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If you don’t mind me asking, what might the total compensation for some of the roles the recruiters have been contacting you and other experienced hires for?

lordnacho 5y ago
Varies a lot, depending on what the role is. I've got a broader range of potential roles than most people, who are in a single silo eg backend Dev or QA. The nice thing about the external recruiters I talk to is they are all up front about total comp, and their own comp depends on the new employee's comp, so they know... Crypto firms are in a massive hiring frenzy. Few hundred k salary (usd 250 to 500), nearly 1m in tokens for a manager role. But of course you gotta decide what those tokens really are worth, whether you actually believe in the project, and whether you care for crypto at all. For traditional startups the range depends a lot on the stage they're at. There seem to be quite a few who think they can get a CTO for usd130k plus a few percent equity. I'm not sure what quality you'd get for that but I guess at the next funding round you'd get a bump, and of you end up in a hyper growth startup you're golden. Finance, as a senior IC who can code you're maybe looking at 200k salary and perhaps half that bonus. That's assuming you don't get a cut of the profits. There are of course some shops where they'd pay way more than that, maybe double. There seem to be a few small name firms that pay similar to Jane Street. Naturally if you find a seat with a cut of the book, that can shoot up. Ordinary cut is a range as well, anything from 10 to 35% has been touted. TC would depend on how much capital you get allocated and how well you do with it. Somewhere like millennium has a reputation for paying well while things are good, then cutting the team on a pretty tight stop loss (like 3%) in a month. Funnily enough the recruiter told me they were trying to lose that reputation, so maybe it changed. But they're definitely doing things to attract people, eg they are supposedly very relaxed about paying a salary for a year while you develop the strategy.
- adi4213 5y ago
  Thank you for your response, these discussions have certainly given me some food for thought. Those are some very compelling salaries. I currently work for a SaaS company (started in YC) and make about $260k TC. I live in San Diego and have some pretty excellent work life balance (I surf or kayak everyday, walk my two dogs a lot, am full remote+async). I also own a condo and spend about 1-2 months a year in Hawaii or traveling elsewhere. While I’m good about not always viewing the grass as greener elsewhere, the current market makes me think if I should look for a new job. I’m a backend dev with about 5 years of experience

lordnacho 5y ago

Varies a lot, depending on what the role is. I've got a broader range of potential roles than most people, who are in a single silo eg backend Dev or QA. The nice thing about the external recruiters I talk to is they are all up front about total comp, and their own comp depends on the new employee's comp, so they know... Crypto firms are in a massive hiring frenzy. Few hundred k salary (usd 250 to 500), nearly 1m in tokens for a manager role. But of course you gotta decide what those tokens really are worth, whether you actually believe in the project, and whether you care for crypto at all. For traditional startups the range depends a lot on the stage they're at. There seem to be quite a few who think they can get a CTO for usd130k plus a few percent equity. I'm not sure what quality you'd get for that but I guess at the next funding round you'd get a bump, and of you end up in a hyper growth startup you're golden. Finance, as a senior IC who can code you're maybe looking at 200k salary and perhaps half that bonus. That's assuming you don't get a cut of the profits. There are of course some shops where they'd pay way more than that, maybe double. There seem to be a few small name firms that pay similar to Jane Street. Naturally if you find a seat with a cut of the book, that can shoot up. Ordinary cut is a range as well, anything from 10 to 35% has been touted. TC would depend on how much capital you get allocated and how well you do with it. Somewhere like millennium has a reputation for paying well while things are good, then cutting the team on a pretty tight stop loss (like 3%) in a month. Funnily enough the recruiter told me they were trying to lose that reputation, so maybe it changed. But they're definitely doing things to attract people, eg they are supposedly very relaxed about paying a salary for a year while you develop the strategy.

adi4213 5y ago
Thank you for your response, these discussions have certainly given me some food for thought. Those are some very compelling salaries. I currently work for a SaaS company (started in YC) and make about $260k TC. I live in San Diego and have some pretty excellent work life balance (I surf or kayak everyday, walk my two dogs a lot, am full remote+async). I also own a condo and spend about 1-2 months a year in Hawaii or traveling elsewhere. While I’m good about not always viewing the grass as greener elsewhere, the current market makes me think if I should look for a new job. I’m a backend dev with about 5 years of experience