36 ms·

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as wel

by Apreche 14y ago

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets. Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this. Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week. The other thing that gets me is how companies expect you to really want to work for them. The fact is you need me more than I need you. I'm not going to spend my time solving your cute little puzzles and what not. My experience speaks for itself. If you want to hire me, you should be the one jumping through hoops to convince me I should quit my job and work for you. Only the past naive college version of myself thought otherwise. TL;DR: if you want to hire me, pretend that I am a doctor and you are a pharmaceutical company.

PaulHoule 14y ago
I definitely hear from startups who are hiring and will pay O.K. but it seems to me that for every startup that pays, there are 3-5 that won't. I get myself fired up on this issue because I hear from enough companies that I need to quickly qualify opportunities. I'm a curious and generous person, so I'm inclined to listen to these people, but I don't have the time.
- smiler 14y ago
  Some startups probably just can't afford a high salary...
  - dreamdu5t 14y ago
    If they needed one then they screwed up their business plan.
throwaway1979 14y ago
I'm really glad you mentioned "cute little puzzles". I am sick of them. I'm not really sure who has sufficient time to spend blazing the employer with feats of their programming prowess (I was going to say only undergrads would do that - however, many undergrads in top programs have little time to bathe). If this was big companies being stupid, I'd get it. The HN crowd ... some of the smartest hackers around do little better sometimes. I was very interested in Stripe after hearing some of their folks speak (I don't mean to single them out ... they are a pretty amazing bunch from what I've seen) and saw the cute puzzles (https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer) as a listed way of impressing them. I immediately hit the back button and decided not to apply there. Perhaps it means we would not have been a good fit. Or perhaps, we need more respect in the recruiting process. I understand the need for fiz-buzz tests and all ... but things have gone a bit too far.
- mseebach 14y ago
  If a recruiter goes after you, and didn't bother to Google your name and look at your GitHub/OS contributions etc. he's obviously cold calling and wasting your time. He's the guy who asks DHH how much Rails experience he's got. But, on the other hand, if you apply to a company, especially one that's more or less famous, puzzles are a very good way of separating the wheat from the chaff on a level playing field. Evaluating a strangers performance based on their solution to a common puzzle is very time efficient and allows the company to process large numbers of applicants fairly. A common notion here is that great people can just pick up the phone, or will be actively courted by companies, so they don't need puzzles and recruiters. That is great for them (honestly, not a snark), but it's not scalable: Not everyone can know everyone, and there has to be a way for newcomers to enter into the network. Case in point: Stripe - you want to work for them, but apparently you don't know anyone on the inside that can recommend you. And apparently you're not on their radar already. They do great stuff, they seem like an amazing bunch - so there are likely to be hundreds who want to work for them - and most of them, regrettably, are not qualified enough. Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)?
adpirz 14y ago
So, I'm outting myself as outsider here but: In five sentences or less, could you describe how you got to be the programmer you are today? I.e., skilled enough to be commanding the kinds of benefits you do? It's mostly out of curiosity, I'm not looking to get directly involved with programming.
- mikecaron 14y ago
  Yeah, to command six figures, you've either many years (10+) of experience under your belt, a masters + experience or you're applying in NYC or LA/SF where cost of living is astronomical. In the midwest, you'd be hard pressed to find a starting salary at 6-figures except at the very bottom of that 6-fig range.
  - malandrew 14y ago
    You shouldn't get paid based on your cost of living. You should get paid on value added. TBH, I don't see why living in the midwest should drop the salary a company owes you that much. If you are a good developer, you should command a salary comparable to the value you add plus a profit margin for the business. The only two explanations I can see is that, collectively, software engineers in the midwest are simply not negotiating for the salaries they deserve because given the cost of living they don't feel like they have to negotiate for better or that they are on average of much lower quality in the midwest that there is no room in the salary range there for being an outlier commanding a salary outside that range (i.e. no room for a unicorn in a stable full of horses). If I worked remotely from Timbuktu, I would laugh at any employer that offered me less based on the cost of living in Timbuktu. It should be no different working in the midwest. Our world is flat.
    - bmelton 14y ago
      You aren't actually paid based on cost of living, per se, but as that factors in so heavily, it can swing the value proportionally. If I move back to Memphis, TN, I can make approximately half of what I make now in the DC area to live as comfortably as I do. Does that mean I'm worth half as much? No. Does it mean I should expect to make half as much? Pretty much, yeah. Beyond meeting my basic needs (rent, food, whatever) then it's just a matter of how much expendable income does that salary leave me. I don't know if 'percentage of salary' is the best way to measure it, but it factors in. Paying me 'market rate' in a place where a 3 bedroom 3 bath house can be had for $150k is a vastly different proposal when that same house is $450k in a different place. That is the 'cost-of-living' difference. Sure, I might add the same x amount of dollars of value to the company in both locations, but if I can't live comfortably in my market, then it doesn't matter. Note, this argument ignores the competitiveness of the markets as well. There are naturally more potential developers in silicon valley than there are in Bumfuck, Nowhere. Supply and demand does factor here. Lastly, except in situations of outsourcing, you're generally not paid based on where YOU are, but based on where the company (or the location you report to) is. If you're working remotely from Timbuktu while reporting to an office in Silicon Valley, you should expect SV (or near-to) rates. If you're telecommuting to the midwest, you should expect midwest pay. The big difference there is in what it costs to replace you. If you're Linus Torvalds, that cost probably goes way up. If you're like most of us, that cost is probably a close approximation to 'whatever they can hire a local developer for', assuming there are local developers in the area with the skills you possess.
