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Some things I'm curious about are not addressed in the article. First, how does the pay compare to industry standard? Second, for people that have moved out o

Some things I'm curious about are not addressed in the article. First, how does the pay compare to industry standard? Second, for people that have moved out of the industry how did it impact your future opportunities? I feel like it would be more difficult to find new employment outside the industry due to the negative stigma attached.

distrill 6y ago
> I feel like it would be more difficult to find new employment outside the industry due to the negative stigma attached. I don't share this feeling at all. None of my peers would have any stigma attached to anyone we knew worked in this industry. In fact, if anything the opposite would be true. The porn industry deals with scale that most others don't, and often leads innovation on things like video players. It's not uncommon to see youtube copy features that showed up first on a porn site.
- alphachloride 6y ago
  I do not know if one data point, or an anecdotal observation, can be generalized. A good measure would be to look at companies developers worked for after leaving an adult website (for e.g. MindGeek aka Pornhub). And then look at average pay change, duration of stay etc.
  - distrill 6y ago
    Sure, but as far as I can tell nobody in this comment thread is proposing a generalization be derived. We were both sharing how we felt about people having worked in the porn industry.
- wtracy 6y ago
  I don't care whether my peers feel any stigma. I care about what the hiring manager feels. I'm convinced that the mid/upper management at the B2B companies I've worked at (and the one defense contractor I've worked at) would not be pleased. OTOH, Google, Facebook, and Amazon probably wouldn't care. Of course, I've never worked for an adult entertainment network, so I don't actually know.
  - Mikushi 6y ago
    You'd be wrong, I worked in public sector, for defense and other corp related gigs and it's never been an issue. What I've learned in my years at Pornhub is invaluable and has made finding a job stupid easy.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Agreed. I would add that the other way around is harder (from defense to other tech industries). There is bias in US tech circles against working in defense and you can't talk openly about what you did depending on the project.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Not a high bar; industry standard pay in Montreal is pretty crappy, from what I've heard. OTOH, rent is cheap and quality of life is high.
sokoloff 6y ago
It's probably the case that a significant subset of people would look more favorably on someone working as a dev in porn than on ad-tech. I don't see a significant negative stigma as very common at all.
smsm42 6y ago
I can say if I were to see a reference to the adult industry in a resume, I'd be more interested. It may be because I've worked with clients from the industry before and I know they have a lot of interesting and unique challenges there, and if the candidate solved them successfully it'd certainly be a point in their favor.
mtnGoat 6y ago
moving out of the industry is hard unless you did something remarkable. if you were in it a short time i would recommend leaving it off or finding a way to make it appear more mainstream. i have certainly been removed from hiring funnels because of my years of work in the adult industry and they were not shy about stating that as the reason. One was a SaaS that happened to have a LOT of religious based organizations using their software. It has even been a possible issue for VCs. sure, in a few coastal cities, porn and sex work are becoming less and less taboo, but most of the country still isn't on board with that and the risk of that attachment sabotaging something can be too much for some employers to look past.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nasalgoat 6y ago
All the porn companies have innocuous real company names like WebClicks or Vintara - nothing that would set off alarms on a resume. Pay was generally well above average to counteract the adult nature of the work.

distrill 6y ago

> I feel like it would be more difficult to find new employment outside the industry due to the negative stigma attached. I don't share this feeling at all. None of my peers would have any stigma attached to anyone we knew worked in this industry. In fact, if anything the opposite would be true. The porn industry deals with scale that most others don't, and often leads innovation on things like video players. It's not uncommon to see youtube copy features that showed up first on a porn site.

alphachloride 6y ago
I do not know if one data point, or an anecdotal observation, can be generalized. A good measure would be to look at companies developers worked for after leaving an adult website (for e.g. MindGeek aka Pornhub). And then look at average pay change, duration of stay etc.
- distrill 6y ago
  Sure, but as far as I can tell nobody in this comment thread is proposing a generalization be derived. We were both sharing how we felt about people having worked in the porn industry.
wtracy 6y ago
I don't care whether my peers feel any stigma. I care about what the hiring manager feels. I'm convinced that the mid/upper management at the B2B companies I've worked at (and the one defense contractor I've worked at) would not be pleased. OTOH, Google, Facebook, and Amazon probably wouldn't care. Of course, I've never worked for an adult entertainment network, so I don't actually know.
- Mikushi 6y ago
  You'd be wrong, I worked in public sector, for defense and other corp related gigs and it's never been an issue. What I've learned in my years at Pornhub is invaluable and has made finding a job stupid easy.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Agreed. I would add that the other way around is harder (from defense to other tech industries). There is bias in US tech circles against working in defense and you can't talk openly about what you did depending on the project.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Not a high bar; industry standard pay in Montreal is pretty crappy, from what I've heard. OTOH, rent is cheap and quality of life is high.

sokoloff 6y ago

It's probably the case that a significant subset of people would look more favorably on someone working as a dev in porn than on ad-tech. I don't see a significant negative stigma as very common at all.

smsm42 6y ago

I can say if I were to see a reference to the adult industry in a resume, I'd be more interested. It may be because I've worked with clients from the industry before and I know they have a lot of interesting and unique challenges there, and if the candidate solved them successfully it'd certainly be a point in their favor.

mtnGoat 6y ago

moving out of the industry is hard unless you did something remarkable. if you were in it a short time i would recommend leaving it off or finding a way to make it appear more mainstream. i have certainly been removed from hiring funnels because of my years of work in the adult industry and they were not shy about stating that as the reason. One was a SaaS that happened to have a LOT of religious based organizations using their software. It has even been a possible issue for VCs. sure, in a few coastal cities, porn and sex work are becoming less and less taboo, but most of the country still isn't on board with that and the risk of that attachment sabotaging something can be too much for some employers to look past.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nasalgoat 6y ago

All the porn companies have innocuous real company names like WebClicks or Vintara - nothing that would set off alarms on a resume. Pay was generally well above average to counteract the adult nature of the work.