4 ms·

Fog creek is going to be competing with other companies in NYC, not in the bay area. I expect that the majority of candidates on the west coast are not willing

by nvarsj 15y ago

Fog creek is going to be competing with other companies in NYC, not in the bay area. I expect that the majority of candidates on the west coast are not willing to move. Also consider that Facebook is in a bidding war with Google, MS, and Apple - which has spiked starting salaries in that market.

RandallBrown 15y ago
Fog Creek is absolutely competing with companies in the Bay Area. I'm not even talking about Google and Microsoft's New York offices. Maybe west coast candidates won't move but what about all of the people that live in other parts of the country? Most people I know are scrambling to get out of the midwest as fast as they can.
- adrianparsons 15y ago
  Facebook and Twitter now have NYC offices. Ebay is opening an office here, too (http://www.commercialobserver.com/2012/03/ebay-in-talks-for-36k-sf-deal-on-sixth/ http://www.commercialobserver.com/2012/03/ebay-in-talks-for-...).
mdkess 15y ago
In many ways, NYC is an even harder market to compete in, due to the financial industry. If you are a good hacker, hedge funds will offer $150k+/year to start - and if you're able to deal the intensity of it, that'll quickly go up. I know guys in their late 20s making over $300k a year writing code for these firms. These are salaries that most software companies can't match, even if they wanted to.
- illumin8 15y ago
  This is why $75,000 a year is not a fair salary. Joel is intentionally hiring college students because they are uneducated about what their real job prospects are if they are willing to move to NYC.
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    Having worked at Fog Creek, I thought the total compensation was fair. Here, total compensation includes things like never working weekends, never working late, never getting yelled at, never getting phones thrown at you, and all sorts of other perks that probably equate to different dollar amounts for different people. ymmv.
    - KaeseEs 15y ago
      Those things are all worth $0 because they are the baseline for an employer. When accounting for these things in a total comp calculation, I do it something like this: $comp = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) - (6 + 7 + 8) where [1] Salary / cost of living index for area [2] adjusted value of health care plan [3] adjusted expected bonuses/profit sharing [4] retirement contributions per annum [5] dollar value of stock options given * chance of options vesting at some worthwhile value (tricky to calculate for startups) [6] expected hours per week over 40 * .025 * [1] [7] estimated value of environmental and other stress [8] cost in time, gas, stress, vehicle wear & tear, inconvenience of commuting Now, it may well be the case that other companies that you looked at had large negative values of 6 & 7, which makes Fog Creek look great in comparison, but I think that as a profession we're screwing ourselves in the long run if we think about uncompensated overtime as the norm and working normal hours as some sort of bonus :)
      - zmj 15y ago
        The comparison is the same whether you normalize to $0 or $X.
        KaeseEs 15y ago
        Oh yes, the math certainly turns out the same. I guess I should have been clearer in the last paragraph, that normalizing to 0 or some positive dollar value is more of an issue of mental framing, as though it makes sense to use the type of calculation that I outlined as a guide it's not an infallible one but rather a tool to be used in decision making.
      - 15y ago

by nvarsj 15y ago

RandallBrown 15y ago

Fog Creek is absolutely competing with companies in the Bay Area. I'm not even talking about Google and Microsoft's New York offices. Maybe west coast candidates won't move but what about all of the people that live in other parts of the country? Most people I know are scrambling to get out of the midwest as fast as they can.

adrianparsons 15y ago
Facebook and Twitter now have NYC offices. Ebay is opening an office here, too (http://www.commercialobserver.com/2012/03/ebay-in-talks-for-36k-sf-deal-on-sixth/ http://www.commercialobserver.com/2012/03/ebay-in-talks-for-...).

mdkess 15y ago

In many ways, NYC is an even harder market to compete in, due to the financial industry. If you are a good hacker, hedge funds will offer $150k+/year to start - and if you're able to deal the intensity of it, that'll quickly go up. I know guys in their late 20s making over $300k a year writing code for these firms. These are salaries that most software companies can't match, even if they wanted to.

illumin8 15y ago
This is why $75,000 a year is not a fair salary. Joel is intentionally hiring college students because they are uneducated about what their real job prospects are if they are willing to move to NYC.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  Having worked at Fog Creek, I thought the total compensation was fair. Here, total compensation includes things like never working weekends, never working late, never getting yelled at, never getting phones thrown at you, and all sorts of other perks that probably equate to different dollar amounts for different people. ymmv.
  - KaeseEs 15y ago
    Those things are all worth $0 because they are the baseline for an employer. When accounting for these things in a total comp calculation, I do it something like this: $comp = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) - (6 + 7 + 8) where [1] Salary / cost of living index for area [2] adjusted value of health care plan [3] adjusted expected bonuses/profit sharing [4] retirement contributions per annum [5] dollar value of stock options given * chance of options vesting at some worthwhile value (tricky to calculate for startups) [6] expected hours per week over 40 * .025 * [1] [7] estimated value of environmental and other stress [8] cost in time, gas, stress, vehicle wear & tear, inconvenience of commuting Now, it may well be the case that other companies that you looked at had large negative values of 6 & 7, which makes Fog Creek look great in comparison, but I think that as a profession we're screwing ourselves in the long run if we think about uncompensated overtime as the norm and working normal hours as some sort of bonus :)
    - zmj 15y ago
      The comparison is the same whether you normalize to $0 or $X.
      - KaeseEs 15y ago
        Oh yes, the math certainly turns out the same. I guess I should have been clearer in the last paragraph, that normalizing to 0 or some positive dollar value is more of an issue of mental framing, as though it makes sense to use the type of calculation that I outlined as a guide it's not an infallible one but rather a tool to be used in decision making.
    - 15y ago