

Zonino – A project to automatically find every job at a startup in London - 500and4
http://zonino.co.uk/
We built a system that scrapes the websites of a bunch of London startups and aggregates their jobs.  None of that recruiter nonsense.
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SandB0x
So what salary does a mid-level developer earn at a London startup at the
moment? I know a bunch of people at more traditional software places (i.e. not
startups) in the £40-60k range. I know a some people who've gone through
accelerator programmes as founders and are barely drawing enough salary to
eat.

~~~
MehdiEG
I'd be interested to hear about this as well. The £40k - £60k range is indeed
what you can expect to get as an intermediate to senior software developer in
London (add maybe another £10k to £20k in the financial industry at a push).
Which I find ridiculously low given the cost of living in London. And you
haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in London on
this salary.

Contracting rates, at £400 - £600 / day are more in line with the living
costs.

But it's quite sad to see that living and property costs in London have become
so insane that even senior software developers either have to contract or end
up earning just about enough to pay the rent but not much more.

On the other side, a good seed round for an early stage startup in London is
£200k. Maybe £300k if you're the hottest startup in town and work incredibly
hard on your round. You're not going to be able to pay your employees very
much at all with so little funding.

To me, the numbers just don't add up. I don't see how London can build a
sustainable startup community. Or even tech community to be honest.

~~~
vidarh
> And you haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in
> London on this salary.

You haven't got a hope of being able to buy a decent family home in _central
London_ on that kind of salary.

If people can be bothered to commute just a little bit further out, you can in
fact get a decent family home in Croydon for example, for 200k-300k. My 3
bedroom house with a garden cost use 208k when I bought it in 2004. The market
has gone up, but it's still "only" valued at around 270k.

When we did buy, I was paid only a little bit out of that range, and it was
only my income, and we lived very comfortably on my salary despite that
mortgage. For years before that, I rented properties that cost me more per
month even on salaries closer to the bottom of the 40k-60k range.

The issue, in my experience, is that younger people tends to want to live in
areas that are more hip and closer to the centre, despite not having built up
any equity, and if they can't, they often prefer to rent. And then years down
the line they're still complaining that they can't afford to buy, when
competing with people who spent the last decade living somewhere cheaper and
building up equity that lets them put up higher total amounts and gives them
access to cheaper mortgages.

~~~
disputin
"In London, the average price ... is two-and-a-half times the national
average, at £435,034, and 17% higher than in April 2013." \--
[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/may/30/london-house-
pr...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/may/30/london-house-prices-april-
record)

~~~
Brakenshire
That will be the simple average rather than the median, so it's biased by
crazy oligarch prices. Here are the median house prices:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/305846/Table_582.xlsx)

Most recent data is £315,000 for the whole of London. Outer London is
£276,000. In Croydon, for instance, it's £230,000. Still pretty rubbish, but
probably ok if you're earning £40k and above, especially in combination with a
partner's salary.

~~~
disputin
Most recent, but not recent - 2012 Q3 - add two years of 17% per annnum.

~~~
Brakenshire
The Outer London figures haven't changed much with the extra year of data:
2012 Q3 £275,000, Q4 £270,000, 2013 Q1 £266,500, Q2 £276,000, the Croydon
figure went down by £8,000 over that period, so it's unlikely to be two years
of 17% growth.

~~~
disputin
Agreed unlikely, but the point remains there have been considerable increases
since £315,000, hence all the talk of bubble danger by BOE, politicians and
investors, especially if you don't single out suburbs, and consider the data
is incomplete, and old in a heated market.

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tomp
I think a lot of these job ads would be much more attractive if they actually
listed the average/expected salary or at least the range. I kind-of understand
why they don't, but it still frustrates me.

~~~
500and4
I think there's something fundamentally strange about the UK and the startup
scene in particular where it's considered poor form to discuss salaries.
Startups are unwilling to be up front about it and engineers are reluctant to
discuss it with each other. I think each of those things feeds the other and
we end up with a lack of transparency that is as much cultural as anything
else.

