6 ms·

Isn't it just... mostly money? I mean, if you want to hire someone good, who presumably has a good job, you have to pay better than what they are getting now.

• gcampos 8y ago
  Yes, you are right, is mostly money. But there is other stuff that at the end adds up, specially if you are a Senior Engineer in a FAANG company: * Very few recruiters outreach mentions any kind of compensation expectation. Why would I bother with hours of chat, screening and interview loops if I know only a handful companies offer the same kind of compensation I'm used to receive? * The bar of a Senior position is quite high, so high that most Senior engineers would not pass it, it requires months and months of preparation. I would do that only if I was absolute sure I wanted to leave my current job. * I would be willing to receive a little less if a company could offer something that I don't have like a better commute, work on something I'm more passionated about, etc... However, most companies think that working from home is good enough to justify a 50% lower compensation. The only exception that I can think that compensation is not the main point is if you are trying to hire someone so successful and rich that money doesn't really matter for them. But my guess is that this kind of people are even more rare than senior people.
  • kelukelugames 8y ago
    I've paid off my mortgage and am now more open to working on something more altruistic than selling ads for slightly less pay. The problem is I can't find any interesting without a large paycut.
    • lordnacho 8y ago
      Sounds like you're in the perfect position to do your own startup? More upside if it goes well and you're already not in need of money?
      • purple_ducks 8y ago
        ~= "A startup for startups sake" The new art? Shouldn't people usually have some kind of business idea before diving head first?
        • lordnacho 8y ago
          Well I'm sure as a senior dev he has some sort of idea. Certainly joining someone else's startup as a cofounder would be legit.
    • pmiller2 8y ago
      Really? Are you in the Bay Area? If so, I find it hard to believe there’s not at least one startup within 10 miles of your current employer doing something at least vaguely interesting (or, at least more interesting than selling ads).
      • ummonk 8y ago
        He'll have to take a large paycut to work for it though...
        • lsc 8y ago
          that's the thing; I mean, yeah, we'd all take small pay cuts for a lot of things; but dropping out of a FAANG company to one of the companies that is having a hard time hiring is a massive pay cut. Like, for me; I'd be so happy to take a 20% (hourly) pay cut and work half-time for 40% of my current total pay and go to school the rest of the time. But as far as I can tell, the hourly paycut would be more like 50+% just on the hourly, so I'd be looking at like a quarter the total comp, and the prestige cut (and thus hit to future earnings) would be huge, as I'd have to go work for a startup/small company. I guess this will make more sense if marginal tax rates go back up.
  • dublo7 8y ago
    So FAANG doesn't include Microsoft. Are they different or does it just make things unpronounceable?
    • detaro 8y ago
      The term "FAANG" initially comes from the stock markets, where those 5 where hot new tech stocks, and Microsoft was a boring, established player. Nowadays it's more used as a shorthand for "the big tech/internet companies", not the specific members indicated by the letters (e.g. Netflix is an outlier, and Microsoft probably closer to the others than it, in many ways)
• beerlord 8y ago
  If I hire a senior Programmer in Bulgaria for $35,000, they can afford the house of their dreams and lead a very good life with holidays to nearby scenic destinations. Any excess profits that the company makes translates into a huge bonus for them. They have the chance to work in a growing company and be revered as the top of their society. If that same person moves to the US, they are just a cog in a huge machine, and will be unable to afford to buy a house. Not to mention that getting the visa to go there would be very difficult. Not to mention that when you work for a small corp, you spend all of your time on dubious products changes for the sake of a product manager looking good for an interview panel. In developing markets there is no such 'bullshit', to be frank. The company delivers a good product to the international market or it dies. If you can find a talented Westerner to lead the team and product design, even better. This kind of leanness is exhilarating to work for as long as the company approach, payments and bonuses are transparent.
• crooked-v 8y ago
  > I mean, as far as I know, people get like a 2x-4x raise moving to silicon valley from europe. One factor to keep in mind here, though, is that the cost of living there is so insane that even a multiplier on pay could go with a total quality of life decrease.
• BeetleB 8y ago
  >The money is pretty easy to judge, and as far as I can tell, total comp is a good 'honest signal' that I'm going to be treated in other ways. How much money they offer is a better indicator that I'll be treated well, in my experience, than anything anyone can say at an interview. Eh, not in my experience. I've often seen it as an excuse to treat people poorly. As in "You're being paid a lot to put up with BS" and "Highly compensated shouldn't have excuses or whine." It also seems to correlate well with their trying to solve all legitimate work headaches with money.