TamDenholm 14y ago
I think the "cute little puzzles" are absolutely fine if you dont have any code you can send them, but if you have a public github or even willing to send them some private code then yeah, puzzles are a waste of time.
theorique 14y ago
Sometimes, though, the "cute little puzzles" are useful in order to filter out the clowns who interview well but can't write FizzBuzz. It's a bit of a tall (impossible?) order for a programmer - regardless of skill or experience - to expect to interview without going through some serious technical conversations and writing some code to solve problems.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Technical interview is OK, ask the guy about his job. Give him a coding problem in his language of expertise. Check his knowledge of tools, techniques and best practices in his area of expertise. Do all the tech routine. But please don't go on and on with Math problems endlessly over weeks and months. Asking arcane and rare facts about stuff and then deciding his worth over his perceived inability to solve problems in math which don't have any connection with programming in the real world.
elliottcarlson 14y ago
I agree with a lot of what you said; but stating that you will under no circumstances work more than 40 hours a week bothers me. I try to get out of the office every day on time - but shit happens, and there are instances where someone needs to fix something or else the company is losing revenue. You want financial stability with a high salary - but aren't willing to help make the company stable. Yes, a healthy work/life ratio is very important to me, but I won't walk out that door in the middle of a crisis.
- ntkachov 14y ago
  I think he meant that if there is a serious crisis he might stay. Sure, every once in a while a tornado sweeps through your data center. That happens once every other year. "We need you to stay till midnight because a very serious VC is coming in and this project needs to be done" is not a crisis. Serious stuff happens, it does not happen every other week.
  - jshen 14y ago
    "under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week." Should we take him at his word or assume that he isn't precise when speaking? Both are bad signs.
    - elliottcarlson 14y ago
      Exactly - I would completely understand someone insisting on a work/life balance - I want it, and I have no problem with people wanting that; but seeing it worded that way is a red flag to me.
      - marklindhout 14y ago
        His wording is quite accurate if you ask me. At least, I can completely agree with it. Life is about living, not about working, after all.
        14y ago
dr_ 14y ago
Doctors don't have infinite sick days, many don't have 30 vacation days (I barely take a week off a year), and most don't have 40 hr work weeks.
- acidhax 14y ago
  Yeah, well, developers aren't given a giant book on solutions either. Oh, I see, you're having an issue where you're executing 10,000 queries. Let me just open up this book and copy/paste the solution to you.
  - jedberg 14y ago
    #1 Neither are doctors. #2 Yes you are. It's called StackOverflow and a million other sites on the internet where you can google for an answer to your question.
- rmc 14y ago
  Yeah no-where on earth are there 30 holiday days per year and 40 hour maximum. No-one works that. Except several EU countries which have that as the legal minimum… (e.g. France: 35 hr legal working week, 25 days holidays and ~ 13 paid public holidays per year)
  - danssig 14y ago
    Most of western Europe, if not all, gets at least 4 weeks vacation. 40 hours is a bit more demanding but 42 is pretty common.
    - rmc 14y ago
      All of the EU gets 4 weeks. It's called the European Working Time Directive. That'd give you 20 days paid annual leave. Some member states have higher. (I think) all member states have paid public holidays aswell. All of the EU gets 48 hours maximum working time per week, that's the European Working Time Directive again. The UK has a sort of an opt-out to it. Some member states have a lower maximum. Fun Fact: I'm from Ireland (20 days holidays per year). Talked to some Germans, and they were shocked I could get by on 20 (they got 30).
its_so_on 14y ago
guys, the parent was attempting to write satire. little do you know, that except for infinite sick days or 40 hour weeks, you are "lampooning" a lower-than-average rate for anyone qualified in the bay area. Look at it this way. If Amazon can use you to create a million dollars in value, and therefore vies with Google, who can use to to create a similar amount of money in value, and between them and about a hundred similar startups the going rate is 150,000 per year for your work (with the rest of the 750,000 that you generate going 1/3 toward paying your other miscellaneous overhead associated with you, and half toward their bottom line), then how is 100,000 reasonable? I bet you consider the following offer reasonable: in your geographic area, start selling goods (through any venue you like, including online forum, web shop, etc) which you buy wholesale. You can pick any goods in any industry or category that you want, and work with whatever wholesalers you like! You have complete autonomy over the entirety of your "stack". Please deduct 15 euros per hour for your labor - totally reasonable - and send any profits above that amount to me. If you make less than 15 dollars per hour doing this then you can keep 100% of your sales. (Naturally, it is not possible to lose money, since the local price cannnot be less than the wholesale price.) How is this not a reasonable offer, please explain to me. (Not a rhetorical question.) If you cannot explain why this is not reasonable, please reply to me with your contact details so that I can start paying you per above. I look forward to your reply. Incidentally, I also look forward to any explanation for a lack of response with contact detail, as I have a LOT more jobs available at this price than I can fill.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Apreche 14y ago
