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Ask HN: What can motivate senior developers go work in startup with low salary?

• spooneybarger 9y ago
  All 3 but I think most important is feeling sure that the business leaders understand Engineering trade offs and who to sell the product. You can’t do everything. Everything comes with an opportunity cost. Have the business leaders thought that through? Can they talk about it credibly? Can they explain how they imagine the company will succeed? There are certain characteristics around focus, willingness to make hard decisions etc that are more important to me than a “record of success”. Past success doesn’t indicate future success. After all, there’s a ton of luck involved.
  • LisaDziuba 9y ago
    wow! To summarize your ideas: the founders should prove that they are real leaders who know how to succeed in both tech and business part. Follow-up question: how do you define if founders can do that? Is it how they talk (credibility is something hard to image without context)? Maybe they need talk about numbers & future plans? I'm curious to understand, what is important to show in the job description and tell during the interview with the engineers. Some side note: in our founding team we have both business and engineering expertise. We talk about this from the perspective "what we can teach you" but not from "look, we can deliver result".
• JPLeRouzic 9y ago
  * Better use someone on a short fixed term job who will write a specification and a test suite (and penalities). Then subcontrat the development to some remote company and use the test suite to verify the compliancy of the deliverable with respect to the specification. You can as well use short fixed term jobs for the testing team.
  • LisaDziuba 9y ago
    I thought about it as well. However, at some point in the very close future, we will need an in-house team. So maybe having motivated development team right now is better than searching & managing someone of a short-term base.
• lovelearning 9y ago
  I value the option to work remotely. It means I know I'll be working in an environment I'm already comfortable with as opposed to an environment that an employer thinks/hopes will make me comfortable. Also much less time, money and energy wasted on commuting to work and back.
  • LisaDziuba 9y ago
    1.5 year ago we had experience with the remote team. Being totally honest: it didn't work out. Maybe because we had lack of process, maybe we were bad at managing people. Still physically working with a team and having that personal touch makes me feel comfortable and sure that everyone on the same page. Maybe you could explain what means "comfortable environment" for you? Just curious to know. > Also much less time, money and energy wasted on commuting to work and back. As I'm from Kyiv and I'm leaving in the city center, that is something unexpected for me. An interesting point to consider...
    • lovelearning 9y ago
      Remote work can be difficult on both sides when starting out - difficult for managers who are more used to face-to-face management, and difficult for devs too who have to develop good self-discipline in a relatively unstructured unsupervised environment. I think it's a matter of experimenting and practising (which unfortunately a typical small startup can't afford to do). Comfortable environment for me is many things. It includes the physical things: - a favorite working chair. - a preferred working location - in my case, from home some days, and from a co-working space on others - preferred food - a preferred ambient lighting level - a preferred AC level In case you're puzzled about the last two: very bright cubicle lighting gave me eye fatigue in multiple workplaces, and very cold AC levels caused discomfort, probably due to dehydration. It reduced my productivity in those workplaces, and because the only relief was to come home and sleep, it caused me to not be able to enjoy my hobbies after work. That affected my motivation and sense of well-being. Environment is also the computers and tools I prefer. I use multiple computers for my work, each of which has been setup for specific kind of work. In some companies, they provided company laptops, but sometimes they were underpowered, and other times I had to use a particular OS/editor/other tools. In one place, every little installation required permission and authentication by a system administrator. These may look like minor things to employers, or may even look fussy, but they did affect my productivity and sense of well-being a lot. From my point of view, all these were unnecessary problems and complications, and often lead to second and higher order problems. If those workplaces had provided a remote option, they wouldn't have these problems, I would have been more productive, and I might even have continued to work in those places. When I was very inexperienced, I didn't mind these problems at all, didn't have the leverage or financial security to be able to negotiate or refuse them, and had even convinced myself that they're part of life. But it need not be that way. Once I turned towards consulting and remote work with a backup plan for my financial security, I realized how much better life can be. Now, I can afford to be choosy about whom I work with and where I work.
• ytNumbers 9y ago
  Early stage startups always entail challenging tasks and shares. You're trying to persuade senior developers to gamble on a couple of founders with no track record and an idea. You had better have a truly incredible idea! Care to share what that might be? Right here and now is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your superior management skills by utilizing HN to pitch to the best developers in the world. It's a free spin of the wheel, so why not try to hit the jackpot?
• cimmanom 9y ago
  Depends on the specific developer and a bunch of other factors. Having been through the startup song and dance more than once, I can give you a single data point: what motivates me. 1) I prefer to work with small rather than large companies because of the opportunity for autonomy and to understand and be involved in the business as a whole rather than just one tiny corner. But upon interviewing I have to be convinced I'll get those things. 2) How low is the salary? I don't expect Google salaries from a tiny startup, but I won't take less than what I see as market rate for small companies, either. The opportunity cost is too high, and I've got enough experience to know that the expected value of all those stock options is exactly $0. 3) I pick jobs in part based on what I want to learn next. Sometimes those are technologies (a language or framework); sometimes they're developer skills (get better at code review or devops); sometimes they're soft skills. You need to be willing to hire people who don't already have experience in all the things you expect them to do. And you need to either be able to give them mentorship or the space to fail until they learn those things. 4) What's the commute like? A five minute difference in commute won't be the deciding factor when choosing between jobs, but I'll never take a job that requires more than an hour each way; and a 10-minute walk to work is incredibly appealing. Even better, allow me to work remote at least 3 days a week, with zero commute and more control over my environment (see next point). And if you're open to fully remote work, you can find excellent senior developers in Nebraska, Argentina, or Poland, whose expectations around work culture are similar but whose idea of an excellent salary is half that of the Bay Area/NYC/Seattle/etc. 5) What's the office like? I've resigned myself to the fact that almost no small companies have anything other than an open office these days. Poke around HN's archives a bit to find out what the majority of engineers think of open offices and why. If you can offer private offices, small team offices, or even cubicles, highlight that in your posting to get developers beating a path to your door. 6) What are the hours like, and are they flexible? After doing this for 15 years I can say with confidence that while I can do a couple weeks in a row of more than 40 hours during crunch time, it'll take either a week off or 6 weeks of working 40-hour weeks at 50% productivity before I'm back up to full productivity. Too many startups try to push their developers at a 60-plus hour/week pace and quickly burn them out. I won't even consider that job any more. I value my health (mental and physical) much more than any job. There are probably a few other things but they're not coming up off the top of my head. You'll notice that none of the above points are especially "sexy" - they're mostly about offering day to day quality of life that's better than I can expect elsewhere. Junior developers who are new to the industry may be dazzled by the idea of a dream team and exciting new problems and omg equity! But most of us who have been around the block a few times just want a sane working environment and reasonable compensation at a place where we won't completely stagnate.
• JPLeRouzic 9y ago
  Find a retired guy that still have a child with an uncertain future (disability, etc...), then offer shares for the child, not for the guy. The guy might not be interested for himself (after all the life expectancy is not huge when you have retired), but the possibility to clear the skies for the child is immensely attracting.