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Engineers aren't cheap, especially top-tier engineers in the valley. A reasonable estimate for an FTE (full time employee) is $200k per year, once you add in e
by electrum 16y ago
Engineers aren't cheap, especially top-tier engineers in the valley. A reasonable estimate for an FTE (full time employee) is $200k per year, once you add in equipment, office space, management overhead, HR, recruiting costs, etc. Sure, you can be somewhat cheaper when you're a three person company, but this doesn't last forever.
- mmt 16y agoThis strikes me as being an exaggeration or something that has also gotten cheaper, perhaps by convention. PEOs have solved the problem of most of the HR drudgery, for a mere $200/mo per FTE, if that. Even the most extravagant startups I've seen don't spend more than $10k per employee on equipment, and that lasts more than a single year. Similarly, if a high-end engineer pulls $150k/yr, a 20% recruiter commission is only $30k. Arguably, management overhead is a liability both in cost and productivity that a startup cannot afford. Class A office space (also an extravagance for a startup) is, at most, $3 per square foot and a quick scan of craigslist suggests its easily available for $2 or less. 100 square feet per FTE, and you're just paying again what a PEO costs (a pittance compared to the salary). That, plus $3k of benefits, plus employer-side taxes adds up to $210k for the first year and about $170k each additional, for a pretty senior employee. I'd expect that could be halved for someone junior.