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240K - that's huge! I can't believe MixPanel gets that expensive - wow considering their plans are like: * FREE * 999 a year * Contact us That number 3 must b

240K - that's huge! I can't believe MixPanel gets that expensive - wow considering their plans are like: * FREE * 999 a year * Contact us That number 3 must be really spooky!

geofft 9y ago
I had the opposite reaction. If you're in a big city in the US, $240K is the cost including overhead of one, maybe two engineers. If running this in-house takes up a total of a full-time engineering load (i.e., if the team maintaining this wants to add headcount to run this and maintain prior commitments), you haven't saved very much and you might be net negative. (The math may be different in different job markets, in which case, yes, it makes sense not to pay a startup that's paying SF wages to its own employees.)
- quacker 9y ago
  Yeah. It's definitely not a clear-cut net benefit. To be fair though, they are utilizing hosted services (so they don't need to hire kubernetes experts) and the company likely already has a team of engineers maintaining N services. Maybe maintaining N+1 services is within their engineering capacity.
- camus2 9y ago
  Some businesses give engineers bonuses if they come up with some way to significantly save up on costs. I think it's fair.
- orliesaurus 9y ago
  $240K for 1 Engineer? Wow-zie
  - geofft 9y ago
    It's not uncommon at all in the expensive markets (I'm thinking SFBA and NYC) for an engineer who isn't straight out of college. But I'm counting overhead - recruiting, benefits, employer-paid taxes, space, equipment, amortized cost of just becoming a bigger company (helpdesk, possibly management, etc.). Depending on how you count, that could add anywhere from 25% to over 100% to the employee's take-home compensation. http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how-much-does-an-employee-cost.html http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how-much-does-an-employee-... $192K ($240k/1.25) is definitely common; $120K ($240k/2) is low in these markets for someone who knows what they're doing.
    - vonmoltke 9y ago
      You said "a big city". While those two are in that set, they are outliers.
    - orliesaurus 9y ago
      Thanks for clarifying!

240K - that's huge! I can't believe MixPanel gets that expensive - wow considering their plans are like: * FREE * 999 a year * Contact us That number 3 must be really spooky!

geofft 9y ago

I had the opposite reaction. If you're in a big city in the US, $240K is the cost including overhead of one, maybe two engineers. If running this in-house takes up a total of a full-time engineering load (i.e., if the team maintaining this wants to add headcount to run this and maintain prior commitments), you haven't saved very much and you might be net negative. (The math may be different in different job markets, in which case, yes, it makes sense not to pay a startup that's paying SF wages to its own employees.)

quacker 9y ago
Yeah. It's definitely not a clear-cut net benefit. To be fair though, they are utilizing hosted services (so they don't need to hire kubernetes experts) and the company likely already has a team of engineers maintaining N services. Maybe maintaining N+1 services is within their engineering capacity.
camus2 9y ago
Some businesses give engineers bonuses if they come up with some way to significantly save up on costs. I think it's fair.
orliesaurus 9y ago
$240K for 1 Engineer? Wow-zie
- geofft 9y ago
  It's not uncommon at all in the expensive markets (I'm thinking SFBA and NYC) for an engineer who isn't straight out of college. But I'm counting overhead - recruiting, benefits, employer-paid taxes, space, equipment, amortized cost of just becoming a bigger company (helpdesk, possibly management, etc.). Depending on how you count, that could add anywhere from 25% to over 100% to the employee's take-home compensation. http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how-much-does-an-employee-cost.html http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how-much-does-an-employee-... $192K ($240k/1.25) is definitely common; $120K ($240k/2) is low in these markets for someone who knows what they're doing.
  - vonmoltke 9y ago
    You said "a big city". While those two are in that set, they are outliers.
  - orliesaurus 9y ago
    Thanks for clarifying!