6 ms·

NSFW Jobs

55 points by dsl 13y ago

MWil 13y ago
I imagine many of your models need assistance with takedown requests/copyright issues on other sites. You guys should offer a takedown request service to them to let them know you have their back and care about them even when they're not live on the site.
tunesmith 13y ago
One thing that caught my eye was the 50% 401k match up to the federal max (which I think is 25% of salary). Not sure how that work out, but maybe it's if you're making 100k, then if you contribute 25k, they'll throw in an extra 12.5. What tends to be the industry standard these days? Given all the talk about programmer salary ranges being artificially constrained, one thing to optimize for is how quickly you can save up enough retirement savings so you can retire, so an employer with an aggressive 401k match can really help with that. Most people I know have paltry 401ks where they'll get a straight 3% contribution, or a 50% match up to 6%, or something like that.
- mhlakhani 13y ago
  The federal max is 17.5k (or 23k if one is over 50), as of http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contribution-limits.htm http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contributi...
  - tunesmith 13y ago
    That's for deferral, not matching. I think 100k would mean, you can defer 17.5 (so 82.5 is subject to federal tax, and 100k is subject to fica), and then up to 25% of salary can be subject to matching. Although maybe some employers just stick to matching the deferral?
    - toast0 13y ago
      The match is almost always on the deferral amount. So a 50% match is up to $8,750 extra with the current limit (subject to vesting!) There are other options for an employer to contribute. The total contribution limit (including deferred income) to a given employer's plan is $52,000 for 2014. Salary deferral is limited across all employers, but if you have multiple employers contributing on a non-deferral basis, then it seems you can go over the $52,000 limit http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employee/Retirement-Topics---401(k)-and-Profit-Sharing-Plan-Contribution-Limits http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employ...
- jtbigwoo 13y ago
  The most generous I've ever seen in a big company was Wells Fargo offering a 100% match on the first 6%.
  - gtaylor 13y ago
    Best I've seen is 100% for the first 4%, then 50% for the next 4% (8%). Not quite the same, but I guess close enough.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    DuPont is the best one I've heard of, matching 150% of the first 6% (i.e. they'll contribute up to 9% of your salary).
- _delirium 13y ago
  A pretty decent number of Valley companies (even big ones like Facebook) have no pension contribution at all. It's one thing to keep in mind when comparing salaries.
- sorahn 13y ago
  the 401k Match is real. The federal max isn't per salary, it's just fixed. 17.5k. If you contribute 17.5k they will contribute 8.75k.
jefe78 13y ago
This actually sounds really interesting. At my last startup, I built the infrastructure for a live video streaming platform for concerts. Handling HD concert video can't be much different from cam streams. Shame you're not hiring OPs.
- sorahn 13y ago
  We are hiring. There are 3 links at the bottom of the page. Also we're not a startup.
herge 13y ago
A lot of big adult companies (both straight and gay) have their technology centres in Montreal, Canada, and were renown for being horrible places to work, between the conditions themselves and the shady habits of management. You would think that an industry that would already have enough reasons for job candidates to not work there would run a tighter ship.
- jefe78 13y ago
  As a native of Montreal, I had a lot of OPs friends who lived through those companies. I actually ended up doing sysadmin work in Ottawa, then Vancouver. Avoided a lot of that junk.
rlongstaff 13y ago
I'm shocked I tell you - I had no idea such things went on!
camus2 13y ago
I worked in a NSFW company(back in 2005), i was literally watching PRON during work ,that was my job(and developping some VOD backend ).Funny at first , but 1 year into the job, and frankly i could not take it anymore. Because there is the stuff that is ok to see and the stuff that is not. But the technology side of that job(scalability,video processing and editing pipelines,media servers...) was really interesting.
- jxi 13y ago
  What was not "ok to see"? You'd think you'd just get desensitized to that stuff after watching it constantly.
jedberg 13y ago
Having interviewed folks from NSFW companies, I can tell you that it's a great place to beef up the resume and learn lots of useful skills. Their scaling and operations problems are fairly interesting and unique. That being said, there is definitely a stigma that comes with it. I have no problem at all hiring someone who worked at an NSFW company, but I definitely have friends who have said "I wouldn't want to work with anyone willing to stoop so low morally that they would work there"
- surprise 13y ago
  Quick to condemn, yet they were probably using those sites that night.
  - jimzvz 13y ago
    From my perspective, getting rich from sex, gambling or drugs is almost like cheating.
    - cema 13y ago
      Unlike, say, advertising or politics?
- sentenza 13y ago
  There is more than prudishness to it, though. Working on a camming site is a much sketchier business than say, a sex shop or online sex toy retailer. I wouldn't think twice about working on the latter but would definitely avoid the former.
nanidin 13y ago
What's the difference between PTO and vacation?
- vampirechicken 13y ago
  PTO is paid time off, it is your vacation and sick time (and sometimes some of your holidays) in one pool. It is typically a way to give you less time off.
  - nanidin 13y ago
    Maybe I should have quoted the site. They list the benefits as 2 weeks of vacation AND 12 days of PTO "to be used however you want" AND 8 paid holidays. So what's the difference here between PTO and vacation? Can you get an effective 4 week vacation out of it?
    - sorahn 13y ago
      Vacation must be paid back to you (the employee) if you leave the company. PTO is not.
    - vampirechicken 13y ago
      the 12 day PTO is applicable to sick time, or vacation, or what ever. The fact that they've split the two of them, make me think you'll need to read the employee handbook very carefully to determine if either, or both, are subject to use-or-lose, accumulation, and/or payout on separation. Otherwise That's not a terrible deal in general.
      - vampirechicken 13y ago
        I just also want to add, that giving you a pool of paid time off that you can choose for whatever reason, allows them to deftly avoid the issue of the celebration of holidays that are of (possibly religious) significance to an employee, but not to the company - for example Passover or Yom Kipur.
varsketiz 13y ago
I had an opportunity to work in a NSFW company (2009) that had a lot of traffic and very interesting technological problems. It was a real small team and frankly... smartest people I have had a chance to work with so far.
chrsstrm 13y ago
The sites tagline is: We are serious fucking business Then I turned my phone to start reading and then this happened -https://www.dropbox.com/s/v656q5qllqpntut/2014-03-19%2021.15.17.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/v656q5qllqpntut/2014-03-19%2021.15... It also took three refreshes in portrait to reload the site. So, how serious?
MWil 13y ago
This thread seems to have instantly gone down 50 places in a blink of an eye. How would that happen? It was top 5 a second ago and now it's low 60s...
- newaccountfool 13y ago
  Ycombinator is a website that can get your blog, product or statup a lot of traffic so I would be suprised if there isn't people gaming the search. It can be the difference on launch day of your startup getting noticed or not.
mahyarm 13y ago
Their benefits offering is fairly average to below average, with an undefined profit sharing bit. It seems like the offering from the outset is not compensating for the NSFW premium.
nasalgoat 13y ago
I worked in the adult industry for a decade and I can tell you, the technical challenges were huge. First, you are under constant attack. DDOS, scams, hacks, password guessing bots, SQL injections - 24 hours a day, from around the world. So, security is a never ending battle. Then you have to deal with content thievery (rate limiting), credit card processors who want to run you out of business, and other generally hostile business partners who do not want to be associated with adult content. As far as employees, when we were starting up a secondary non-adult side business that would be sharing office space and we asked potential employers if they had an issue with adult content in the workplace, over 75% said "yes". Add all that up, then consider the razor-thin margins due to the massive competition in the marketplace, you can see that it is a very difficult business to maintain, but does offer many interesting technical challenges.

