8 ms·

Hands down, the number one problem in hiring and retaining senior engineers is being able to match the compensation level. FAANG-type companies have a huge diff

Hands down, the number one problem in hiring and retaining senior engineers is being able to match the compensation level. FAANG-type companies have a huge difference to practically everyone else. Startups, especially, can’t match the salary, and few make up for it in equity comparable to the risk level engineers take on by accepting the job. Senior engineers typically know better, and so you end up with mid or even junior applicants for senior roles, and out of desperation, they end up being the pick.

cloogshicer 8y ago
I disagree a bit here. Of course, salary is very important, but I (and many people I know) would easily choose (and have chosen) a lower salary for any combination of these perks: - Work fewer hours - Work from anywhere - Work in a specific location - Work in a certain environment - Work in a specific kind of organization - Work with specific technologies - etc. People are very different and have very different wishes and needs. Salary isn't always priority #1.
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  But you don’t get any of those with a startup. They want you there onsite working long hours doing one specific thing
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    The only thing I would disagree with is that they want you to do all the things.
  - cloogshicer 8y ago
    From my experience, it depends entirely on the startup. There are enough success stories now from startups that treat their employees very well and came out on top.
  - souprock 8y ago
    You can get those with a startup. I sort of did, for some definition of "certain environment" and "specific technologies" and so on. I still do actually, post-startup. Notably, I got what most software developers would describe as "fewer hours". We tracked time and got paid for actual hours worked. (still do) Since the company would be paying more, we were/are seldom asked to work beyond 40 hours per week. Much of this comes naturally with government contracting. You must track time, and you must pay employees for their time. Being onsite is a positive. I'm never expected to work at home. Work is work, and go home I can focus on my family or hobbies or sleep.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    And even if they did make those promises and honored them, you're taking a risk that they won't. And it's not like you get the FAANG salary back if they can't follow through on working hours, the tech stack, or whatever other consideration is important.
    - woolvalley 8y ago
      Work from anywhere is a fairly powerful lever. You can reduce taxes and cost of living extensively and still be able to save the same amount of money in the bank and have the same amount discretionary income. I estimate something from a %30-%40 'discount'.
  - schreiaj 8y ago
    I work at a startup - I work from home, very reasonable hours, doing a range of things. So uh. What?
- xenadu02 8y ago
  The problem isn't lower salary, it's the paltry options most startups offer these days. The YC startup I worked for got acquired recently. I was employee #38. I've still made more in RSUs working at a big tech company than I would have made had I stayed the full four years and vested all my options. In fact I got a bigger RSU award this year than what I got from my stock in the acquisition. Startups would be well-advised to hire fewer people, get rid of under-performers quickly, and reserve an extra slice in the cap table for really high performers. If someone comes along that creates entire new features on their own initiative (features still featured prominently in your marketing) then may I suggest you continue to award that person either their initial grant or half (depending on how much it was) on a yearly basis? Even if that means you skip an extra hire that year you'll still come out ahead, both by keeping your high performer happy and by saving the extra salary. (I want to be clear: The founders were well within their rights to deny my requests for more options and I hold no ill will toward them. It was their business, not mine, and they were free to run it however they wanted.)
burfog 8y ago
The difference being that the FAANG-type companies don't pay well enough to make up for the cost of living. Senior engineers seldom want to live in tiny apartments. See if you can prove me wrong: find a 10-acre lot within a half hour commute, with a large single-family home, that is affordable to a senior engineer. Alternately, make it 1 acre, but within a 5-minute commute.
- haditab 8y ago
  Your somehow assuming cost of living is only high around FAANG. Bay area is full of non-FAANG companies that pay significantly less. Faang doesn't struggle to hire senior because they're the only places that affords to pay enough.
- gregw134 8y ago
  A football field is 1.3 acres, so a 1 acre lot is going to be expensive anywhere.
  - randallsquared 8y ago
    Uh, no. A quick perusal of real estate listings in towns all over flyover country will disabuse you of that notion. It's a little harder to find a house on an acre of land with 1Gib fiber, but if you're willing to settle for mere cable speeds, it's very, very easy.
- twblalock 8y ago