Oh, I want to add one more thing, since everyone seems to like my comment. You can pay me too much money. If you give me say, a million dollars a year, I will work for one year, and then you will never see me again. I will go home and live my life as I please, and only code what I want to code. The code may or may not make money. I may or may not try. If I work at a startup that cashes out big, then I will travel the world, settle in the tropics, and you will not see me again. If someone acquired us as a way of acquiring talent, they will be sorely disappointed.
- solsenNet 14y ago
  maybe you should start your own company? seems to me you chaff quite a bit about being a "wage slave"
  - tensor 14y ago
    Indeed. Also, he seems to want the pendulum to swing from the employee courting companies to the company courting employees. Personally, I think there should be a mutual respect between an employer and employee. Further, someone whose sole goal is not to work, as it seems here, is probably not someone you really want to work with nor to start his own company. There are certainly a lot of people who do in fact do nothing when they become independently wealthy. But many also continue working regardless because they actually enjoy what they do. People should absolutely be paid fairly and treated with respect. But if you expect someone to worship you for some reason, wether employer or employee, you should probably adjust your attitude.
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      He didn't say he would do nothing when he got rich. He said he would code whatever he wanted, without regard to making money. Big difference. An independently wealthy person could become a star of the open-source world.
      - tensor 14y ago
sliverstorm 14y ago
You need six figures to make rent?
- mahyarm 14y ago
  A 1 Bedroom starts at $1600. A 3 bedroom house is ~$3000. 6 figure tax rate is %40 not counting deductions. If you have a family, your rent already takes out over half your 6 figure income. You only live so long, so you need to make some savings too.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    So a $100k salary actually gets you $5000/month? Is that true in practice (not on paper)?
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      I'm in SF right now and that number seems correct (mine don't line up exactly, but close enough). So yes, $100K salary nets roughly $5K a month (assuming no extraordinary deductions). And a studio is hovering around $2K a month around here, and rising.
jeffpersonified 14y ago
I think being dogmatic in these circumstances is perhaps a little short-sighted. As with all things, finding the middle ground – balance – ought to be the goal, and not rigid conformity to rules. In this circumstance, it sounds like you'd might be hard to work with. That being said, an employee with balance and boundaries, particularly if they can be seen in your life outside of work, is far more desirable in an employee than someone with none. How we live our lives outside the work place is indicative of how we function inside the office, and setting boundaries around the office shows a healthy valuing of our personal time.
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week." There was a time, after the crash of 2000, when programmers actually had a difficult time finding work. It doesn't matter what the career, training or job, this stuff goes in cycles, always. You're at the the top of the cycle now; there's a gap in the supply/demand for good coders. It's a great time to be a programmer. But the invisible hand of the economy has a way of sorting these things out. >"The fact is you need me more than I need you." This won't always be the case. Keep that in mind.
- matwood 14y ago
  All the more reason to get the most of what you can out of the inequality before the cycle swings back the other way.
  - intractable 14y ago
    Absolutely. After all, that is what most employers will do when the pendulum swings their way.
- kalininalex 14y ago
  Great observation. It's very easy to forget after a year or so of good times that bad times ever happened. Yet, this too shall pass. The key component of my philosophy is to always provide more value than paid for, be it 10 days of vacation, or 30. This will create consistent demand for one's services negating the impact of economic cycles.
RedwoodCity 14y ago
Lottery tickets might be a better deal, they tell you the odds straight out and you get your picture in the news if you win.
pkmehta 14y ago
I get that devs are in demand and that folks should be paid fairly, but after reading this, I don't know if I'd want to work with you in an employer-employee relationship or even as a colleague. This smacked of a level of entitlement that I think would be cancerous to any group of people working together. Just my $.02.
aMtnViewer 14y ago
You sound like an arrogant dick. Who the hell would want to work with you?
nobleach 14y ago
What's ironic, is that I'm reading your response, and I'm thinking of how unreasonable it sounds. But after taking a step back and thinking about the symbiotic relationship companies SHOULD have with their employees, this reminds me an awful lot like the demands I've seen from most jobs. They'd like to offer you 2 weeks vacation, a week sick time (because we all choose how long we'll be sick) and if they bounce a check? Bummer, you can either go back out and seek employment or hope things get better.
peejaybee 14y ago
The comment thread here reminds me of how just about every time someone suggests that a prospective employee might have demands of an employer, he or she is "entitled," "arrogant," or "a dick." It never fails, be the topic salary and hours, choice of technology, vacation time -- being as explicit about your requirements as employers are theirs is a very good way to get poo flung at you. We're not serfs, people.
jchung 14y ago
I have great difficulty with the idea of hiring someone who says they will under no conditions work more than 40 hours a week. That won't work in a situation where we are all working together as a team to achieve something worthy of achieving. I don't hire people by the hour; I hire them to accomplish things. TL;DR If you want to punch out when the clock strikes 5, get a job in Detroit.

