guy would be in the middle. His resume was impressive though. My guess is the company that hired him didn't do their diligence and only weighed the resume.
  - Sunstruck 10y ago
    It sounds like you don't pay market salaries and are in denial
    - jdbernard 10y ago
      Sounds like he is well aware that they aren't paying market salaries: > - We are probably priced out of the market
      - throwaway2016a 10y ago
        Also what I meant when I said... > I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... ... was "too low... if we could afford it I'd pay three times that much" not "oh look what a great deal we are getting! Haha, suckers!"
matz1 10y ago
How do I apply for the job ? What is your email.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  I'd love to stake applicants. But this is a anonymous account and I can't answer that question without giving it away. I wish you the best of luck, though.
mathattack 10y ago
We need to hire the people who the Googles of the world won't hire and train and mentor them Very true. If you're willing to take a risk on someone smart who majored in Cognitive Psychology but is interested in programming, you don't have to pay them anywhere near Google salaries. But you do need to train and mentor them, and give them respect.
logfromblammo 10y ago
Don't forget the people who don't want to go where the Goobookzonsofts would want them to move. If you're running a startup, and not trying to build a remote-friendly team, you really need to consider that. Some location-bound businesses probably have some eminently poachable employees. For instance, look at the largest employer in the state of Indiana, Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/salary/pa-ranges-201617.html#it http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/salary/pa-ranges-201617.html#it . A typical mid-level software pro would be classified by them as "3IT". Senior-level would be "3IT" or "4IT". A developer-manager would be "4IT". They probably have at most seven "5IT" employees, one for each campus. I think there is probably only one "6IT" in the entire university; that would be the CTO-level executive of the whole university system. (I learned most of this a few years ago when driven by curiosity to figure out why anyone would even bother sending them a resume.) IU pays their mid-level to senior-level tech pros only $53,892.80 to $70,033.60 . Why not target a few for recruitment? They'd likely jump ship immediately for a remote job at $70k. After all, if they are already working for so little, it must be because they don't want to move, right?
nradov 10y ago
Your first sentence is a non sequitur. Profitability and salaries aren't linked.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  They're pretty much the same thing from the employee's perspective. Unless my human capital is appreciating somehow (improving skills, leadership opportunities, better networking, etc.) then I'm lowering my profits when I take a lower salary.
dgudkov 10y ago
Try hiring people outside US. You would be surprised how many decent developers there are in other countries.
user5994461 10y ago
You seem very conscious of the situation. I hope you have left already to get double the salary elsewhere. That's always the right thing to do. Use startups as a stepping stone when you couldn't do better. Waiting 2 years is rather long.
st3v3r 10y ago
Do you advertise your pay rates with your job postings? Cause that would probably stop a lot of people you can't afford from applying, making it easier to find the people you can afford.

