[tolmasky]

No one is "owed" anything, I'm simply pointing out two things:

1. Be skeptical of offerings that are below market rate in exchange for intangibles, like being "part of something". You often discover that there are certain people on the organization who get to both be a part of something and have good compensation. Now, if the argument is "the package has other benefits like retirement etc etc, then sure, that is orthogonal to my argument about "sacrifice". In fact, if you simply enjoy the work then I also think that's fine. I'm saying don't be convinced about something's importance. Notice in my comment I specifically called out startups and gov.

2. This entity seems to find seemingly limitless pockets for other things, making this sacrifice suspicious.

Fundamentally I believe in treating your employees well. Sometimes amazing tasks require arbitrary salary sacrifices, more often though someone's taking a big paycheck.

[bovermyer]

If I remember correctly, my benefits when I worked as a subcontractor for the federal government were fantastic. Definitely helped make up for the lower pay.

[camenk]

What kind of benefits are there compared to private sector? Care to elaborate more on this? Or it's too sensitive?

[azernik]

According to this [1]:

* Good health care

* Lots of time off

* A defined-benefit pension plan

* Good support for parents

[enraged_camel]

I have a hard time believing that all of these combined will make up for the difference in pay compared to an equivalent private sector job in New York, SV, Seattle or even Austin.

[toomuchtodo]

We all value things differently. I'd rather have more time off than a market salary. I'm not going to lay on my deathbed and wish I had committed extra lines of code.

[ethanbond]

Some people don't find New York, SV, Seattle, or even Austin to be the utopias that others do. That alone gives strong incentive for some people to take that trade. Never mind the less tangible things like what toomuchtodo references.