  > See if you can prove me wrong: find a 10-acre lot within a half hour commute, with a large single-family home, that is affordable to a senior engineer. Alternately, make it 1 acre, but within a 5-minute commute. That seems excessive. You certainly don't need to live on a multi-acre lot to have a good life. I work at a FAANG and most of my colleagues own single-family homes and have no problem paying their mortgages. Of course they aren't on 10-acre lots -- we aren't in the middle of nowhere, we are in a city.
- burlesona 8y ago
  I understand what you’re saying but I think you’re underestimating how many people like city life. I work in SF and most of the people here are here specifically because they DONT want to live on ten acres in some rural place, they love that the city is walkable and dense and interesting. For most folks the issue of living in condos or apartments it’s an issue at all until they reach a certain family size. At that point, most of the people in the city would be thrilled to live in a 3-4 bedroom townhome in the city — but THAT is where SF gets really difficult, because those cost $4 million or more these days. Actually for many people they feel trapped because they’d like a LITTLE more space, ie. the Victorian townhome, but they specifically DO NOT want a car or a yard and do not want to leave the historic, walkable city. At that point you’re really screwed because outside of SF there is basically nothing else walkable west of the Mississippi. So there’s nowhere to go. If somehow magically you could build a 1900s Victorian townhome city about 30’ away by train I think you’d find a couple million urban Californians wanted to move there. But of course the sprawl all around the job centers, and the regulatory environment, both make that impossible. Oh well.
gnulinux 8y ago
I find this "salary first" a little bullshit too. For the most part it's true, but it's not strictly true. If Amazon offers me $180k but I need to work like a slave, but a startup offers $150k but is very chill, I'm gonna choose the startup.
- Game_Ender 8y ago
  What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.
  - cloogshicer 8y ago
    "Standard" work life balance is relative though. I know lots of people who don't want to work full time. This is especially true for people with family/kids (who incidentally are usually older/more experienced).
    - dilyevsky 8y ago
      Google began allowing part time for sr engineers a few years ago. Dunno if they kept the program.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    > What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More likely than not you are not getting that kind of offer. This isn't even taking into account downleveling, which Google in particular is notorious for.
scarface74 8y ago
There are other places in the US that are hiring senior developers outside of Silicon Valley and the FAANG companies. There are major metropolitan areas in the US where you can start a company, get good senior engineers and not have to pay the wages that FAANG companies pay.
- draw_down 8y ago
  Well, feel free to name names then if that’s the case.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    You really think that the only place software engineers work in the entire US is Silicon Valley? All of these cities have a better salary/cost of living trade off than SV. https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys
    - burlesona 8y ago
      You may not be realizing that half or more of the compensation at the big SV tech companies is not salary. Total compensation of $300k or more is pretty standard for the public companies. Check levels.fyi to see examples. The benefits are also much better than I’ve seen elsewhere. I moved to SF from Raleigh because even after cost of living I earn significantly more (ie. put a lot more in savings every year) Housing here is definitely not as nice as other parts of the country, but if you work hard for a few years here you can leave and pay cash for a nice house in most of the rest of the country. That’s why engineers keep putting up with the drawbacks and moving here.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        And that’s only true at four or five companiess at the most.... Especially if you’re married, I know a lot of developers whose spouses income goes straight into savings, investments, etc. but it’s another example of HN Silicon valley thinking that software engineering starts and stops at four companies. Married dual income couples especially can make out like bandits in any of those cities. I live in one of those cities and depending on how you classify me,I’m either somewhere above the median or well over the 75% percentile. Our nice big, new (comparatively) cheap house in the burbs is less than 20% of our take home pay. How much do you think we put aside in savings? Because assortive mating is a thing - it’s statistically likely that two college educated people will end up getting married and I’m trying to keep this as generic as possible. If one was a software developer making $135K a year in one of those cities and the other was almost any college educated professional making $65K a year. The net of the lower paying spouse could pay off your nice house in the burbs in ten years or less. I don’t know of any couple who is in that situation (and I know a few) who would think about moving to the west coast just for one spouse to make $300K when their combined income is already above $200K in a much less expensive area.

