[benawabe896]

Why is there not some way to disrupt this industry??? It is maddening that these people even exist. How is normal to take 35% of someone's salary for 6 months because you got to them first at the right time? How is it ethical to whittle a starry eyed junior down to 30 bucks an hour so you can take 60 or 70 plus? There has to be a way simpler way to connect folks to jobs in this day and age. </rant> ...Sorry, it just gets to me every once in a while.

Also, loved the letter, it's great.

[softbuilder]

Years ago I made a similar rant [1]. Last year it made the rounds on HN and because of that I heard from one company [2] that seems to be trying a different approach. (I have no affiliation with them). I don't know if that model is working for them or not. I haven't stayed in touch and I haven't seen anyone else trying it.

[1] http://www.youell.com/matt/writing/?p=8

[2] http://www.10xmanagement.com/

[pc86]

$30 an hour is about $60,000 a year which is a pretty good starting salary. An amazing one in my part of the country where $45k is the average just-out-school salary.

And all the recruiters I've dealt with are paid a flat fee by the hiring company, they don't take a percentage of pay. Then again I've never worked directly for a recruiting agency, either.

[benawabe896]

I definitely understand the sentiment in this comment, but if 60k annual is a good salary, think about 120k annually for just being a parasitic worm recruiter. Most folks at that "30 buck" rate have no idea that the employers would pay then much higher directly, and merely assume that the recruiter just took a flat fee. When it's understood that the recruiter took a percentage of the income, and that said percentage equates to double what the employee is actually getting paid... that's when the hatred starts.

[pc86]

I don't see how comparing the salary of developers and recruiters is any more meaningful than comparing the salary of college professors and plumbers or the Weis stock boy and a junior VC associate.

If someone has been getting offers and interviews for $60k positions and a recruiter can get them an $80k position, what does it matter to the developer if the recruiter gets $20, $40 or even $80k on top of that? I think with the right incentives recruiting can help everyone involved. The problem is when the incentives aren't aligned. If a company is giving Recruiter A $100k to find a developer no matter what, A's incentive is to push the developer's salary as low as possible. If Recruiter B gets a lump sum of 50% of the first year salary, B is going to fight for an extra few thousand dollars on my bottom line.

I'm on the opposite side of the country so it's very possible the recruiters in the Valley are leeches like they appear to be based on the general consensus on HN. My experience with them has been varied, from the former classmate with a degree in Fine Art suddenly trying to learn the difference between Java and JavaScript to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

[Kurtz79]

I agree completely... this is even worse in countries where it's quite uncommon for companies to hire independent contractors.

Here in Spain there are a lot of companies (known among engineers as "cárnicas", meat factories) that recruit people as own employees when they see an opening for contract work in a company, ship them directly to the contracting company for short terms proyects, and dumping them uncereimoniously when the contract ends.

They pocket a generous hourly rate, paying the contractor a standard rate monthly salary.

A large part of job offers publicly available here are of this kind...

[rjbwork]

shrug I'm a starry eyed junior whittled to 30 bucks an hour, but I had better offers on the table that didn't come from recruitment firms.

I don't feel particularly screwed because I'm going to be getting raises over time, especially if I decide to hop out of my first job at year 3 or 4.

55-60k really isn't a bad place to be in many locations. I can't imagine it in some of the traditional startup places like the SF Bay area, Boston, or Seattle area though.

[muratmutlu]

I wrote a post about the startups trying to change things in this space http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2013/04/designers-making-moves-to...