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linker3000
I get the intention of all these these scrapers-type comparison/search sites,
and all the best with the venture - having had a quick look things are very
tidy and well organised, but I always feel they miss the root cause of their
existence; wouldn't it be much better to develop a central site with a client
API so that all these diverse organisations can submit their job apps straight
into the mix?

Establishing harmony among competitive organisations can be difficult - but
these are all tech/design companies so they should 'get it' to some degree,
and it's not as if they are giving away secrets - a centralised, standardised
portal would just make life much easier to engage with talent - especially if
there's a standardised application form instead of a mess of different
online/word versions all wanting the same information but in different order
or structure - that drove me mad when I was job hunting a few months back; I
suppose it indicates commitment making someone slog through 'yet another'
document format, but spending 4+ hours on 4 different applications, with
multiple cuts and pastes AND dealing with fill-in lines created using rows of
underscores (aargh!) is soul destroying. There's also the implication that one
should print, fill-in, scan to PDF and email back but..seriously!?

If anything needs 'disrupting' its online job applications - I know there are
a few sites that handle such things, but most of the ones I have seen belong
to specific sectors (public health, military etc.) or just one large company.

Wired Sussex is an example of progress in this respect:

[http://www.wiredsussex.com/](http://www.wiredsussex.com/)

Perhaps phase #2 could be to get all the target companies to agree you can
host a standard application form that users could pre-populate and save to use
as a template for specific job applications, tweaking things here and there as
needed to highlight specific skills (or let users build a custom submission
from pre-saved building blocks). It would really save a lot of time.

..anyway, good luck!

~~~
500and4
Thanks for the kind words and good observations!

What we set out to try and do was to build something that didn't rely on
companies posting their jobs. Free tech job boards are a dime a dozen. We
wanted this to be an up to date account of the jobs that are available as a
useful tool to job seekers. That said, you make a really good point about
building a client API and I think that's the route we should go: Seed the site
with scraped stuff but enable companies to upload their jobs, too.

I totally agree about applications being a nightmare. Some systems are
starting to simplify this but it would be great if there was some standard for
it. That's something we've talked about, too and we think would be useful. But
this actually requires getting startups on board which will take time - but
hopefully a few mavericks will want to join in!

~~~
lifeisstillgood
try jobs.txt - [http://jobstxt.org](http://jobstxt.org)

~~~
500and4
That's really interesting, thanks!

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justincormack
Not sure what the definition of a "startup" is here - Dennis Publishing was
founded in 1974 and they are on the list...

~~~
500and4
Good spot. We've ended up playing a little fast and loose with the definition.
Dennis made the cut because we've seen them at silicon milkroundabout
([https://www.siliconmilkroundabout.com/](https://www.siliconmilkroundabout.com/))
but by that definition we'd let the BBC in, too. Should probably tighten it up
- not sure the likes of Ocado really qualify, either.

~~~
justincormack
Silicon milkroundabout is very expensive to participate in so I think it has a
larger number of non startups.

Have you mined the HN who's hiring lists for London places? There are usually
a fair number...

~~~
500and4
I think you're exactly right about SMR. Haven't tried mining the HN lists yet,
but that kind of seemed like cheating! All of these jobs come straight from
the startups' own sites.

~~~
justincormack
I just meant in order to find some more sites! There are quite a few this
month I don't think you have...

~~~
500and4
Oooo, good thinking! I'll have a butcher's...

