[michaelochurch]

TL;DR: slightly lower than typical for your level, but not that bad. If it's a good company and you're happy with everything else, you should stick with it. Good jobs are rare, especially in VC-funded startup land (despite its excellent marketing).

I make roughly 115k a year, which at first seemed like a ton after moving here from a relatively low COL area. Lately though, the combination of looking at my account balances after paying rent + seeing people talk about salaries on HN make me think that I am on the very low end of the pay scale.

Financial outliers seem more common on HN than they actually are. You're probably on the low end (~30-40th percentile) compared to where you should be, but not by that much, and you're on the high end by the standard of most of the country. The delta is a rounding error compared to issues such as the quality of work you're getting and your likelihood of advancement.

Combine that with the paltry amount of equity I have and the fact that my company gives absolutely zero bonuses

That's typical. Raises are also rare in startups. If things are going well, the improvement of equity valuation is the raise. If things are going badly, that's not a time to be asking for things.

I hate to break it to you, but there are only two ways to get a serious equity slice in most startups: (1) be a founder, which probably isn't within your financial resources right now unless you have the connections to get immediate funding, or (2) become one of those god-awful executive implants that VCs shove into companies, who don't get large percentages (they might get 1-2%) but get their cut when the company's de-risked and the valuation is legitimately high, making them paper millionaires if they survive the vesting period.

Once companies take outside funding, they generally can't give real equity to non-executives even if the founders want to. The pathetic equity slices aren't because the founders are assholes, but because the employee option pool might only be 10-15 percent.

You may want to read this: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-yo... . I know nothing about your company, but there are a lot of awful startups out there built to turn clueless young talent into gold.

The real question is, though: what are you learning? If you're getting good projects and learning a lot, you should probably stick around until you stop learning or get "pigeonholed" or overlooked by management. If you're treated well and see a future at this company, then stay. $115k for a developer with 5 years experience is slightly on the low side, but I've seen numbers much lower. If your job is legitimately challenging, I don't think the difference between what you have and what you'd get at your next job (probably 10-15k) merits the risk of being "the new guy" again and getting a lesser quality of work-- unless you find something really good with people you trust.

The Bay Area and New York are disgustingly expensive. Some people our age are getting savings, and some of us are living in expensive, singular places with the hope of rapid career advancement. The career progress that comes from living in a "star city" is our "savings", for most of us. But there are a lot of good companies outside of the star cities, and that seems to be accelerating, so if you can find something great elsewhere and can get real savings and rapid career growth, obviously that's a huge win.

[anonny]

> be a founder, which probably isn't within your financial resources right now unless you have the connections to get immediate funding

Could you elaborate on this a little? I realize this is a minor point of your comment, but it's not often that I hear about the financial requirements of being a founder. It's mostly "you're young and smart, you deserve to found a startup" and "follow your dreams," both of which seem fatuous to me.

What financial resources would you say are required to found a company? I'm currently in "save every penny" mode anticipating the moment when I strike out on my own, so I'm curious what people have to say on this topic.

P.S. Sorry to comment as a thowaway, but I forgot the password to this one and I'm engaging in another thread...

[jmathai]

My personal experience was pretty drastic since I left my job to found my current company. Normally I'd hack away nights and weekends until I could get a few prototypes out.

Either way, once you quit your job the fuse is lit and your runway is only as long as your bank account can put food on your table.

[argonaut]

As a side note, there is nothing wrong with asking for a reasonable raise from your current employer. Have a chat with your boss, and tell him/her that you think a fair salary for someone with your experience, is, say, 130k.

[michaelochurch]

If he wants to be a startup founder, he should push for investor contact so he can start building a network in the VC community. I doubt he'll get it right now, but it needs to be his goal.

Without VC contacts, it's going to take 12+ months of bootstrapping, with substantial traction and press coverage, to get funding. They'll take forever to make decisions, dilly-dally while they compare notes with other investors, etc. So you blow a year of savings, in a high-COL area, working so hard (60 hpw is not atypical) that you'll be exhausted at the end of it, and probably need a month off before starting your next job.

With VC, if you have some genuine allies on the inside, it doesn't mean they'll fund an idea they dislike, because their job is to make money. It does mean they won't waste your time in deliberation, will treat you as more of a social equal-- making horrid liquidation preferences and management concessions less common-- and will actually say "no" if they're not interested and try to help you find a way to something they'd actually fund. Finally, having allies in VC means you get an EIR gig or an associate position to fall back into if the company doesn't pan out.

If I were him and wanted to be a founder in 5 years, I'd ask for investor contact, point-blank.

If they say no, that's fine. This is called "door in the face". People talk about getting a "foot in the door" (a small request, granted, to prime for a larger request) but, given the employer/employee power relationship, that rarely is as powerful as the "door in the face" (a large request, rejected, that leaves the person more likely to grant small favors). When you have a mutual but asymmetric power relationship, "foot in the door" makes you seem demanding while "door in the face" techniques are more natural; they have more power but you have some, so they'll deny one request but are unlikely to turn down two orthogonal requests in a row. Yes, they have more power, but they can't turn down all your requests.

He probably won't get investor contact, but then he can ask for a paltry 15k raise, more challenging assignments ("if I'm going to be making that much, I ought to be earning it; are there openings on the X team?") and possibly a more favorable reporting structure.

[ibudiallo]

I have been working for 3 years in the field as a front end dev and a make a little more than half of what you make. Talk about being underpaid. However I do not have a degree and I am not looking for one. I built tools that are crucial to my employer which resulted in millions of dollars in profit, both the front end and backend. I think its time to look for a new job.

[nayefc]

> Good jobs are rare, especially in VC-funded startup land (despite its excellent marketing).

Could you please explain why/elaborate on this point a little?