• jillesvangurp 8y ago
  Not really, you have to pay competitively of course. But you can safely assume that everybody else does that too. I noticed a pattern in Berlin where I'm based where the less attractive jobs indeed come with higher salaries. When the work is shit and they bleed engineers faster than they can hire them there's nothing else they can do than up their rates. So, when I see a top rate advertised, I immediately ask myself: what is so wrong with this company that people don't want to work there? Usually it's fairly obvious when you meet people that used to work there (they'll have a grudge). Usually it's a combination of mismanagement, bad culture, and corporate stupidity. It happens. Big companies can get away with that for surprisingly long. When hiring, what I look for is very simple. I try to sell the gig and look for positive response to the sales pitch. Does the person have the skills I need? A few simple questions can get you a good hint there. Red flags would be bullshitting when they don't know something or plain ignorance for stuff they ought to know. Beyond that, it's about fast decision making based on imperfect knowledge. I'm well aware that most interview processes are completely ineffective so I don't waste too much time on that. Either they obviously know their shit or they obviously don't. So, I simply put myself in the frame of mind that I've already decided to hire the person and start talking about what they'll do, how they'll do it, etc. It's classic sales strategy and it works; I've hired some great people this way.
  • lsc 8y ago
    > Not really, you have to pay competitively of course. But you can safely assume that everybody else does that too. In silicon valley, the difference between what a FAANG company pays and what almost everyone else pays is... pretty big. Like maybe not double? but certainly half again as much. I mean, you could say they are competing for different people, I suppose, but when a recruiter tells me that they "pay competitively" - that means drastically different things for different companies, even if I am limiting myself to companies within 10 miles of santa clara. > I noticed a pattern in Berlin where I'm based where the less attractive jobs indeed come with higher salaries. When the work is shit and they bleed engineers faster than they can hire them there's nothing else they can do than up their rates. Huh. That's really interesting, 'cause my experience (In the US, mostly in silicon valley) is the opposite. There were times in my life where I actively sought out harder and even more dangerous work for more money; but even casting aside any concern over who I worked for, even if I was willing to go work in a war zone, for my skills? the pay was better sitting on an expensive chair in a safe office in mountain view. Even within silicon valley, the smaller companies and the "scrappy" startups or small companies seemed to me to be a whole lot higher stress... which for parts of my life? sure, I'll take extra stress for extra money, but no, those companies pay a lot less. Which, again, is fine in certain parts of my life; I'm not educated, so I needed to get a lot of experience before I was given a shot at a job in one of the FAANG companies. And it was... really a very different sort of experience; I was 20 last time I had a job where I felt that junior compared to my colleagues, (and I had a hell of a job when I was 20). I've seen something similar around layoffs; I've been through several layoffs but have yet to get a pink slip myself. and I've always found myself dissapointed that I wasn't laid off; those in the first round get nice severance, a retraining bonus, and a chance to get another job before too many other people are laid off. Those of us who "dodge the axe" end up having to do twice the work with almost no hope of a raise and with co-workers who are afraid of getting laid off in the next round.
• cloogshicer 8y ago
  Like I said elsewhere in this discussion, I disagree. 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.
  • henrik_w 8y ago
    For me it is: - the product is SW - great colleagues - challenging problems - cool technology - having users - good salary - good tools - max 40 hours a week - minimal bureaucracy - working remote when needed https://henrikwarne.com/2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/ https://henrikwarne.com/2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
    • cloogshicer 8y ago
      Interesting article, thanks for posting.
  • lsc 8y ago
    I think #1 is mostly a pay issue. If two companies pay the same and one expects more hours, they don't pay the same. (note, I'd also take a small hourly cut to work fewer hours a week, but as far as I can tell, the paycut I would need to take to do that is so large that I'm better off working a few years on and then taking six months or a year off and eating the tax and career disadvantages of that) For most people in my area, #2 and #3 are also mostly pay issues. Like #1, it's not entirely pay, but the most common reason I've heard for people wanting to work places other than here (I'm in silicon valley, as you'd expect from someone trying to maximize salary) is that it's less expensive to live almost anywhere else in the world.