comstock 10y ago

Increasing equity is great, but in general my view is that increased equity does two things: 1. It compensates for the increased risk of working for a startup (you don't have as much runway as google, might fail to raise your next round). 2. It gives the employee a stake in the company, and aligns their interests with making the company successful. I.e. Not just doing whatever they're told, failing to raise potential issues because "it's not their job". It doesn't really compensate for reduced pay in my opinion.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
I actually agree with you. I am in disagreement with our CEO on that one. But unfortunately it's all we can afford to give so at least it is something. I have had a number of heart to hearts with devs to make sure their expectations on stock options are set right.
- pbecotte 10y ago
  This statement makes no sense. If you feel that the company doesn't pay enough, there are two possibilities. 1. You get paid way more then your teams rate, proving the CEO is not being truthful (there is more money if people negotiate hard enough) 2. You are also underpaid and are doing yourself a disservice by staying
  - throwaway2016a 10y ago
    Unfortunately it is #2. I am underpaid by over 75%. The average on the team is under by about 30 - 50%... so not only am I underpaid I am underpaid quite a lot more than others in the company. I do, however, have quite a bit more stock options. And the CEO from what I understand went two years without a paycheck. But he is independently wealthy (I am not). I stay for various personal reasons. Reasons that the other people on the team don't have. And because 75% underpaid is still enough to support me and my family with a modest lifestyle.
    - poikniok 10y ago
      Honestly this sounds terrible. From what you have said it seems fairly clear that you are being exploited by the CEO / others. And what does it even mean that the CEO (who presumably owns a large portion of the company) went without pay for two year when he is independently wealthy? You sound quite intelligent so just think about it, if he was paying himself a salary it would just be transferring money from his bank account to his bank account again, all while being taxed. The fact that this is used as a mitigating factor to argue that you are not getting screwed is absurd, for your sake I hope you go out to the marketplace and get paid what you deserve.
      - throwaway2016a 10y ago
        Thank you for your concern. I am well aware of the situation... I am actively considering options.
beisner 10y ago
I think it can depend on the size of the operation, and your mindset. If I'm employee #100 at a well-funded startup, I'd tend to agree with you and value equity as a risk adjusting factor. But if I'm employee #5, I probably would take a pay cut in exchange for a significant chunk of equity - if I was even considering such a risky operation, I probably wouldn't be in a place in my life where job security was especially important to me.
- comstock 10y ago
  If you think it would be an interesting experience, or like the people, or think it's a fun problem it makes sense to take a pay cut. If you're thinking increased equity will compensate for reduced salary in the vast majority of cases that doesn't make financial sense.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

meddlepal 10y ago

Have you considered alternative comp mechanics? For example, I know it may sound unorthodox, but short work weeks is an awesome perk and worth a lot IMO. Other things like guaranteeing to ship engineers off to a conference per quarter of their choice and paying for a day and night of travel expenses + a day off so they can explore the destination is pretty cool too. How does your company handle IP assignment also for personal projects? If I can work on side projects freely without worrying about legal junk that weighs heavily into a decision. All of these things have value and if combined can make a killer compensation package.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
I would trade at least $15k/year for a four day work week.
- alexc05 10y ago
  That would be a no-brainer for sure! At $75k/year $15k for a day off a week would be roughly "break even" on the hourly rate trade off. Someone on $100k taking a pay cut to 4 days would see their time valued at an increase in hourly rate. Since you're getting 15% less money in exchange for 20% less time. Broad brush strokes on the math there but you get the picture.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  I thought about this myself as well. To me a 20% reduction in work days is well worth a 20% reduction in pay. This is an easy perk that is offered at no large companies. Sadly it's not widespread. And I fear most companies wouldn't be well prepared to actually execute on it.
  - dmoy 10y ago
    I have coworkers (at Google) with that arrangement. I have family members at top5 bank with that arrangement. It won't be publicly broadcast, but if you ask around it is an option.

jasim 10y ago

You'll get programmers from developing countries with a good 10 years on them for $70k if you can build a company around a completely async remote culture. And I'm not talking about fad-following framework-crazed devs, but rugged pros who'll cost a premium if they were in a developed country.

deepGem 10y ago
I can attest to this. A good dev in India with 10 years exp will cost about 40 lakhs - about $60K. You gotta keep in mind the ridiculous inflation in India and the rest of the developing world. So in like 2 years you could be paying at least 30% more.
throwaway2016a 10y ago
Yeah. There is significant management overhead. And things like standardized QA and requirements become very important since a miscommunication can cost a whole day due to timezone differences. I have been working hard to improve our processes but we aren't there yet.
spapas82 10y ago
Hello, this is not only true for developing countries but even for developed countries. I'll speak about my country, Greece. The average wage for a junior developer is a little less than 20 000 euros per month (around 1000 years/month x 14 months + 4000 for insurance etc) while for a senior may be a little more (but probably less than 30 000, depends on years and kind of work). Wages of more than 35 000 euros are seldom found for developers and are mainly reserved for management positions. The wages are more or less the same on most Southern Europe countries (Italy, Spain etc) and are definitely much less in less developed European Countries (Bulgaria, Hungary etc). So, if you focus on developers from similar countries you can get top talent (and I mean that, there are many great developers here, most of these people are better than the ones in Silicon Valley since they are working in their own country which the jobs are not much instead of migrating to a different place to find a job) for less than 40 000 euros / year. The only drawback would be that they'd want to work remotely (or else they'd have already migrated). So the best course of action is to create your company's culture to not only allow but to embrace remote work (i.e by trying to only hire remote people -- this'll also save you money). Also, another idea is that migrate the start up offices instead of trying to convince developers to migrate! Greece is a beautiful country after all :)