cloogshicer 8y ago

I disagree a bit here. Of course, salary is very important, but I (and many people I know) would easily choose (and have chosen) a lower salary for any combination of these perks: - Work fewer hours - Work from anywhere - Work in a specific location - Work in a certain environment - Work in a specific kind of organization - Work with specific technologies - etc. People are very different and have very different wishes and needs. Salary isn't always priority #1.

albertgoeswoof 8y ago
But you don’t get any of those with a startup. They want you there onsite working long hours doing one specific thing
- Aeolun 8y ago
  The only thing I would disagree with is that they want you to do all the things.
- cloogshicer 8y ago
  From my experience, it depends entirely on the startup. There are enough success stories now from startups that treat their employees very well and came out on top.
- souprock 8y ago
  You can get those with a startup. I sort of did, for some definition of "certain environment" and "specific technologies" and so on. I still do actually, post-startup. Notably, I got what most software developers would describe as "fewer hours". We tracked time and got paid for actual hours worked. (still do) Since the company would be paying more, we were/are seldom asked to work beyond 40 hours per week. Much of this comes naturally with government contracting. You must track time, and you must pay employees for their time. Being onsite is a positive. I'm never expected to work at home. Work is work, and go home I can focus on my family or hobbies or sleep.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  And even if they did make those promises and honored them, you're taking a risk that they won't. And it's not like you get the FAANG salary back if they can't follow through on working hours, the tech stack, or whatever other consideration is important.
  - woolvalley 8y ago
    Work from anywhere is a fairly powerful lever. You can reduce taxes and cost of living extensively and still be able to save the same amount of money in the bank and have the same amount discretionary income. I estimate something from a %30-%40 'discount'.
- schreiaj 8y ago
  I work at a startup - I work from home, very reasonable hours, doing a range of things. So uh. What?
xenadu02 8y ago
The problem isn't lower salary, it's the paltry options most startups offer these days. The YC startup I worked for got acquired recently. I was employee #38. I've still made more in RSUs working at a big tech company than I would have made had I stayed the full four years and vested all my options. In fact I got a bigger RSU award this year than what I got from my stock in the acquisition. Startups would be well-advised to hire fewer people, get rid of under-performers quickly, and reserve an extra slice in the cap table for really high performers. If someone comes along that creates entire new features on their own initiative (features still featured prominently in your marketing) then may I suggest you continue to award that person either their initial grant or half (depending on how much it was) on a yearly basis? Even if that means you skip an extra hire that year you'll still come out ahead, both by keeping your high performer happy and by saving the extra salary. (I want to be clear: The founders were well within their rights to deny my requests for more options and I hold no ill will toward them. It was their business, not mine, and they were free to run it however they wanted.)

burfog 8y ago

The difference being that the FAANG-type companies don't pay well enough to make up for the cost of living. Senior engineers seldom want to live in tiny apartments. See if you can prove me wrong: find a 10-acre lot within a half hour commute, with a large single-family home, that is affordable to a senior engineer. Alternately, make it 1 acre, but within a 5-minute commute.

