Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs

Posted by throwaway09810 on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @11:01PM
from the ask-hn dept.

How much should one ask for for a San Fran "startup" developer position? Midwest salaries are much lower (due to cost of living and small tech scene) and the avg developer makes around $60k, so my reference point is low. Moving to the valley and possibly getting a job for an exploding startup, what is a reasonable starting point w/ 3 years of solid experience?

( 10 comments | 17 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by shazow on Thursday June 02, 2011 @12:37AM (#2610722)

Depends on the amount of funding and how much equity you're getting.

If they're well-funded (Series A or later) and you're getting negligible equity (hopefully not), then you should take the same salary as an established company like Facebook or Twitter would offer you. Probably a bit over $100k base for 3 years of experience.

Take that starting point and adjust it for the amount of equity they're offering and how much you think it's worth. Now your goal is to get them to pay you no less than you're worth. :)

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by throwaway09810 on Thursday June 02, 2011 @01:06AM (#2610788)

Judging worth is not always easy unfortunately. It varies by need, in relation to other benefits, region, and more. I wish there was a simple test to take that would spit out a salary worth... Alas...

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by grandalf on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @11:08PM (#2610485)

I don't think experience matters that much. If you're awesome, you should be paid $100K or more. If you're awesome, btw, I'd like to make you such a job offer.

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by throwaway09810 on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @11:16PM (#2610510)

Awesome at what? Solving problems? Check. Dedicating myself to things? Check. Working hard to get things done properly and quickly? Check. Having fun doing these things? Double check.

I'm not the best programmer in the world (jr level I'd say), but I sure as hell love what I do and I'm improving every day.

Currently my biggest tools are Ruby, Rails, Javascript (jQuery mostly), and HTML/CSS. Half front-end/half back-end dev in my day job.

email me: [email protected] if you're interested in talking.

note: obviously throwaway accounts

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by rick888 on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @11:50PM (#2610591)

are you being serious? How can you be awesome without experience? Otherwise, why not hire a janitor and pay him 100K as a developer (he's awesome!)

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by neworbit on Thursday June 02, 2011 @04:10AM (#2611143)

I'm pretty sure he means "can make great things happen" trumps "7 years Java experience on the resume"

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by latch on Thursday June 02, 2011 @06:14AM (#2611345)

30 years experience doesn't mean much if it's the same year thirty times.

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by brudgers on Friday June 03, 2011 @11:10AM (#2616626)

It's a good idea in general for small values of x:

  x years experience doesn't mean much if it's the same year x times

Probably true for x < 3 and often true for x < 7.

On the other hand, a person still using the same coding skills they had in 1981 probably writes damn tight efficient code...or is a God of COBOL .

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by bherms on Thursday June 02, 2011 @11:34AM (#2612400)

I'm going to use this quote in the future because it's so true.

Hope you don't mind the attribution "a wise man once said [...]"

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Re:Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs by latch on Thursday June 02, 2011 @08:00PM (#2614566)

I stole it from someone else.

maybe "a stupid thief once said [...]"

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