
Ask HN: What job perks appeal to you? - ahmetsulek
My friend is starting an agency and wants to know what appeals to developers?
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johnward
Important to me:

\- Full Remote or at least 3 days per week remote (my commute sucks)

\- Flexibility (Basically, I just want to be able to make it to doctor
appointments without having to waste vacation days. I also like flexible start
times so I can workout in the AM.)

\- Paid vacation days set in policy (I will assume "unlimited" means none.)

\- Ability to learn marketable job skills (I've been trapped in a position for
the last 5 years that has me basically only know our proprietary software.
That's probably partly my fault for not doing enough side work. Either way
I've been applying for positions for probably 3 years now and only got one
reasonable offer in which I declined after talking to some employees about the
company culture.)

\- Sane working hours (Every week can't be "crunch time". If you expect 60+
hours each week from your exempt employees something is wrong.)

\- Salary (but free time is much more important to me at this point)

\- Paid overtime (one could wish)

\- Ability to choose my hardware and an upgrade cycle that allows me to get a
new machine before 5 years.

~~~
smeyer
> Paid vacation days set in policy (I will assume "unlimited" means none.)

I liked the way my current employer dealt with this. When I was coming on,
they mentioned that they had an unlimited vacation policy for exempt
employees, but that non-exempt employees got 4 weeks a year as a benchmark to
consider. The result is that a lot of people in our group seem to take
vacations roughly as if they got 4 weeks of vacation a year but don't have to
count it or worry about running over a bit. It also helps that there's a
culture of actually taking substantive vacation and not working insane hours
and such.

~~~
cylinder
Everyone should get an explicit amount in their contract and they should be
paid out if they leave / are fired with unused days. "Unlimited" is total
nonsense.

~~~
Someone1234
And if companies absolutely insist on "unlimited" and want to show that they
mean it, then a __minimum __should also be in there.

For example: "unlimited" but minimum 3 weeks a year.

I know people will moan about being "forced" to take time off but frankly it
is good for you, and I'm sure people can find a way to keep busy if they
really try.

------
rifung
Flexible working hours and remote work option.

Probably the most important thing, which isn't really a perk, is having a good
boss who doesn't micromanage or try to get you to work more hours than you're
comfortable with.

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Blackthorn
Remote, remote, remote. My job is remote. I own a house in upstate New York, I
will not work for a company that expects me to sell it and move to them in
$BIG_CITY.

Also the thing I think is the dumbest is when a company won't shell out a
couple thousand for decent hardware for the engineers. Like, you want us to be
productive, right?

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hashtree
In order (which is actually very hard to find):

    
    
      - Mission which truly helps people and focuses on the end-user and not simply the bottom line
      - Working with extremely smart/talented people, who don't take themselves too seriously
      - Robust development practices, to the point you can feel proud of your work and allowed to be the best in your field
      - Treats employees as adults and also truly value their work/life balance (i.e. happy employees are good employees)
      - Money
    

I'd take ~40k less a year (e.g. 85k vs 125k) if it meant being truly happy in
my career with a company that meets the items on that list.

~~~
gnrlist
My list is exactly the same. If you work at a place like this, please share :)

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superuser2
No one has yet mentioned HN's favorite, private offices.

~~~
bbcbasic
Work from home trumps private offices if you have the space. You get to fully
customize your work environment, natural light, ergonomic setup, and no
commute (although maybe I'd do a 20 minute run as a fake commute to create a
transition between working day and free time)

~~~
johnward
I just get up at six eat breakfast and hit the gym. So much better than
sitting in traffic for 2 hours.

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vogt
Flexible hours, especially start times. Other than that, market rate salary. I
really couldn't care less about anything else. Keep the ping pong table - just
stay off my ass about showing up at 9AM every day.

(This assumes standard health/dental/vision coverage and casual dress code,
which should be prerequisites at this point)

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bbcbasic
Important to me (now):

    
    
        - Remote working / short commute with private office
        - Functional Programming
        - Enough $
        - Smart, enthusiastic, pleasant, professional coworkers.
        - Additional vacation (unpaid if need be) is available.
        - Should get me to the next level of my career

------
angersock
Important things:

\-- Modern development practices.

\-- Good hardware, paid up.

\-- Health insurance.

\-- Short commute or remote work.

\-- Significant equity or revenue/profit sharing.

\-- Autonomy to solve problems.

------
izolate
If I had my own company, the policies would be like this:

\- Flexibility to work the hours around your peak creativity.

\- Ability to remote work whenever you want.

\- A quiet office!

\- Freedom to work in all layers of the stack. I personally like to involve
myself in design, frontend, backend and devops, and welcome the idea of
generalists.

\- Market rate salary or above.

