[IronKettle]

> shares I had to opt in to, at the cost of some salary.

I think this is a fair way to approach the situation.

> People on this thread are making comparisons to 300k/yr Google salaries. ... But for employers, it's a pretty silly comparison.

Why though? You're competing with them, whether you like it or not. AmaGooFaceAppleSoft hired 45% (including those going on to grad school, etc) of my graduating class, and I didn't go to Stanford. No joke, it was really 45%. These companies are vacuuming up everyone, and some of them are shockingly easy to get an offer from.

Sure, they didn't get paid 300k/yr to start. But with how much the equity has appreciated since then, it's probably not that far off.

So that leaves you with the remaining 25% who didn't get hired/didn't want to work at at one of those companies/didn't go to grad school, and you're competing with every other startup for them - including the larger, more established ones who can reasonably say they won't disappear tomorrow (e.g. AirBnB).

[tptacek]

No, you're not competing with them. AmaGooBookSoft hires, to a first approximation, only pedigreed developers with their AKC papers in hand. They're competing for a limited supply of those developers.

But, in fact, a mutt developer you rescue from the dev pound catches a ball just as well, and may in fact be more healthy than the purebreds that Google is hiring.

You know this has to be true, because outside of AmaGooBookSoft (actually: pretty much just GooBook), nobody makes those wages anyways. Even accounting for the (wildly optimistic) company projections for equity value.

[IronKettle]

> AmaGooBookSoft hires, to a first approximation, only pedigreed developers with their AKC papers in hand.

I think that is a very outdated view of those companies. IME at least, you've described Google's hiring process pretty accurately but are fairly incorrect about the rest.

In particular, Amazon is hiring like crazy [1]. Even back when I graduated, Amazon was known for being a place that was easy to get into if you were willing to stomach the sometimes-insane workload (which still pales in comparison to some startup sweatshop horror stories).

Again, I didn't graduate from a program with much name recognition and AmaGooAppleFaceSoft still snatched up 45% of my graduating class.

> (actually: pretty much just GooBook)

I'm not sure why you're only including those two.

Amazon share prices have quintupled over the last 5 years. If you were compensated with RSUs you've done very well for yourself.

I know several MS software engineers who were (very recently) paid roughly $150K + $100K in equity each of their first four years (admittedly after attaining their Master's, though I'm not sure how much it helped).

1: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&s...

[mbesto]

> No, you're not competing with them.

Sorry, but I have first hand experience on multiple occasions in the bay area that say otherwise. I'll take my anecdata and disprove your anecdata.

As a long time HN'r myself, I really appreciate the comments you add to discussions, but telling people "you are not X" will make it difficult to get your point across. Not to mention, you don't even live/work here. How are you so comfortable postulating on something you don't have direct experience with?

[tptacek]

I'm being imprecise. Obviously, a lot of SFBA tech startups recruiting developers to implement solutions on extremely well-trodden technical ground are, in fact, trying to compete with Google for the same pool of developers. But that's irrational, and they should stop.

[user5994461]

They don't compete. Good developers who can get a job at the big 4 get a job at the big 4.

Small companies get people who couldn't go to Google or who are ignorant about compensation and perks.

Eventually, people grow up and learn, then they flee to the big 4 if they can.

[pcwalton]

Oh, come on. This kind of silly overgeneralization is more than a little bit insulting to me, my coworkers, and a heck of a lot of other people.

I could have gone to the "big four" a long time ago, and I turned them down. I've never regretted my decision. I've done incredibly fulfilling work here and couldn't imagine working with a more talented group.

[nostrademons]

Hire internationally. A good mobile developer from a 2nd-world country (say, Czech Republic, Ukraine, or Russia) goes for $20-30/hour on Upwork. You do pay in communication costs, but their development chops are usually as good or better than devs coming out of top American universities. And the supply is certainly much deeper than "top American college graduates living in the Bay Area" and probably a fair bit deeper than "all American programmers". I know multiple startups - some completely bootstrapped, some venture-funded - where the majority of the development team is abroad.

AppAmaGooFaceSoft hires internationally too, of course, but they tend to go for graduates of top Chinese, Indian, and Taiwanese universities, and less for the self-taught kid who has a computer, an analytical mindset, and a lot of free time.

[zodPod]

Hell why go that far. I work in Pennsylvania and we're not typically making much more (if any more) than $20-30/hr and we'd love a number larger than that.

[tptacek]

I agree, and think it might be smart to include "Iowa" and "Missouri" among the foreign countries SFBA startups hire from.