Toenex 10y ago

For comparison, what do Google et. al. pay in the UK? I work in a small medtech in Manchester UK (like a scaled down Boston!) and simply currency adjusting these numbers would make for attractive offers here. For example I've a PhD in computer vision, 20 years building and selling medical device approved imaging software in the EU & US and have yet to be offered anything close to $100K (yes dollars) and options that would impact on anything I do. I'm good at what I do too. I just think the UK investment attitude is totally different.

pm90 10y ago
If you have a PhD AND 20 years of job experience, I am sorry to say you are doing something really wrong if your base salary has not crossed the six figure mark. Maybe companies in the UK don't pay as much as those in the US; I wouldn't know. If that is the case though, I would suggest that you work in the US for a few years and maybe move back and try to negotiate a better offer. Having EU/UK citizenship makes it much easier for you to work in the US and I would implore you to make the most use of it.
- ryanpepper 10y ago
  The starting salary for a new graduate in the UK is probably in the range of £25-£33k, unless you're really lucky and do something like investment banking which is about half of what comparably qualified grads make in the US. On the other hand, there are additional things that are paid for because of various legal differences between the the UK and the US (such as paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, and employers have to pay a tax for each employee called National Insurance which effectively funds the state pension system). The law also gives all employees 5.5 weeks of holiday (though there often some restrictions on when it can be taken).
  - pm90 10y ago
    We do have a paid maternity and sick leave in the US (well, at least in the tech companies. In my current company (IBM), we even have paid paternity leave). How expensive is the National Insurance tax? I can't imagine it being much more expensive than what my company pays for health insurance for its employees (although perhaps I'm wrong here). > The starting salary for a new graduate in the UK is probably in the range of £25-£33k, Are you talking about starting developer salary? That seems really really low! Why wouldn't UK devs simply relocate to the US where they could make a lot more right away? Apologies, I don't mean to pontificate...it just befuddles me why a UK developer wouldn't want to move, if only for a little while.

canistr 10y ago

Alternatively, you could hire remotely or move your office to somewhere where the cost of living is lower. Perhaps even move to Toronto where those salaries in CAD would actually be in line with market prices.

tibbon 10y ago

Ooof, those rates are indeed pretty low. I get why you're doing it, but could having access to more engineers easier maybe help get you to profitability faster? I find interviewing a bunch of good people, making offers and then having them turn down the position because of money to be a big waste of time/money. How many hours/dollars do you spend in that 6 months? I had students leaving my classes at General Assembly in 2014 start between 50-90k, with a pretty good bell curve between. I think the market has gotten tougher for them since then, but whenever a strong student got an offer for 50k I told them to push for 65k. I'm a senior engineer at my current startup, live in the Boston area and yea... a 90k salary would have me turning down the position likely, unless you had some really good benefits. I'm trying to think creatively about benefits that would make me consider a 90k salary. If you were able to get some bulk rates (making it cheaper than just paying more $) for employees, and paid for things like: laundry service, some amount of Uber credit per month, parking, crossfit membership, phone plans, tax preparation, auto insurance, etc... that could perhaps entice me. Find the pain points in my life and help me fix them. Perhaps this is just the state of health insurance, but I've been finding my health insurance getting worse and worse too; and even with a 'decent' PPO, I find myself getting random bills for junk the insurance wouldn't cover. Some type of employer-filled reimbursement/savings plan would help there. I don't think I ever got a medical bill 10 years ago. The #1 thing that could entice me, over salary, would be some way for my employer to help me secure a decent mortgage and help with the down payment. I'd like to buy around Boston, but 20% down payment on $600k is a kick in the teeth (I'm aware you can do lower, but then there's PMI and such). If an employer helped me secure that, and make part of the down payment... as long as the salary paid my mortgage / student loans / food, then I'd be happy camper for a while and not complain about what the technical income number was.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
> A 90k salary would have me turning down the position likely You and most other people. But not ALL people. That's why we fill our positions it just takes a lot of time and patience.
- tibbon 10y ago
  That time == money though. I'm curious how you calculate what's really worth it.