------
6d0debc071
\- Respect for developer judgement when it comes to technical issues.
Including not committing to deadlines or features without discussion and
agreement with the developers concerned.

There have been a lot of projects I've seen crash and burn, with all the
associated drama, based on commitments made without any understanding of the
work involved. It's not fun for anyone.

\- The option for privacy. No, a glass-walled office doesn't count.

Sometimes I need somewhere quiet to think. Or take a nap. Or read a book.
Sometimes I just need to get away from pressure somewhere and have a quiet
cuppa. I'm not paid to type, I'm paid to think - that's not best done in a
factory-floor type setting.

------
ojiikun
Hourly pay. Some weeks I want to work 20 hours. Some I would be willing to do
50. Others, I might want to take off. Hourly is the only way to be fair to you
and fair to me.

No exclusivity. I'll sign an NDA, but you don't own me. I may want to do other
things from time to time.

At least 75% remote. Tech work doesn't need physical presence. Online
communication is more efficient and has the bonus of auditability. Commuting
wastes time and resources.

TLDR: spec and hire independent contractors.

------
jodah
\- Location/remote.

\- Work/life.

The two are very closely related as overall quality of life is effected by
both. Life is too short to:

\- Overspend it at work

\- Overspend it on a commute

\- Delay it due to cost of living (ie: delay having a family)

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byoung2
100% remote work option and flexible schedule

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mlwarren
Remote work friendly (up to 100%) and reasonable working hours (read: full
time actually = 40 hrs/wk).

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jgmmo
full remote, flextime.

salary, medical dental, incentive pay -> bonus / stock options / etc.

Important to embrace work-life balance, and not expect people to go above and
beyond working on nights/weekends (though imo, it should be allowed - if the
employee prefers working that way, etc..).

------
pdovy
Flexibility on work hours and the ability to work from home occasionally.
Being able to flex around doctors appointments, errands that can only be done
during normal business hours, etc makes life a lot less complicated.

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fillskills
Mission - either where we directly effect the lives of people.

Working with a talented and motivated group of people

Salary - competitive salary based on location etc

Paid vacation time and an understanding that people do have lives outside of
work

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johnward
Out of 46 comments the word "remote" was mentioned 17 times. That is
interesting to me. Especially when a majority of positions are obviously not
offering a remote option.

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ldonley
Laissez-faire approach to management. Being micromanaged causes too many
distractions which leads to decreased productivity.

------
AnimalMuppet
Management that is grounded in reality.

Coworkers whose personalities are not, shall we say, in need of massive
debugging.

------
spacemanmatt
A shot at retiring, eventually.

------
JoeAltmaier
Bonuses. Let me spend the money the way I like.

~~~
johnward
Yeah but they get taxed so much. I think I'd rather have it in my base salary.
I'm might be kind of jaded too. In my past jobs were sold to me as if the
bonus was a guaranteed part of the salary. Then you would rarely get anything
or if they did pay out a bonus it would be much less than 100%.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
At least in the US, bonuses are taxed the same as salary. It's just the
withholding that is higher, but that only makes a difference until you file a
tax return.

~~~
johnward
Yeah I was going to say that I'm not certain it's taxed more but it just seems
like it is because I always end up with something like 50% of what the actual
bonus was. Also healthcare and things are still deducted from the bonuses I've
seen which I'm not sure is normal.

~~~
smeyer
It just feels higher because you're seeing your marginal tax rate instead of
average tax rate. If you get a raise and look at the paycheck before and after
the raise, the difference in net pay vs gross pay will be similar to what you
see with your bonuses. As the other commenter said, it doesn't change your
total tax bill at the end of the year.

I don't know standard practices, but my last bonus check at federal income
tax, social security, federal medicare, and state income tax deductions, but
no deductions for insurance or anything (and I wouldn't expect to see those.)
I do have deductions for my 401(k) and such, but that's still my money, just
going to a different account.

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ninetax
Some dental coverage that doesn't suck.

~~~
kweinber
Dental insurance is one of the worst insurance deals going (partially because
the market isn't as big and diversified as other types of health insurance).
For nearly anyone 17-60, you'd rather have the equivalent cash than the dental
insurance.

~~~
ninetax
Tell me about it. I just had a crown put in and it cost 775 out of pocket!

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ctb_mg
Paid overtime.

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pknerd
1- Remote

2- No Strict TimeZOne/Working Hours.

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mod
Interesting work.

Good salary.

As few meetings as possible.

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J_Darnley
A job!

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anon3_
Nothing beats cash.

Remote.

Flexibility.

~~~
mathgeek
These three, but for me I'd put cash on equal footing with the other two. I
personally value my freedom over cash once I'm making enough to feed my
family's needs.