by Apreche 14y ago

PaulHoule 14y ago

I definitely hear from startups who are hiring and will pay O.K. but it seems to me that for every startup that pays, there are 3-5 that won't. I get myself fired up on this issue because I hear from enough companies that I need to quickly qualify opportunities. I'm a curious and generous person, so I'm inclined to listen to these people, but I don't have the time.

smiler 14y ago
Some startups probably just can't afford a high salary...
- dreamdu5t 14y ago
  If they needed one then they screwed up their business plan.

throwaway1979 14y ago

I'm really glad you mentioned "cute little puzzles". I am sick of them. I'm not really sure who has sufficient time to spend blazing the employer with feats of their programming prowess (I was going to say only undergrads would do that - however, many undergrads in top programs have little time to bathe). If this was big companies being stupid, I'd get it. The HN crowd ... some of the smartest hackers around do little better sometimes. I was very interested in Stripe after hearing some of their folks speak (I don't mean to single them out ... they are a pretty amazing bunch from what I've seen) and saw the cute puzzles (https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer) as a listed way of impressing them. I immediately hit the back button and decided not to apply there. Perhaps it means we would not have been a good fit. Or perhaps, we need more respect in the recruiting process. I understand the need for fiz-buzz tests and all ... but things have gone a bit too far.

mseebach 14y ago
If a recruiter goes after you, and didn't bother to Google your name and look at your GitHub/OS contributions etc. he's obviously cold calling and wasting your time. He's the guy who asks DHH how much Rails experience he's got. But, on the other hand, if you apply to a company, especially one that's more or less famous, puzzles are a very good way of separating the wheat from the chaff on a level playing field. Evaluating a strangers performance based on their solution to a common puzzle is very time efficient and allows the company to process large numbers of applicants fairly. A common notion here is that great people can just pick up the phone, or will be actively courted by companies, so they don't need puzzles and recruiters. That is great for them (honestly, not a snark), but it's not scalable: Not everyone can know everyone, and there has to be a way for newcomers to enter into the network. Case in point: Stripe - you want to work for them, but apparently you don't know anyone on the inside that can recommend you. And apparently you're not on their radar already. They do great stuff, they seem like an amazing bunch - so there are likely to be hundreds who want to work for them - and most of them, regrettably, are not qualified enough. Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)?

