5 ms·

Advertise the salary you're offering. If your positions look like 90k positions but you're offering 150k, how will an applicant know? EDIT: I noticed that you

by no_wave 12y ago

Advertise the salary you're offering. If your positions look like 90k positions but you're offering 150k, how will an applicant know? EDIT: I noticed that you wrote in a nested comment that publicly listing salaries is a non-starter. I'm not sure why - at the very least you could list the smallest number you'd imagine offering a qualified applicant. Note that it's pretty strange to claim that you can't attract enough skilled engineers even at higher salaries when you're keeping the fact that you pay higher salaries a secret. How do you expect this mechanism to work?

morgante 12y ago
There are two major problems with listing salaries publicly. 1. We don't really want to make the huge salary discrepancies obvious to our non-tech employees. While it's theoretically true, publicly listing the difference wouldn't be great for morale. 2. There's a huge range, and where a particularly candidate falls in that range requires qualitative judgement. We consider everyone from talented new grads to senior developers with over a decade of experience, but the expected salary range can swing by as much as $100k—publicly listing such a big range isn't helpful for anyone. (Yes, I understand that we could theoretically have different job listings but our criteria are driven more by "how much smart shit can you get done" and "how much will you learn" than by years of experience or anything quantifiable on a careers page.) > Note that it's pretty strange to claim that you can't attract enough skilled engineers even at higher salaries when you're keeping the fact that you pay higher salaries a secret. How do you expect this mechanism to work? It's not that I think an unadvertised salary will by itself attract skilled engineers—I'm just using our experience as a counterfactual for the claim that there are loads of senior developers but we aren't willing to pay them enough. Note that in private conversations/outreach, we do try to be upfront about salary ranges.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  If listing the salaries for the technologists will make the non-technologists in your firm jealous, then perhaps you should raise their wages, too.
- no_wave 12y ago
  You don't have to just post a range. The listing just needs to communicate that you're paying well above market, which is a step beyond competitive (and I've never seen "above market" in a job listing). Of course, this is only if your company really is committed to doing so! I don't have a clever solution for 1. This is definitely a broader cultural issue - non-lawyers at a law firm would completely expect to make less than the lawyers but programmers still don't nearly get that level of respect. EDIT: I think we're miscommunicating a little. There absolutely are quite a lot of qualified senior developers right now. Most of them are employed. You're just not seeing a lot of qualified senior developers applying to your jobs, which is a different issue entirely. Given that nobody's turned an offer down, there's something that your job postings are missing that people are learning during the interview process. "Not paying enough", in this case, can be effectively synonymous with "not communicating that you're paying enough".
  - morgante 12y ago
    > Given that nobody's turned an offer down, there's something that your job postings are missing that people are learning during the interview process. You are quite correct—I haven't yet figured out how to convey the interesting product/technical challenges we're working on in a mass way: especially not well enough to overcome must developers instinctual reaction to "publishing." If you have a minute, I would love to hear your thoughts on how we could better communicate through our listings: http://www.cafe.com/careers http://www.cafe.com/careers
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      Yeah, those career listings are pretty bland. Not much sense of what you'd actually be doing, or even what the company is hoping to do in a bigger sense. If nothing else, more specificity in both those areas would help you stand out. Especially since, as you say, it's publishing and techies are kind of skeptical about their role in that. And "competitive compensation" to me signals "eh compensation". It's a pretty weaselly word. Also, I didn't see any technical people mentioned on the About page? Are they not part of the team? Here's what I'm getting at- sell people on the vision and what their specific role in it would be. What impact are they going to have, both in the company and in the world? As a startup, you've got the vision thing, or at least you damn well better, and it's your advantage. :-)

by no_wave 12y ago

morgante 12y ago

There are two major problems with listing salaries publicly. 1. We don't really want to make the huge salary discrepancies obvious to our non-tech employees. While it's theoretically true, publicly listing the difference wouldn't be great for morale. 2. There's a huge range, and where a particularly candidate falls in that range requires qualitative judgement. We consider everyone from talented new grads to senior developers with over a decade of experience, but the expected salary range can swing by as much as $100k—publicly listing such a big range isn't helpful for anyone. (Yes, I understand that we could theoretically have different job listings but our criteria are driven more by "how much smart shit can you get done" and "how much will you learn" than by years of experience or anything quantifiable on a careers page.) > Note that it's pretty strange to claim that you can't attract enough skilled engineers even at higher salaries when you're keeping the fact that you pay higher salaries a secret. How do you expect this mechanism to work? It's not that I think an unadvertised salary will by itself attract skilled engineers—I'm just using our experience as a counterfactual for the claim that there are loads of senior developers but we aren't willing to pay them enough. Note that in private conversations/outreach, we do try to be upfront about salary ranges.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
If listing the salaries for the technologists will make the non-technologists in your firm jealous, then perhaps you should raise their wages, too.
no_wave 12y ago
You don't have to just post a range. The listing just needs to communicate that you're paying well above market, which is a step beyond competitive (and I've never seen "above market" in a job listing). Of course, this is only if your company really is committed to doing so! I don't have a clever solution for 1. This is definitely a broader cultural issue - non-lawyers at a law firm would completely expect to make less than the lawyers but programmers still don't nearly get that level of respect. EDIT: I think we're miscommunicating a little. There absolutely are quite a lot of qualified senior developers right now. Most of them are employed. You're just not seeing a lot of qualified senior developers applying to your jobs, which is a different issue entirely. Given that nobody's turned an offer down, there's something that your job postings are missing that people are learning during the interview process. "Not paying enough", in this case, can be effectively synonymous with "not communicating that you're paying enough".
- morgante 12y ago
  > Given that nobody's turned an offer down, there's something that your job postings are missing that people are learning during the interview process. You are quite correct—I haven't yet figured out how to convey the interesting product/technical challenges we're working on in a mass way: especially not well enough to overcome must developers instinctual reaction to "publishing." If you have a minute, I would love to hear your thoughts on how we could better communicate through our listings: http://www.cafe.com/careers http://www.cafe.com/careers
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    Yeah, those career listings are pretty bland. Not much sense of what you'd actually be doing, or even what the company is hoping to do in a bigger sense. If nothing else, more specificity in both those areas would help you stand out. Especially since, as you say, it's publishing and techies are kind of skeptical about their role in that. And "competitive compensation" to me signals "eh compensation". It's a pretty weaselly word. Also, I didn't see any technical people mentioned on the About page? Are they not part of the team? Here's what I'm getting at- sell people on the vision and what their specific role in it would be. What impact are they going to have, both in the company and in the world? As a startup, you've got the vision thing, or at least you damn well better, and it's your advantage. :-)