

When You Can't Compete On Salary: Tech Talent on a Budget - fecak
http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/02/25/compete/

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Jemaclus
I'm glad to see that equity was so far down on the list here. Too many
founders think equity and salary are interchangeable, but the fact is that
equity doesn't pay the bills. All of the other things you mentioned, however,
are good reasons for me to take a pay cut. Very, very good list. I'd add
vacation as another item, like someone else said.

Another thing employers need to realize is that sometimes the job seeker is
looking to move up, and just because they applied for your job doesn't mean
they hate their current job. For instance, I'm rather content at my current
job. I like it. It pays well. My team is solid. The work itself... maybe a bit
boring. But is that enough for me to jump ship and take a pay cut? Probably
not.

Sometimes YOU need ME more than I need YOU. Sometimes I'm desperate. You need
to be able to figure out which kind of candidate I am and make your offer
accordingly. I'm not saying rip me off, but you can save some $$ if I'm
desperate. If I'm not desperate, though, you have less leverage in the
negotiation and you either need to not make me an offer at all or make me one
I can't refuse. Middle ground just isn't good enough for the most part. (At
the very least, expect negotiation from a strong candidate.)

/rant :)

~~~
x0x0
At some point vacation is far more important than salary; two weeks is
unworkable. Both my and my SO's families are in other states, so one 3-4 day
trip to each family plus 1-2 personal days to take care of typical life stuff
and you've blown through 10 vacation days without a vacation for us, since
visiting family is nice but not all that relaxing.

Also, founders massively overrate the value of the lottery tickets they're
dispensing, at least until the bay gets so bubblicious that banks accept
options as payment.

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ChrisBland
Some other things I would consider: Dress Code, am I going to have to wear a
collared shirt every day? Am I going to wear a Tie? If you expect me to take a
paycut from market then you had better expect I'm going to be comfortable.
Vacation: I know it may seem unfair to other employees, but if you can't pay
like the big boys and you still have a vacation policy, then you need to
allocate more. Normal is 3 weeks, give them 5 weeks. A conference budget, will
I be able to further my education while employed? Internal Hackathons, do you
allow your engineers to pick any project and work on it for a week?

If your company is having a hard time hiring great devs and/or can't afford
them, take a look at your policies. Thats a big reason we don't want to work
for you.

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fecak
Dress code could have made this list. Conference budget is something I
considered, but that also costs out-of-pocket for the firm. I didn't mention
benefits for the same cost reason.

I've actually had conference costs written into an offer letter a few times
for new hires. That is something that benefits the employee and (sometimes)
the company, particularly if the company rep is a speaker and represents well.

Internal hackathons and 20% (or less) time type programs would attract at
least some others.

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mrfusion
Interesting point about remote work.

Would you say we're at a tipping point for large numbers of employers starting
to offer remote work? It seems like there's more talk of it and it seems more
mainstream lately.

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x0x0
I haven't seen it, and I'm an experienced data scientist, a seemingly high
demand specialization. There's plenty of demand, for people who want to live
in sf or the peninsula. I'd rather live in Tahoe or slt and work remotely, but
nobody offers that to a first approximation (cl data scientist [1];
telecommute [2]). If you want remote ML people, contact me.

[1]
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb=jjj&query=data+scientist&excats=)

[2]
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb=jjj&query=data+scientist&addOne=telecommuting&excats=)

~~~
fecak
I certainly can't get into a data debate with a data scientist, but do you
think part of the reason SF companies aren't offering remote work is that they
don't have to? The biggest tech market would seem least likely to need to
offer remote work - even though demand is high, it's probably much harder to
find data scientists in some small suburb hours from an airport or university
than it is in SF. How would those numbers look nationwide?