haditab 8y ago
Your somehow assuming cost of living is only high around FAANG. Bay area is full of non-FAANG companies that pay significantly less. Faang doesn't struggle to hire senior because they're the only places that affords to pay enough.
gregw134 8y ago
A football field is 1.3 acres, so a 1 acre lot is going to be expensive anywhere.
- randallsquared 8y ago
  Uh, no. A quick perusal of real estate listings in towns all over flyover country will disabuse you of that notion. It's a little harder to find a house on an acre of land with 1Gib fiber, but if you're willing to settle for mere cable speeds, it's very, very easy.
twblalock 8y ago
> See if you can prove me wrong: find a 10-acre lot within a half hour commute, with a large single-family home, that is affordable to a senior engineer. Alternately, make it 1 acre, but within a 5-minute commute. That seems excessive. You certainly don't need to live on a multi-acre lot to have a good life. I work at a FAANG and most of my colleagues own single-family homes and have no problem paying their mortgages. Of course they aren't on 10-acre lots -- we aren't in the middle of nowhere, we are in a city.
burlesona 8y ago
I understand what you’re saying but I think you’re underestimating how many people like city life. I work in SF and most of the people here are here specifically because they DONT want to live on ten acres in some rural place, they love that the city is walkable and dense and interesting. For most folks the issue of living in condos or apartments it’s an issue at all until they reach a certain family size. At that point, most of the people in the city would be thrilled to live in a 3-4 bedroom townhome in the city — but THAT is where SF gets really difficult, because those cost $4 million or more these days. Actually for many people they feel trapped because they’d like a LITTLE more space, ie. the Victorian townhome, but they specifically DO NOT want a car or a yard and do not want to leave the historic, walkable city. At that point you’re really screwed because outside of SF there is basically nothing else walkable west of the Mississippi. So there’s nowhere to go. If somehow magically you could build a 1900s Victorian townhome city about 30’ away by train I think you’d find a couple million urban Californians wanted to move there. But of course the sprawl all around the job centers, and the regulatory environment, both make that impossible. Oh well.

gnulinux 8y ago

I find this "salary first" a little bullshit too. For the most part it's true, but it's not strictly true. If Amazon offers me $180k but I need to work like a slave, but a startup offers $150k but is very chill, I'm gonna choose the startup.

Game_Ender 8y ago
What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.
- cloogshicer 8y ago
  "Standard" work life balance is relative though. I know lots of people who don't want to work full time. This is especially true for people with family/kids (who incidentally are usually older/more experienced).
  - dilyevsky 8y ago
    Google began allowing part time for sr engineers a few years ago. Dunno if they kept the program.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More likely than not you are not getting that kind of offer. This isn't even taking into account downleveling, which Google in particular is notorious for.

scarface74 8y ago

There are other places in the US that are hiring senior developers outside of Silicon Valley and the FAANG companies. There are major metropolitan areas in the US where you can start a company, get good senior engineers and not have to pay the wages that FAANG companies pay.

draw_down 8y ago
Well, feel free to name names then if that’s the case.
- scarface74 8y ago
  You really think that the only place software engineers work in the entire US is Silicon Valley? All of these cities have a better salary/cost of living trade off than SV. https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys
  - burlesona 8y ago
    You may not be realizing that half or more of the compensation at the big SV tech companies is not salary. Total compensation of $300k or more is pretty standard for the public companies. Check levels.fyi to see examples. The benefits are also much better than I’ve seen elsewhere. I moved to SF from Raleigh because even after cost of living I earn significantly more (ie. put a lot more in savings every year) Housing here is definitely not as nice as other parts of the country, but if you work hard for a few years here you can leave and pay cash for a nice house in most of the rest of the country. That’s why engineers keep putting up with the drawbacks and moving here.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      And that’s only true at four or five companiess at the most.... Especially if you’re married, I know a lot of developers whose spouses income goes straight into savings, investments, etc. but it’s another example of HN Silicon valley thinking that software engineering starts and stops at four companies. Married dual income couples especially can make out like bandits in any of those cities. I live in one of those cities and depending on how you classify me,I’m either somewhere above the median or well over the 75% percentile. Our nice big, new (comparatively) cheap house in the burbs is less than 20% of our take home pay. How much do you think we put aside in savings? Because assortive mating is a thing - it’s statistically likely that two college educated people will end up getting married and I’m trying to keep this as generic as possible. If one was a software developer making $135K a year in one of those cities and the other was almost any college educated professional making $65K a year. The net of the lower paying spouse could pay off your nice house in the burbs in ten years or less. I don’t know of any couple who is in that situation (and I know a few) who would think about moving to the west coast just for one spouse to make $300K when their combined income is already above $200K in a much less expensive area.