holydude 10y ago

"We had someone come in interviewing for a senior that I would place as a mid (generously...)" Exactly. Do not be so cocky. This is free market and while you are entitled to your opinion why should a candidate try too hard to get a position that pays less than half of what he will get elsewhere just because his skills are not up to your standards ? You cannot really assess my skills in an interview the same way I cannot really asses whether it's actually worth taking your offer. Money talks bullshit walks. Eventually at the end of the day all of us unless really financially secure are in it for the money.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
Don't be so quick to judge. Placing someone at mid / senior / junior is not "cocky"... it's pretty subjective if you do it right. The guy missed questions that over 50% of our applicants knew the answers to. I'm not talking the "implement this obscure algorithm from scratch on a whiteboard" kind of question HN is so fond of. The hardest coding question we ask is Fizz-Buzz. But we can't / won't pay him more than we pay other employees with similar or higher skill sets. If we drew a bell curve of all the applicants we had, this guy would be in the middle. His resume was impressive though. My guess is the company that hired him didn't do their diligence and only weighed the resume.
- Sunstruck 10y ago
  It sounds like you don't pay market salaries and are in denial
  - jdbernard 10y ago
    Sounds like he is well aware that they aren't paying market salaries: > - We are probably priced out of the market
    - throwaway2016a 10y ago
      Also what I meant when I said... > I work at a startup that isn't profitable yet so our salaries are very low... ... was "too low... if we could afford it I'd pay three times that much" not "oh look what a great deal we are getting! Haha, suckers!"

matz1 10y ago

How do I apply for the job ? What is your email.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
I'd love to stake applicants. But this is a anonymous account and I can't answer that question without giving it away. I wish you the best of luck, though.

mathattack 10y ago

We need to hire the people who the Googles of the world won't hire and train and mentor them Very true. If you're willing to take a risk on someone smart who majored in Cognitive Psychology but is interested in programming, you don't have to pay them anywhere near Google salaries. But you do need to train and mentor them, and give them respect.

logfromblammo 10y ago

Don't forget the people who don't want to go where the Goobookzonsofts would want them to move. If you're running a startup, and not trying to build a remote-friendly team, you really need to consider that. Some location-bound businesses probably have some eminently poachable employees. For instance, look at the largest employer in the state of Indiana, Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/salary/pa-ranges-201617.html#it http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/salary/pa-ranges-201617.html#it . A typical mid-level software pro would be classified by them as "3IT". Senior-level would be "3IT" or "4IT". A developer-manager would be "4IT". They probably have at most seven "5IT" employees, one for each campus. I think there is probably only one "6IT" in the entire university; that would be the CTO-level executive of the whole university system. (I learned most of this a few years ago when driven by curiosity to figure out why anyone would even bother sending them a resume.) IU pays their mid-level to senior-level tech pros only $53,892.80 to $70,033.60 . Why not target a few for recruitment? They'd likely jump ship immediately for a remote job at $70k. After all, if they are already working for so little, it must be because they don't want to move, right?

nradov 10y ago

Your first sentence is a non sequitur. Profitability and salaries aren't linked.

humanrebar 10y ago
They're pretty much the same thing from the employee's perspective. Unless my human capital is appreciating somehow (improving skills, leadership opportunities, better networking, etc.) then I'm lowering my profits when I take a lower salary.

dgudkov 10y ago

Try hiring people outside US. You would be surprised how many decent developers there are in other countries.

user5994461 10y ago

You seem very conscious of the situation. I hope you have left already to get double the salary elsewhere. That's always the right thing to do. Use startups as a stepping stone when you couldn't do better. Waiting 2 years is rather long.

st3v3r 10y ago

Do you advertise your pay rates with your job postings? Cause that would probably stop a lot of people you can't afford from applying, making it easier to find the people you can afford.