A company still has to have money in order to operate. I would assume that even without money being the primary focus, they have to be careful about paying out too much or they will be out of business.
Indeed. We are in a highly competitive market, and have a number of interesting projects going on to disrupt that market that won't pay off immediately. If we don't manage our costs reasonably well we won't stay in business.
Money is like rocket fuel. If you're accumulating it for its own sake, rather than to get somewhere, I'd say you're doing it wrong - but that's just my opinion...
If you are not paying top of market wages, one or more of the following has to be true:
1. You don't believe top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that FB/Goog/Amzn/ and many other SV companies pay, that it's not a net win for the company to have top talent.
2. You think that you don't need top developers, that really you're just going to be fine recruiting a bunch of B players, and it's some other 'thing' (business? Sales? Marketing? an 'idea'?) that will make you better than competition.
3. You are incapable of harnessing top development talent to produce adequate ROI that would justify top salaries.
Money is not my primary motivator, I love my job. I wouldn't leave just for more money. However, salaries in a certain ballpark are a strong signaler to how much a company values software engineers.
I think it's insulting to see developers significantly underpaid and have you attempt to justify it the way you do. If money is not your primary motivator, wouldn't you be OK taking a bit less salary and having that distributed out to other team members?
> 1. You don't believe top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that FB/Goog/Amzn/ and many other SV companies pay, that it's not a net win for the company to have top talent.
You're conflating two things here.
I don't think that "top developers are intrinsically 'worth' the amount that [[..]] SV companies pay" (emphasis mine).
There is nothing intrinsic about a developer's value. A developer's value to their company is some proportion (<100%) of the value they add to the company.
Their value to FB is unrelated to their value to XYZ Corp.
> it's not a net win for the company to have top talent
That does not follow from a view on the intrinsic value of developers. I know that it is a net win to have top talent, but:
a) They might not be "worth" (to me) what FB etc will pay them.
b)I might not think that I have to compete on salary to get top talent. I may have a method of convincing talent to work here based on non-financial incentives.
>)I might not think that I have to compete on salary to get top talent. I may have a method of convincing talent to work here based on non-financial incentives.
Great point and I sort of side stepped that. It's not one not talked about enough. I didn't get a sense of that from the poster I replied to, but perhaps there is a compelling story there.
Most of our hires are not developers. We're not building cutting edge tech. We have some internal tools but I don't believe they require "top developers" by whatever metrics Facebook might use. That said, I think the few developers we have are exceptionally good - versatile, multi-skilled, quick learners, broad experience, the ability to conceive, manage and run a whole software project without very little help... and whatever they decide to develop, they do develop. As a developer myself, tech cofounder of my two previous startups, I rate them as excellent developers and would be happy to work with them on any project. One of them, with no academic credentials, is the smartest person I know.
I am sad that you see this as insulting. I'm not justifying anything. These developers (like others in the company) have largely chosen their own salaries. One of them is in the top pay bracket in the company. They also chose my salary, btw.
I'm in a highly competitive housing market, and my children are in a highly competitive educational market. A number of interesting projects that won't pay off immediately.
Since when is an individual expected to just defer to a greater good in an employment arrangement? Which is most likely "at-will"?
I'm certain the shareholders and executives aren't making such self-defeating sacrifices.
> Since when is an individual expected to just defer to a greater good in an employment arrangement? Which is most likely "at-will"?
1) You should never "defer to the greater good". I would not advise it. If this environment doesn't offer something of value to you definitely do not apply or join such an environment.
2) I completely agree that this approach is incompatible with the ultra-violent approaches to "at will employment" of the US and much of Europe. I find the process by which most people are fired in american companies abhorrent. I don't want to go into too much detail about what our current process is to deal with situations where there is a performance problem, but basically it involves engaging with the person and providing them with a lot of support to help them figure out what the problem is, and how they can fix it, and offering them a number of decision points about what they can do to fix it. Obviously, from a distrustful viewpoint this might seem even worse than a clean firing - and rightly so. This kind of stuff absolutely doesn't work in a distrustful, fear-driven environment.
> I'm certain the shareholders and executives aren't making such self-defeating sacrifices.
On what basis are you certain of this? Do you know something that I (cofounder) don't? I suspect that in the long term this approach will result in a more successful, longer lasting company that I feel even more proud of being a part of, so I don't think it's self-defeating in the long term - I disagree with doing anything self-defeating, I think no one appreciates it and it rarely results in anything good. But I don't know for sure that it will actually result in a better company. In the meantime, my cofounder and I could certainly have taken far more money out of the business and have not done so, so your assertion is incorrect in the short term (5 years) at least.
