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I was the first backend engineer hired at Faire joining 2 of the cofounders in early 2018. I can assure you I wasn't getting paid anywhere close to $200k when I

I was the first backend engineer hired at Faire joining 2 of the cofounders in early 2018. I can assure you I wasn't getting paid anywhere close to $200k when I started, and neither were my extremely talented colleagues.

vasco 4y ago
This is going to sound harsh, but based on this, you weren't the "best engineers", I'm sorry to say. If you think the best engineering talent in the world is working on some random ecommerce website for less than 200k/yr, I have news for you. And you know what, that's fine, because people who care about "best engineers" usually suck. What a vapid thing to waste time wondering about. I'd bet you have hardcore impostor syndrome in all your new hires if this is the messaging you put out. What you want is hard working people that are cool to work alongside and fix problems without much drama or bike shedding, not "the best". This circle jerk of "best engineers" is only useful to pay you less and keep you happy. Instead of calling each other best, focus on the work and show the work, if it's good, people will judge your organisation's engineering skills appropriately, otherwise you're just patting your own back for no reason.
- jgulbronson 4y ago
  All good! I agree with you, at the time I wasn't one of "the best". But I think there's a couple key things, one of which you touched on. The first is that "the best" is subjective. To me, the best engineers _are_ the ones who you enjoy working with and don't cause drama or bikeshedding. Some 10x programmer who everyone hates working with isn't "the best". So perhaps it all depends on what traits others are looking for. The other is that as a startup you can try to hire "the best" engineers today, _or_ hire people who you see potential in and can grow with the company. I'd put myself in that latter group, along some of my extremely talented coworkers I mentioned. Having that growth opportunity is part of what attracted me to Faire in the first place, and is a way to compete for talent on more than just comp like the original comment implied.
  - vasco 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing! And sorry again for being harsh, I'm keen on reading some more shares about actual strategies in engineering tooling or others that you worked on to keep things chugging along. The focus on metrics I think is very under-appreciated in our industry and the more we can standardize to compare velocity and easily identify companies that don't give a shit about developer experience and velocity, the better in my opinion. I would say that I believe it's a much happier life the less you think about how good you or your colleagues are and the more you think about the systems and the tools you develop. I really meant what I said about impostor syndrome, I'd be curious what answers you'd get from your engineering team regarding that, if so far you've focused a lot of your internal messaging / culture on "being good", you might find some opportunities for honest feedback and sharing which might get a more tight-knit empowered team, which does wonders for velocity.

vasco 4y ago

This is going to sound harsh, but based on this, you weren't the "best engineers", I'm sorry to say. If you think the best engineering talent in the world is working on some random ecommerce website for less than 200k/yr, I have news for you. And you know what, that's fine, because people who care about "best engineers" usually suck. What a vapid thing to waste time wondering about. I'd bet you have hardcore impostor syndrome in all your new hires if this is the messaging you put out. What you want is hard working people that are cool to work alongside and fix problems without much drama or bike shedding, not "the best". This circle jerk of "best engineers" is only useful to pay you less and keep you happy. Instead of calling each other best, focus on the work and show the work, if it's good, people will judge your organisation's engineering skills appropriately, otherwise you're just patting your own back for no reason.

jgulbronson 4y ago
All good! I agree with you, at the time I wasn't one of "the best". But I think there's a couple key things, one of which you touched on. The first is that "the best" is subjective. To me, the best engineers _are_ the ones who you enjoy working with and don't cause drama or bikeshedding. Some 10x programmer who everyone hates working with isn't "the best". So perhaps it all depends on what traits others are looking for. The other is that as a startup you can try to hire "the best" engineers today, _or_ hire people who you see potential in and can grow with the company. I'd put myself in that latter group, along some of my extremely talented coworkers I mentioned. Having that growth opportunity is part of what attracted me to Faire in the first place, and is a way to compete for talent on more than just comp like the original comment implied.
- vasco 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! And sorry again for being harsh, I'm keen on reading some more shares about actual strategies in engineering tooling or others that you worked on to keep things chugging along. The focus on metrics I think is very under-appreciated in our industry and the more we can standardize to compare velocity and easily identify companies that don't give a shit about developer experience and velocity, the better in my opinion. I would say that I believe it's a much happier life the less you think about how good you or your colleagues are and the more you think about the systems and the tools you develop. I really meant what I said about impostor syndrome, I'd be curious what answers you'd get from your engineering team regarding that, if so far you've focused a lot of your internal messaging / culture on "being good", you might find some opportunities for honest feedback and sharing which might get a more tight-knit empowered team, which does wonders for velocity.