Comment by runT1ME | Hacker News Reader

Comment by runT1ME | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

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?

Note: I'm not the parent poster.

> 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.

Re: your second point, I don't believe in the concept of "B players". See http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/

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.

Where does it say GrantTree pays significantly less than market rate?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com