adpirz 14y ago

So, I'm outting myself as outsider here but: In five sentences or less, could you describe how you got to be the programmer you are today? I.e., skilled enough to be commanding the kinds of benefits you do? It's mostly out of curiosity, I'm not looking to get directly involved with programming.

mikecaron 14y ago
Yeah, to command six figures, you've either many years (10+) of experience under your belt, a masters + experience or you're applying in NYC or LA/SF where cost of living is astronomical. In the midwest, you'd be hard pressed to find a starting salary at 6-figures except at the very bottom of that 6-fig range.
- malandrew 14y ago
  You shouldn't get paid based on your cost of living. You should get paid on value added. TBH, I don't see why living in the midwest should drop the salary a company owes you that much. If you are a good developer, you should command a salary comparable to the value you add plus a profit margin for the business. The only two explanations I can see is that, collectively, software engineers in the midwest are simply not negotiating for the salaries they deserve because given the cost of living they don't feel like they have to negotiate for better or that they are on average of much lower quality in the midwest that there is no room in the salary range there for being an outlier commanding a salary outside that range (i.e. no room for a unicorn in a stable full of horses). If I worked remotely from Timbuktu, I would laugh at any employer that offered me less based on the cost of living in Timbuktu. It should be no different working in the midwest. Our world is flat.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    You aren't actually paid based on cost of living, per se, but as that factors in so heavily, it can swing the value proportionally. If I move back to Memphis, TN, I can make approximately half of what I make now in the DC area to live as comfortably as I do. Does that mean I'm worth half as much? No. Does it mean I should expect to make half as much? Pretty much, yeah. Beyond meeting my basic needs (rent, food, whatever) then it's just a matter of how much expendable income does that salary leave me. I don't know if 'percentage of salary' is the best way to measure it, but it factors in. Paying me 'market rate' in a place where a 3 bedroom 3 bath house can be had for $150k is a vastly different proposal when that same house is $450k in a different place. That is the 'cost-of-living' difference. Sure, I might add the same x amount of dollars of value to the company in both locations, but if I can't live comfortably in my market, then it doesn't matter. Note, this argument ignores the competitiveness of the markets as well. There are naturally more potential developers in silicon valley than there are in Bumfuck, Nowhere. Supply and demand does factor here. Lastly, except in situations of outsourcing, you're generally not paid based on where YOU are, but based on where the company (or the location you report to) is. If you're working remotely from Timbuktu while reporting to an office in Silicon Valley, you should expect SV (or near-to) rates. If you're telecommuting to the midwest, you should expect midwest pay. The big difference there is in what it costs to replace you. If you're Linus Torvalds, that cost probably goes way up. If you're like most of us, that cost is probably a close approximation to 'whatever they can hire a local developer for', assuming there are local developers in the area with the skills you possess.

TamDenholm 14y ago

I think the "cute little puzzles" are absolutely fine if you dont have any code you can send them, but if you have a public github or even willing to send them some private code then yeah, puzzles are a waste of time.

theorique 14y ago

Sometimes, though, the "cute little puzzles" are useful in order to filter out the clowns who interview well but can't write FizzBuzz. It's a bit of a tall (impossible?) order for a programmer - regardless of skill or experience - to expect to interview without going through some serious technical conversations and writing some code to solve problems.

kamaal 14y ago
Technical interview is OK, ask the guy about his job. Give him a coding problem in his language of expertise. Check his knowledge of tools, techniques and best practices in his area of expertise. Do all the tech routine. But please don't go on and on with Math problems endlessly over weeks and months. Asking arcane and rare facts about stuff and then deciding his worth over his perceived inability to solve problems in math which don't have any connection with programming in the real world.

elliottcarlson 14y ago

I agree with a lot of what you said; but stating that you will under no circumstances work more than 40 hours a week bothers me. I try to get out of the office every day on time - but shit happens, and there are instances where someone needs to fix something or else the company is losing revenue. You want financial stability with a high salary - but aren't willing to help make the company stable. Yes, a healthy work/life ratio is very important to me, but I won't walk out that door in the middle of a crisis.