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twic
Stretching the definition of 'London' slightly:

[http://zonino.co.uk/job/1397](http://zonino.co.uk/job/1397)

~~~
500and4
London based companies who are hiring in other countries are a real ballache.
You think New York is tricky - Ustwo are hiring in Malmö, too
([http://zonino.co.uk/job/1132](http://zonino.co.uk/job/1132)). And I can't
even point at Malmö on a map.

All joking aside we decided not to try to filter out jobs in other countries
because knowing where a startup is hiring might actually be interesting or
useful. We're hoping to improve how the site handles different locations soon.

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TeamMCS
I'd hardly call some of those companies start-ups. Take Blinkbox for example,
that's backed by a FTSE 100.

On a more serious note, what do other devs feel about working at startups
themselves (freelance + perm)? The only I nearly got involved in was folded
within 6 months. I'd have potentially been in a very bad situation as a result
had I gone through with it.

[edit] I'd do piece meal work. Throw in hours along side my regular job but
going full time without a decent golden parachute would worry me.

~~~
500and4
I've had a really positive experience working for a startup. I was the first
engineer hired and it's been amazing to see a company grow from 4 founders to
over 100 people. Naturally I'm biased because it all worked out splendidly but
I'm really really glad I did it. Sure, it's a risk but I think it all boils
down to weighing up the risk with how much you think the founders and the
business can succeed.

I think engineers are in a better position now that the London startup scene
has matured as there is no stigma attached to being a part of a startup that
didn't work out. I think a lot of employers value those experiences and the
lessons learned!

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reledi
Great timing. I'm heading to the UK, south of Greater London, in August and
want to start working in September (I'll be travelling in August).

At this point I'm unsure if I should start freelancing, attempt to create a
business, work remotely, or find a job in or near London.

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djhworld
All the positions for SoundCloud appear to either be in Berlin, New York or
San Francisco?

~~~
500and4
You're right - maybe it's best to turn off SoundCloud until the site can
handle other cities/countries properly!

~~~
djhworld
btw I really like the site, just needs some cleanup on the data.

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jwmoz
Could be really nice. Please add contract positions and get the damn rates
displayed else it's a waste of time.

Anyone looking for a PHP/Python dev contract, shout me up!

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zura
At least some site that can filter "C++" skill. Thanks!

~~~
davodesign
And that understands the difference between Java and Java script! :)

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acron0
Why 'London' and not 'UK'?

~~~
500and4
More locations coming soon! London is just an easy place to start because we
live here and know some people at various startups here.

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greysteil
Nice. You're missing a couple of our (GoCardless's) open opportunities though
- I'll ping you an email.

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peteretep
Bug: [http://zonino.co.uk/job/572](http://zonino.co.uk/job/572)

~~~
500and4
Good spot, thanks! That pesky 'job' won't be bothering anyone any more...

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Brajeshwar
Yourvine.com, a London Startup, is hiring a front-end developer and a full-
stack software engineer.

~~~
500and4
Sweet, I'll pop it the list. Thanks!

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_random_
Betgenius is not a start-up. They don't even offer any equity AFAIK (salaries
are average).

~~~
500and4
Seems that you're right. I'll look into it!

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woah
Doesn't seem to work that well. Typed in 'node', got no results.

~~~
500and4
Yeah, the search can be a little bit precious sometimes if you don't pick one
of the pre-defined skills. Need to work on that. For now this should do the
trick:
[http://zonino.co.uk/search?q%5B%5D=Node.js](http://zonino.co.uk/search?q%5B%5D=Node.js)

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jamiequint
You're missing at least one big startup in London: OneFineStay

~~~
500and4
OneFineStay's site is a bit of a thorn in my side... But I'm working on it!

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pea
Great! Chuck us on too if you'd like: www.kivo.com/jobs

~~~
500and4
Will do!

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qqg3
Saw a job based in Berlin, a little different perhaps

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replete
Nice job div :)

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mattmanser
Definiteky a niche I'd like filled. A few comments.

Mobile doesn't show what you just searched for.

Also the description here is wrong:

[http://zonino.co.uk/job/337](http://zonino.co.uk/job/337)

Overall pretty good.

~~~
500and4
Hey, thanks. I've deactivated that job and I'll fix it up later. Really
appreciate the heads-up!

