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I think this is just the correction that was inevitable as hiring had become a cargo cult. Everyone was hiring so everyone felt compelled to hire, creating a f

I think this is just the correction that was inevitable as hiring had become a cargo cult. Everyone was hiring so everyone felt compelled to hire, creating a feedback loop of insane wages and offers. Now its time to pay the bills and many organizations realize the engineers they hired cannot possibly provide the value necessary to keep their job. I know one individual who got hired as a Sales Engineer for a platform and they have almost no work lined up for him... for 4 months now... He just sits making north of 200k for monitoring slack and answering community questions. You can tell which companies actually had a cost benefit analysis for their hires and they continue to hire for the roles they need, where as others over extended and have to layoff.

gitfan86 4y ago
I has a phone screen at Coinbase and they just threw out 380k as the salary without me saying anything as far as expectations. This reminds me of the dot com bubble. In 2000 people who had no software background and were making 50k would get offers for 80k, just for showing up at an interview and saying they know Java or HTML
- jonwachob91 4y ago
  Did they offer you the job or did they just state the expected compensation? b/c those are two different things. They could have told you the position paid $380k, and then assessed you were not qualified for the position and not extended an employment offer. And when I say you, I don't actually mean you. I mean anyone they held interviews with and stated the expected compensation.
- koblas 4y ago
  Actually just had a discussion about this and putting the dollars out in front in the hiring process is something that more canidates are looking for in this competitive market. I'm sure it was said something like "this title (grade) pays 380k, is that's what you're hired at". Since levels.fyi has this all documented it still comes down to the interview and your ability to pass the interview and meet expectations for the level. What they're trying to do is get you to continue with the process and potentially slow down any other interviews by putting the total compensation out there at the start.
  - heed 4y ago
    Also notably CB doesn’t allow salary negotiation [0] so they just throw out high sounding number up front. [0]: https://blog.coinbase.com/how-coinbase-is-rethinking-its-approach-to-compensation-9aaf7d5d638e https://blog.coinbase.com/how-coinbase-is-rethinking-its-app...
    - shawabawa3 4y ago
      > "so they just throw out high sounding number up front" Weird way to phrase it, makes it sound like they just make it up on the spot They have fixed salary per level, so they tell you exactly what you will make if hired
- htormey 4y ago
  I work at coinbase. We have standardized salary bands, this is just the salary at your level (comp plus equity, not sure if bonus is included). They are letting you know this up front to not waste your time. One other thing that’s worth noting is that each year they give you a new equity grant. That grant I believe is priced based on the stock price over a period of 30 days in the first quarter. Handy for limiting your downside if you are bearish about the economy.
  - neill 4y ago
    The issue they are raising is specifically that, $380k standardized salary band, what role is this? That number seems unsustainable.
    - lupire 4y ago
      And they gave that number out before they assessed candidate level. But maybe that was recruiting BS as the pay for the max plausible level.
      - htormey 4y ago
        Well yeah, that’s what they think the candidates pay level will be. If the candidate doesn’t perform well in the interview they won’t get that offer.
      - Infinitesimus 4y ago
        380 isn't even close to the max possible level. If this was an Engineering role, that a mid level salary. Your past experience can be a proxy for the role and level you're targeted for and thus, the comp target.