ntkachov 14y ago
I think he meant that if there is a serious crisis he might stay. Sure, every once in a while a tornado sweeps through your data center. That happens once every other year. "We need you to stay till midnight because a very serious VC is coming in and this project needs to be done" is not a crisis. Serious stuff happens, it does not happen every other week.
- jshen 14y ago
  "under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week." Should we take him at his word or assume that he isn't precise when speaking? Both are bad signs.
  - elliottcarlson 14y ago
    Exactly - I would completely understand someone insisting on a work/life balance - I want it, and I have no problem with people wanting that; but seeing it worded that way is a red flag to me.
    - marklindhout 14y ago
      His wording is quite accurate if you ask me. At least, I can completely agree with it. Life is about living, not about working, after all.
      - 14y ago

dr_ 14y ago

Doctors don't have infinite sick days, many don't have 30 vacation days (I barely take a week off a year), and most don't have 40 hr work weeks.

acidhax 14y ago
Yeah, well, developers aren't given a giant book on solutions either. Oh, I see, you're having an issue where you're executing 10,000 queries. Let me just open up this book and copy/paste the solution to you.
- jedberg 14y ago
  #1 Neither are doctors. #2 Yes you are. It's called StackOverflow and a million other sites on the internet where you can google for an answer to your question.
rmc 14y ago
Yeah no-where on earth are there 30 holiday days per year and 40 hour maximum. No-one works that. Except several EU countries which have that as the legal minimum… (e.g. France: 35 hr legal working week, 25 days holidays and ~ 13 paid public holidays per year)
- danssig 14y ago
  Most of western Europe, if not all, gets at least 4 weeks vacation. 40 hours is a bit more demanding but 42 is pretty common.
  - rmc 14y ago
    All of the EU gets 4 weeks. It's called the European Working Time Directive. That'd give you 20 days paid annual leave. Some member states have higher. (I think) all member states have paid public holidays aswell. All of the EU gets 48 hours maximum working time per week, that's the European Working Time Directive again. The UK has a sort of an opt-out to it. Some member states have a lower maximum. Fun Fact: I'm from Ireland (20 days holidays per year). Talked to some Germans, and they were shocked I could get by on 20 (they got 30).

its_so_on 14y ago

guys, the parent was attempting to write satire. little do you know, that except for infinite sick days or 40 hour weeks, you are "lampooning" a lower-than-average rate for anyone qualified in the bay area. Look at it this way. If Amazon can use you to create a million dollars in value, and therefore vies with Google, who can use to to create a similar amount of money in value, and between them and about a hundred similar startups the going rate is 150,000 per year for your work (with the rest of the 750,000 that you generate going 1/3 toward paying your other miscellaneous overhead associated with you, and half toward their bottom line), then how is 100,000 reasonable? I bet you consider the following offer reasonable: in your geographic area, start selling goods (through any venue you like, including online forum, web shop, etc) which you buy wholesale. You can pick any goods in any industry or category that you want, and work with whatever wholesalers you like! You have complete autonomy over the entirety of your "stack". Please deduct 15 euros per hour for your labor - totally reasonable - and send any profits above that amount to me. If you make less than 15 dollars per hour doing this then you can keep 100% of your sales. (Naturally, it is not possible to lose money, since the local price cannnot be less than the wholesale price.) How is this not a reasonable offer, please explain to me. (Not a rhetorical question.) If you cannot explain why this is not reasonable, please reply to me with your contact details so that I can start paying you per above. I look forward to your reply. Incidentally, I also look forward to any explanation for a lack of response with contact detail, as I have a LOT more jobs available at this price than I can fill.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

Apreche 14y ago

Oh, I want to add one more thing, since everyone seems to like my comment. You can pay me too much money. If you give me say, a million dollars a year, I will work for one year, and then you will never see me again. I will go home and live my life as I please, and only code what I want to code. The code may or may not make money. I may or may not try. If I work at a startup that cashes out big, then I will travel the world, settle in the tropics, and you will not see me again. If someone acquired us as a way of acquiring talent, they will be sorely disappointed.