55 points by dsl 13y ago

MWil 13y ago

I imagine many of your models need assistance with takedown requests/copyright issues on other sites. You guys should offer a takedown request service to them to let them know you have their back and care about them even when they're not live on the site.

tunesmith 13y ago

One thing that caught my eye was the 50% 401k match up to the federal max (which I think is 25% of salary). Not sure how that work out, but maybe it's if you're making 100k, then if you contribute 25k, they'll throw in an extra 12.5. What tends to be the industry standard these days? Given all the talk about programmer salary ranges being artificially constrained, one thing to optimize for is how quickly you can save up enough retirement savings so you can retire, so an employer with an aggressive 401k match can really help with that. Most people I know have paltry 401ks where they'll get a straight 3% contribution, or a 50% match up to 6%, or something like that.

mhlakhani 13y ago
The federal max is 17.5k (or 23k if one is over 50), as of http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contribution-limits.htm http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contributi...
- tunesmith 13y ago
  That's for deferral, not matching. I think 100k would mean, you can defer 17.5 (so 82.5 is subject to federal tax, and 100k is subject to fica), and then up to 25% of salary can be subject to matching. Although maybe some employers just stick to matching the deferral?
  - toast0 13y ago
    The match is almost always on the deferral amount. So a 50% match is up to $8,750 extra with the current limit (subject to vesting!) There are other options for an employer to contribute. The total contribution limit (including deferred income) to a given employer's plan is $52,000 for 2014. Salary deferral is limited across all employers, but if you have multiple employers contributing on a non-deferral basis, then it seems you can go over the $52,000 limit http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employee/Retirement-Topics---401(k)-and-Profit-Sharing-Plan-Contribution-Limits http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employ...
jtbigwoo 13y ago
The most generous I've ever seen in a big company was Wells Fargo offering a 100% match on the first 6%.
- gtaylor 13y ago
  Best I've seen is 100% for the first 4%, then 50% for the next 4% (8%). Not quite the same, but I guess close enough.
- _delirium 13y ago
  DuPont is the best one I've heard of, matching 150% of the first 6% (i.e. they'll contribute up to 9% of your salary).
_delirium 13y ago
A pretty decent number of Valley companies (even big ones like Facebook) have no pension contribution at all. It's one thing to keep in mind when comparing salaries.
sorahn 13y ago
the 401k Match is real. The federal max isn't per salary, it's just fixed. 17.5k. If you contribute 17.5k they will contribute 8.75k.

