- Work fewer hours
- Work from anywhere
- Work in a specific location
- Work in a certain environment
- Work in a specific kind of organization
- Work with specific technologies
- etc.
People are very different and have very different wishes and needs. Salary isn't always priority #1.
(note, I'd also take a small hourly cut to work fewer hours a week, but as far as I can tell, the paycut I would need to take to do that is so large that I'm better off working a few years on and then taking six months or a year off and eating the tax and career disadvantages of that)
For most people in my area, #2 and #3 are also mostly pay issues. Like #1, it's not entirely pay, but the most common reason I've heard for people wanting to work places other than here (I'm in silicon valley, as you'd expect from someone trying to maximize salary) is that it's less expensive to live almost anywhere else in the world.
- the product is SW
- great colleagues
- challenging problems
- cool technology
- having users
- good salary
- good tools
- max 40 hours a week
- minimal bureaucracy
- working remote when needed
https://henrikwarne.com/2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
* Very few recruiters outreach mentions any kind of compensation expectation. Why would I bother with hours of chat, screening and interview loops if I know only a handful companies offer the same kind of compensation I'm used to receive?
* The bar of a Senior position is quite high, so high that most Senior engineers would not pass it, it requires months and months of preparation. I would do that only if I was absolute sure I wanted to leave my current job.
* I would be willing to receive a little less if a company could offer something that I don't have like a better commute, work on something I'm more passionated about, etc... However, most companies think that working from home is good enough to justify a 50% lower compensation.
The only exception that I can think that compensation is not the main point is if you are trying to hire someone so successful and rich that money doesn't really matter for them. But my guess is that this kind of people are even more rare than senior people.
Like, for me; I'd be so happy to take a 20% (hourly) pay cut and work half-time for 40% of my current total pay and go to school the rest of the time. But as far as I can tell, the hourly paycut would be more like 50+% just on the hourly, so I'd be looking at like a quarter the total comp, and the prestige cut (and thus hit to future earnings) would be huge, as I'd have to go work for a startup/small company.
I guess this will make more sense if marginal tax rates go back up.
More upside if it goes well and you're already not in need of money?
The new art?
Shouldn't people usually have some kind of business idea before diving head first?
So you're not really interested
So, when I see a top rate advertised, I immediately ask myself: what is so wrong with this company that people don't want to work there? Usually it's fairly obvious when you meet people that used to work there (they'll have a grudge). Usually it's a combination of mismanagement, bad culture, and corporate stupidity. It happens. Big companies can get away with that for surprisingly long.
When hiring, what I look for is very simple. I try to sell the gig and look for positive response to the sales pitch. Does the person have the skills I need? A few simple questions can get you a good hint there. Red flags would be bullshitting when they don't know something or plain ignorance for stuff they ought to know. Beyond that, it's about fast decision making based on imperfect knowledge. I'm well aware that most interview processes are completely ineffective so I don't waste too much time on that. Either they obviously know their shit or they obviously don't.
So, I simply put myself in the frame of mind that I've already decided to hire the person and start talking about what they'll do, how they'll do it, etc. It's classic sales strategy and it works; I've hired some great people this way.
In silicon valley, the difference between what a FAANG company pays and what almost everyone else pays is... pretty big. Like maybe not double? but certainly half again as much. I mean, you could say they are competing for different people, I suppose, but when a recruiter tells me that they "pay competitively" - that means drastically different things for different companies, even if I am limiting myself to companies within 10 miles of santa clara.
> I noticed a pattern in Berlin where I'm based where the less attractive jobs indeed come with higher salaries. When the work is shit and they bleed engineers faster than they can hire them there's nothing else they can do than up their rates.
Huh. That's really interesting, 'cause my experience (In the US, mostly in silicon valley) is the opposite. There were times in my life where I actively sought out harder and even more dangerous work for more money; but even casting aside any concern over who I worked for, even if I was willing to go work in a war zone, for my skills? the pay was better sitting on an expensive chair in a safe office in mountain view.
Even within silicon valley, the smaller companies and the "scrappy" startups or small companies seemed to me to be a whole lot higher stress... which for parts of my life? sure, I'll take extra stress for extra money, but no, those companies pay a lot less. Which, again, is fine in certain parts of my life; I'm not educated, so I needed to get a lot of experience before I was given a shot at a job in one of the FAANG companies. And it was... really a very different sort of experience; I was 20 last time I had a job where I felt that junior compared to my colleagues, (and I had a hell of a job when I was 20).
I've seen something similar around layoffs; I've been through several layoffs but have yet to get a pink slip myself. and I've always found myself dissapointed that I wasn't laid off; those in the first round get nice severance, a retraining bonus, and a chance to get another job before too many other people are laid off. Those of us who "dodge the axe" end up having to do twice the work with almost no hope of a raise and with co-workers who are afraid of getting laid off in the next round.
One factor to keep in mind here, though, is that the cost of living there is so insane that even a multiplier on pay could go with a total quality of life decrease.
If that same person moves to the US, they are just a cog in a huge machine, and will be unable to afford to buy a house. Not to mention that getting the visa to go there would be very difficult.
Not to mention that when you work for a small corp, you spend all of your time on dubious products changes for the sake of a product manager looking good for an interview panel.
In developing markets there is no such 'bullshit', to be frank. The company delivers a good product to the international market or it dies. If you can find a talented Westerner to lead the team and product design, even better. This kind of leanness is exhilarating to work for as long as the company approach, payments and bonuses are transparent.
Eh, not in my experience. I've often seen it as an excuse to treat people poorly. As in "You're being paid a lot to put up with BS" and "Highly compensated shouldn't have excuses or whine." It also seems to correlate well with their trying to solve all legitimate work headaches with money.
I think this is probably especially true in Europe; I mean, as far as I know, people get like a 2x-4x raise moving to silicon valley from europe. If you pay more than your local competitors, you will largely have your pick of the candidates.
I mean, yes, things other than money matter a lot, too. But as an employee? I think that's really, really hard to judge from the interview. The money is pretty easy to judge, and as far as I can tell, total comp is a good 'honest signal' that I'm going to be treated in other ways. How much money they offer is a better indicator that I'll be treated well, in my experience, than anything anyone can say at an interview.
I think as workers, we're not doing ourselves any favors by pretending that an employer can get the best people without paying the best rates.