solsenNet 14y ago
maybe you should start your own company? seems to me you chaff quite a bit about being a "wage slave"
- tensor 14y ago
  Indeed. Also, he seems to want the pendulum to swing from the employee courting companies to the company courting employees. Personally, I think there should be a mutual respect between an employer and employee. Further, someone whose sole goal is not to work, as it seems here, is probably not someone you really want to work with nor to start his own company. There are certainly a lot of people who do in fact do nothing when they become independently wealthy. But many also continue working regardless because they actually enjoy what they do. People should absolutely be paid fairly and treated with respect. But if you expect someone to worship you for some reason, wether employer or employee, you should probably adjust your attitude.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    He didn't say he would do nothing when he got rich. He said he would code whatever he wanted, without regard to making money. Big difference. An independently wealthy person could become a star of the open-source world.
    - tensor 14y ago

sliverstorm 14y ago

You need six figures to make rent?

mahyarm 14y ago
A 1 Bedroom starts at $1600. A 3 bedroom house is ~$3000. 6 figure tax rate is %40 not counting deductions. If you have a family, your rent already takes out over half your 6 figure income. You only live so long, so you need to make some savings too.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  So a $100k salary actually gets you $5000/month? Is that true in practice (not on paper)?
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    I'm in SF right now and that number seems correct (mine don't line up exactly, but close enough). So yes, $100K salary nets roughly $5K a month (assuming no extraordinary deductions). And a studio is hovering around $2K a month around here, and rising.

jeffpersonified 14y ago

I think being dogmatic in these circumstances is perhaps a little short-sighted. As with all things, finding the middle ground – balance – ought to be the goal, and not rigid conformity to rules. In this circumstance, it sounds like you'd might be hard to work with. That being said, an employee with balance and boundaries, particularly if they can be seen in your life outside of work, is far more desirable in an employee than someone with none. How we live our lives outside the work place is indicative of how we function inside the office, and setting boundaries around the office shows a healthy valuing of our personal time.

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week." There was a time, after the crash of 2000, when programmers actually had a difficult time finding work. It doesn't matter what the career, training or job, this stuff goes in cycles, always. You're at the the top of the cycle now; there's a gap in the supply/demand for good coders. It's a great time to be a programmer. But the invisible hand of the economy has a way of sorting these things out. >"The fact is you need me more than I need you." This won't always be the case. Keep that in mind.

matwood 14y ago
All the more reason to get the most of what you can out of the inequality before the cycle swings back the other way.
- intractable 14y ago
  Absolutely. After all, that is what most employers will do when the pendulum swings their way.
kalininalex 14y ago
Great observation. It's very easy to forget after a year or so of good times that bad times ever happened. Yet, this too shall pass. The key component of my philosophy is to always provide more value than paid for, be it 10 days of vacation, or 30. This will create consistent demand for one's services negating the impact of economic cycles.

RedwoodCity 14y ago

Lottery tickets might be a better deal, they tell you the odds straight out and you get your picture in the news if you win.

pkmehta 14y ago

I get that devs are in demand and that folks should be paid fairly, but after reading this, I don't know if I'd want to work with you in an employer-employee relationship or even as a colleague. This smacked of a level of entitlement that I think would be cancerous to any group of people working together. Just my $.02.

aMtnViewer 14y ago

You sound like an arrogant dick. Who the hell would want to work with you?

nobleach 14y ago

What's ironic, is that I'm reading your response, and I'm thinking of how unreasonable it sounds. But after taking a step back and thinking about the symbiotic relationship companies SHOULD have with their employees, this reminds me an awful lot like the demands I've seen from most jobs. They'd like to offer you 2 weeks vacation, a week sick time (because we all choose how long we'll be sick) and if they bounce a check? Bummer, you can either go back out and seek employment or hope things get better.

peejaybee 14y ago

The comment thread here reminds me of how just about every time someone suggests that a prospective employee might have demands of an employer, he or she is "entitled," "arrogant," or "a dick." It never fails, be the topic salary and hours, choice of technology, vacation time -- being as explicit about your requirements as employers are theirs is a very good way to get poo flung at you. We're not serfs, people.

jchung 14y ago

I have great difficulty with the idea of hiring someone who says they will under no conditions work more than 40 hours a week. That won't work in a situation where we are all working together as a team to achieve something worthy of achieving. I don't hire people by the hour; I hire them to accomplish things. TL;DR If you want to punch out when the clock strikes 5, get a job in Detroit.