        PenguinCoder 4y ago
        Mid-level salary where? That is an insane salary _anywhere_, no wonder the market is beginning to correct for those inflated "mid level" numbers.
- ForHackernews 4y ago
  Huh, I guess this explains why so many otherwise-sceptical and intelligent engineers are so motivated to pretend 'web3' is a thing.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    It also explains why people go into tech instead of becoming a teacher or nurse.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  > This reminds me of the dot com bubble. In 2000 people who had no software background and were making 50k would get offers for 80k... I accepted a $54k SW Eng job offer in 2000. To be fair, I had a Masters, but only 6 months work experience. I didn't break $80k until late 2003. Now I feel bad. ;)
- throw8383833jj 4y ago
  Just for comparison, I work at a Non-FANG (SWE >10 years) in a expensive COL area and I make less than half that. I say, you take that offer.
- idkyall 4y ago
  I believe they quoted me the same number recently. From what I recall this was dual purpose - letting you know up front this is the comp range, but I believe the recruiter also let me know that because it was algorithmic(75th percentile for my market/zip code) that it was also a non-negotiable offer.
- bitwize 4y ago
  The difference is today, they are subjected to a battery of interviews, tests, and rudimentary psychological evaluations to make sure they know Java or HTML, and are a "culture fit", meaning they have the personality of a smiling Alegria person from the company's advertisements and not that of a living human being.
ouid 4y ago
I think you're misunderstanding the theory. Hiring without fixed length contract is just interviewing. It's somewhat expensive interviewing, but given the legend of the 10x developer, it is worth risking paying people more than what they are worth to try to identify them.
- mirntyfirty 4y ago
  True, I’d claim that the 10x people exist but would be impossible to spot based upon resumes and many of their resumes would fail to hit the checkbox requirements of the organizations looking for them. Also, in general I’d claim that 10x people aren’t necessary for most projects and tend to get stifled by bureaucracy.
  - okaram 4y ago
    10x deba exist for a given project. The same dev can be amazing in one environment and suck on a different one.
robbomacrae 4y ago
"cannot possibly provide the value necessary to keep their job." It's actually very much possibly for software engineers, at least, to justify high valuations. As an example when I joined Reddit my first task was to remake a data engineering server in scala that cut down the needed AWS machines by 70%. That cost saving already covered more than my salary in perpetuity and I was only 3 months in.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  The vast majority of startups aren't doing anything remotely complex enough to be able to save money on electricity by paying for developers to write more efficient software. Or if they can - the instances are few and far between. The vast majority of startups are also heavily cash-flow negative - so anything you do likely won't pay for itself. It's almost always a bet on a rosy future.
  - mhmmbt 4y ago
  - lemonlime 4y ago
    The vast majority of engineers earning these salaries work for "startups" like Google minting huge amounts of money on software built by these engineers. They are underpaid if anything. Do you really think management or shareholders (that get paid more for doing less) are the underpaid ones in this equation? Where else would the money go? The amount of revenue per employees at some of these companies is in the 7 figures. The "vast majority of startups" is not a useful unit of measure. Look at where all the people and the money actually are (FAANG).
    - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      Define FAANG. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google employ <1M engineers in the US. There are 4.4M engineers in the US.
      - 4y ago