jefe78 13y ago

This actually sounds really interesting. At my last startup, I built the infrastructure for a live video streaming platform for concerts. Handling HD concert video can't be much different from cam streams. Shame you're not hiring OPs.

sorahn 13y ago
We are hiring. There are 3 links at the bottom of the page. Also we're not a startup.

herge 13y ago

A lot of big adult companies (both straight and gay) have their technology centres in Montreal, Canada, and were renown for being horrible places to work, between the conditions themselves and the shady habits of management. You would think that an industry that would already have enough reasons for job candidates to not work there would run a tighter ship.

jefe78 13y ago
As a native of Montreal, I had a lot of OPs friends who lived through those companies. I actually ended up doing sysadmin work in Ottawa, then Vancouver. Avoided a lot of that junk.

rlongstaff 13y ago

I'm shocked I tell you - I had no idea such things went on!

camus2 13y ago

I worked in a NSFW company(back in 2005), i was literally watching PRON during work ,that was my job(and developping some VOD backend ).Funny at first , but 1 year into the job, and frankly i could not take it anymore. Because there is the stuff that is ok to see and the stuff that is not. But the technology side of that job(scalability,video processing and editing pipelines,media servers...) was really interesting.

jxi 13y ago
What was not "ok to see"? You'd think you'd just get desensitized to that stuff after watching it constantly.

jedberg 13y ago

Having interviewed folks from NSFW companies, I can tell you that it's a great place to beef up the resume and learn lots of useful skills. Their scaling and operations problems are fairly interesting and unique. That being said, there is definitely a stigma that comes with it. I have no problem at all hiring someone who worked at an NSFW company, but I definitely have friends who have said "I wouldn't want to work with anyone willing to stoop so low morally that they would work there"

surprise 13y ago
Quick to condemn, yet they were probably using those sites that night.
- jimzvz 13y ago
  From my perspective, getting rich from sex, gambling or drugs is almost like cheating.
  - cema 13y ago
    Unlike, say, advertising or politics?
sentenza 13y ago
There is more than prudishness to it, though. Working on a camming site is a much sketchier business than say, a sex shop or online sex toy retailer. I wouldn't think twice about working on the latter but would definitely avoid the former.

nanidin 13y ago

What's the difference between PTO and vacation?

vampirechicken 13y ago
PTO is paid time off, it is your vacation and sick time (and sometimes some of your holidays) in one pool. It is typically a way to give you less time off.
- nanidin 13y ago
  Maybe I should have quoted the site. They list the benefits as 2 weeks of vacation AND 12 days of PTO "to be used however you want" AND 8 paid holidays. So what's the difference here between PTO and vacation? Can you get an effective 4 week vacation out of it?
  - sorahn 13y ago
    Vacation must be paid back to you (the employee) if you leave the company. PTO is not.
  - vampirechicken 13y ago
    the 12 day PTO is applicable to sick time, or vacation, or what ever. The fact that they've split the two of them, make me think you'll need to read the employee handbook very carefully to determine if either, or both, are subject to use-or-lose, accumulation, and/or payout on separation. Otherwise That's not a terrible deal in general.
    - vampirechicken 13y ago
      I just also want to add, that giving you a pool of paid time off that you can choose for whatever reason, allows them to deftly avoid the issue of the celebration of holidays that are of (possibly religious) significance to an employee, but not to the company - for example Passover or Yom Kipur.

varsketiz 13y ago

I had an opportunity to work in a NSFW company (2009) that had a lot of traffic and very interesting technological problems. It was a real small team and frankly... smartest people I have had a chance to work with so far.

chrsstrm 13y ago

The sites tagline is: We are serious fucking business Then I turned my phone to start reading and then this happened -https://www.dropbox.com/s/v656q5qllqpntut/2014-03-19%2021.15.17.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/v656q5qllqpntut/2014-03-19%2021.15... It also took three refreshes in portrait to reload the site. So, how serious?

MWil 13y ago

This thread seems to have instantly gone down 50 places in a blink of an eye. How would that happen? It was top 5 a second ago and now it's low 60s...

newaccountfool 13y ago
Ycombinator is a website that can get your blog, product or statup a lot of traffic so I would be suprised if there isn't people gaming the search. It can be the difference on launch day of your startup getting noticed or not.

mahyarm 13y ago

Their benefits offering is fairly average to below average, with an undefined profit sharing bit. It seems like the offering from the outset is not compensating for the NSFW premium.

nasalgoat 13y ago

I worked in the adult industry for a decade and I can tell you, the technical challenges were huge. First, you are under constant attack. DDOS, scams, hacks, password guessing bots, SQL injections - 24 hours a day, from around the world. So, security is a never ending battle. Then you have to deal with content thievery (rate limiting), credit card processors who want to run you out of business, and other generally hostile business partners who do not want to be associated with adult content. As far as employees, when we were starting up a secondary non-adult side business that would be sharing office space and we asked potential employers if they had an issue with adult content in the workplace, over 75% said "yes". Add all that up, then consider the razor-thin margins due to the massive competition in the marketplace, you can see that it is a very difficult business to maintain, but does offer many interesting technical challenges.