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I've found most acquihire situations unfair to existing employees. It seems that those coming in from the acquihire have a higher reward/payout that talented em

I've found most acquihire situations unfair to existing employees. It seems that those coming in from the acquihire have a higher reward/payout that talented employees already at the company can never negotiate. Are the incoming acquihired engineers that much more worth than the ones you already have? There are certainly exceptions but by and large I can't imagine this being the case.

31reasons 10y ago
But in the end if you look at the opportunity cost the Acquihired engineers paid brings them to the same level of compensation as others. e.g Working 2 or more years at low pay.
- blizkreeg 10y ago
  That's not the acquiring company's problem. Certainly engineers at the acquiring co don't care about this. They took that risk fully knowing and willingly.
deleted 10y ago
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nostrademons 10y ago
I've seen $1M+/engineer compensation (over a 4-year vesting period) given to ordinary employees at big companies. It's actually not that out of the ordinary. One of the things that surprised me about working for a big company is that the compensation structure is not quite as lopsided (in favor of acquisitions) as I thought. There do need to be two conditions met to bring in the big bucks though: 1) you need to perform, such that your value to the employer is > $1M, and 2) they need to be afraid of losing you. Many employees fail on one or both conditions. They either slack off or don't work on the right things (so they're not actually worth that much), or they're "company men" who will unquestioningly stay with the company regardless of whether they're compensated fairly.
- blizkreeg 10y ago
  Are you saying that acquired engineers have a $1M value to the acquirer? From what I've seen, most are simply waiting for the handcuff to cash out and exit.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    The acquirer certainly is betting that on average, they do. Definitely a lot of employees do sorta check out while their stock options vest, but not all. From what I've seen, maybe 50% of the employees in an acquisition aren't going to be worth it. But the 50% that do continue to work hard and assimilate well into the acquirer's culture tend to add a lot of value - many of the best coworkers I knew in my last job were there through an acquisition. I could easily believe that they're adding > $2M value amongst the 50% who continue working hard.
- ma2rten 10y ago
  Do you mean $1M per year or over 4 years? 250k per year in total compensation does not seem like that much. EDIT: Since I am being downvoted, I thought I'd provide some data to back up my claim. The average total compensation for a Senior Software Engineer in the US at Google according to Glassdoor is $267,413.
  - exolymph 10y ago
    Google is widely acknowledged to be near the top of the heap w/r/t compensation.
- hiddencost 10y ago
  if you mean $250k compensation per engineer, that sounds in-line with mid-level dev compensation at amagoobooksoft?

31reasons 10y ago

But in the end if you look at the opportunity cost the Acquihired engineers paid brings them to the same level of compensation as others. e.g Working 2 or more years at low pay.

blizkreeg 10y ago
That's not the acquiring company's problem. Certainly engineers at the acquiring co don't care about this. They took that risk fully knowing and willingly.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

nostrademons 10y ago

I've seen $1M+/engineer compensation (over a 4-year vesting period) given to ordinary employees at big companies. It's actually not that out of the ordinary. One of the things that surprised me about working for a big company is that the compensation structure is not quite as lopsided (in favor of acquisitions) as I thought. There do need to be two conditions met to bring in the big bucks though: 1) you need to perform, such that your value to the employer is > $1M, and 2) they need to be afraid of losing you. Many employees fail on one or both conditions. They either slack off or don't work on the right things (so they're not actually worth that much), or they're "company men" who will unquestioningly stay with the company regardless of whether they're compensated fairly.

blizkreeg 10y ago
Are you saying that acquired engineers have a $1M value to the acquirer? From what I've seen, most are simply waiting for the handcuff to cash out and exit.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  The acquirer certainly is betting that on average, they do. Definitely a lot of employees do sorta check out while their stock options vest, but not all. From what I've seen, maybe 50% of the employees in an acquisition aren't going to be worth it. But the 50% that do continue to work hard and assimilate well into the acquirer's culture tend to add a lot of value - many of the best coworkers I knew in my last job were there through an acquisition. I could easily believe that they're adding > $2M value amongst the 50% who continue working hard.
ma2rten 10y ago
Do you mean $1M per year or over 4 years? 250k per year in total compensation does not seem like that much. EDIT: Since I am being downvoted, I thought I'd provide some data to back up my claim. The average total compensation for a Senior Software Engineer in the US at Google according to Glassdoor is $267,413.
- exolymph 10y ago
  Google is widely acknowledged to be near the top of the heap w/r/t compensation.
hiddencost 10y ago
if you mean $250k compensation per engineer, that sounds in-line with mid-level dev compensation at amagoobooksoft?