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Comment by jonpurdy | Hacker News Reader

I mean, it certainly makes it easier to try and hire if you're paying 40% less than Coinbase (at least as of mid-2020)※.

※ - Kraken offer was 120K USD with no room to negotiate, Coinbase pre-offer was ~170K base + ~30K options/year + bonus.

Edit: forgot to mention the weird interview process where they had the interviewee video on, but the interviewers were audio only. Hopefully that has changed since then.

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Coinbase then had to lay off 18% of the workforce, so it doesn’t sound like the higher salaries were sustainable.

Coinbase-level salaries are perfectly sustainable in this market. But over-hiring for massive product investments, none of which pan out over a whole year, is not sustainable.

If Kraken is making a serious effort to avoid laying people off, the former is significantly more appealing.

Stability is worth something, but is it worth 2x?

Unless you're extremely unlucky (and many engineers are far from living paycheck to paycheck and can afford to take some risks) you're better off with the "unstable" company - even if you get the sack after 2 years and then take a year off until you find something you really like, you're better off than if you worked 3 years at the company with the lower offer.

I wouldn't take either offer today for different reasons, but this was during the hiring ramp up right after the March 2020 COVID shutdowns. No reason to take an offer that was significantly lower at that time.

What is the reason for the one-way video requirement?

The only thing I can discern is maybe they wanted to preserve the privacy of the interviewers? But if that's the case, then just do no-video for both parties.

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