gitfan86 4y ago

I has a phone screen at Coinbase and they just threw out 380k as the salary without me saying anything as far as expectations. This reminds me of the dot com bubble. In 2000 people who had no software background and were making 50k would get offers for 80k, just for showing up at an interview and saying they know Java or HTML

jonwachob91 4y ago
Did they offer you the job or did they just state the expected compensation? b/c those are two different things. They could have told you the position paid $380k, and then assessed you were not qualified for the position and not extended an employment offer. And when I say you, I don't actually mean you. I mean anyone they held interviews with and stated the expected compensation.
koblas 4y ago
Actually just had a discussion about this and putting the dollars out in front in the hiring process is something that more canidates are looking for in this competitive market. I'm sure it was said something like "this title (grade) pays 380k, is that's what you're hired at". Since levels.fyi has this all documented it still comes down to the interview and your ability to pass the interview and meet expectations for the level. What they're trying to do is get you to continue with the process and potentially slow down any other interviews by putting the total compensation out there at the start.
- heed 4y ago
  Also notably CB doesn’t allow salary negotiation [0] so they just throw out high sounding number up front. [0]: https://blog.coinbase.com/how-coinbase-is-rethinking-its-approach-to-compensation-9aaf7d5d638e https://blog.coinbase.com/how-coinbase-is-rethinking-its-app...
  - shawabawa3 4y ago
    > "so they just throw out high sounding number up front" Weird way to phrase it, makes it sound like they just make it up on the spot They have fixed salary per level, so they tell you exactly what you will make if hired
htormey 4y ago
I work at coinbase. We have standardized salary bands, this is just the salary at your level (comp plus equity, not sure if bonus is included). They are letting you know this up front to not waste your time. One other thing that’s worth noting is that each year they give you a new equity grant. That grant I believe is priced based on the stock price over a period of 30 days in the first quarter. Handy for limiting your downside if you are bearish about the economy.
- neill 4y ago
  The issue they are raising is specifically that, $380k standardized salary band, what role is this? That number seems unsustainable.
  - lupire 4y ago
    And they gave that number out before they assessed candidate level. But maybe that was recruiting BS as the pay for the max plausible level.
    - htormey 4y ago
      Well yeah, that’s what they think the candidates pay level will be. If the candidate doesn’t perform well in the interview they won’t get that offer.
    - Infinitesimus 4y ago
      380 isn't even close to the max possible level. If this was an Engineering role, that a mid level salary. Your past experience can be a proxy for the role and level you're targeted for and thus, the comp target.
      - PenguinCoder 4y ago
        Mid-level salary where? That is an insane salary _anywhere_, no wonder the market is beginning to correct for those inflated "mid level" numbers.
ForHackernews 4y ago
Huh, I guess this explains why so many otherwise-sceptical and intelligent engineers are so motivated to pretend 'web3' is a thing.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  It also explains why people go into tech instead of becoming a teacher or nurse.
fatnoah 4y ago
> This reminds me of the dot com bubble. In 2000 people who had no software background and were making 50k would get offers for 80k... I accepted a $54k SW Eng job offer in 2000. To be fair, I had a Masters, but only 6 months work experience. I didn't break $80k until late 2003. Now I feel bad. ;)
throw8383833jj 4y ago
Just for comparison, I work at a Non-FANG (SWE >10 years) in a expensive COL area and I make less than half that. I say, you take that offer.
idkyall 4y ago
I believe they quoted me the same number recently. From what I recall this was dual purpose - letting you know up front this is the comp range, but I believe the recruiter also let me know that because it was algorithmic(75th percentile for my market/zip code) that it was also a non-negotiable offer.
bitwize 4y ago
The difference is today, they are subjected to a battery of interviews, tests, and rudimentary psychological evaluations to make sure they know Java or HTML, and are a "culture fit", meaning they have the personality of a smiling Alegria person from the company's advertisements and not that of a living human being.

ouid 4y ago

I think you're misunderstanding the theory. Hiring without fixed length contract is just interviewing. It's somewhat expensive interviewing, but given the legend of the 10x developer, it is worth risking paying people more than what they are worth to try to identify them.

mirntyfirty 4y ago
True, I’d claim that the 10x people exist but would be impossible to spot based upon resumes and many of their resumes would fail to hit the checkbox requirements of the organizations looking for them. Also, in general I’d claim that 10x people aren’t necessary for most projects and tend to get stifled by bureaucracy.
- okaram 4y ago
  10x deba exist for a given project. The same dev can be amazing in one environment and suck on a different one.

robbomacrae 4y ago

"cannot possibly provide the value necessary to keep their job." It's actually very much possibly for software engineers, at least, to justify high valuations. As an example when I joined Reddit my first task was to remake a data engineering server in scala that cut down the needed AWS machines by 70%. That cost saving already covered more than my salary in perpetuity and I was only 3 months in.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
The vast majority of startups aren't doing anything remotely complex enough to be able to save money on electricity by paying for developers to write more efficient software. Or if they can - the instances are few and far between. The vast majority of startups are also heavily cash-flow negative - so anything you do likely won't pay for itself. It's almost always a bet on a rosy future.
- mhmmbt 4y ago
- lemonlime 4y ago
  The vast majority of engineers earning these salaries work for "startups" like Google minting huge amounts of money on software built by these engineers. They are underpaid if anything. Do you really think management or shareholders (that get paid more for doing less) are the underpaid ones in this equation? Where else would the money go? The amount of revenue per employees at some of these companies is in the 7 figures. The "vast majority of startups" is not a useful unit of measure. Look at where all the people and the money actually are (FAANG).
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    Define FAANG. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google employ <1M engineers in the US. There are 4.4M engineers in the US.
    - 4y ago