Comment by heyadayo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heyadayo | Hacker News Reader

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Blackstorm | Engineer | SALARY: $140k - $220k | San Francisco Bay area (SF) | Tokyo, Japan | VISA REMOTE

Blackstorm is building the world's most advanced javascript game engine, among other cool products like an IDE (js.io) We are hiring senior engineers who can tackle architecture and APIs for our game engine on a small team of 3-4 folks. Blackstorm has raised more then $30M, and we have more than a million users per engineer at the company.

For flavor: our last project was to use redux as a server state timeline for 10M+ active players; before that we used code mods to port it from our propriety module and class system to es6. There are numerous projects coming up, such as first class typescript support to facilitate better tooling and API documentation, a facial tracking/AR engine, and a react-powered webgl-based UI system.

We have projects for hosted real-time multiplayer gaming, social gaming, cross-compilation to native platforms, and many other core infrastructure tools that we would welcome your support on defining and creating.

Our technologies engine have already been in front of tens of millions of users, and we're adding millions of new users monthly. This is a high leverage position, and very senior. We welcome remote for certain folks, because we're looking to build the best small engineering team in the world.

We are also actively looking for folks across range of leadership roles in product, engineering, and operations.

Please email keela@blackstormlabs.com

Subject: Blackstorm Engineering: YOUR NAME HERE

Please include a personal note about your background and interests so we can prioritize your application!

This is bullshit.

I interviewed with you guys (when your name/site was weeby.co). You can rebrand yourself, it won't help with your image.

Don't waste your time interviewing there-- they claim $140k-$220k but dished out a completely shitty offer ($120k).

Wasted hours of my time when I made my requirements very clear to begin with. What a fucking joke, it was insulting.

To make it worse, they have awful responsiveness and they done a great number of interviews (one on-site, many with people on Skype). They also wanted me to go onsite for a "game jam" all day/night but I denied it.

edit:

I should note, when I pushed them on this they responded with a very convoluted explanation of their "salary".

It was something along the lines of, "Your salary begins at 120k, but each year you can decide between XX cash bonus or YY% raise, and after N years your salary _could_ be 140-220k".

What a bunch of bullshit-- Avoid them like the plague.

I knew they were trouble when I entered the office in the morning and everyone was there from the night before...

Hi throwaway212838,

First, that sounds pretty bad — honestly I’m sorry. It’s good to hear direct feedback, as we obviously want to do better than this outcome right here.

On salary: We previously had a program where we gave significant monthly raises in effort to drive fair and aggressive compensation in an ongoing basis. The goal was to pay more, not less, by forcing a review and adjustment on a regular cadence. However, we decommissioned that system in favor of standard offers because we struggled for a lot of reasons you pointed out about complexity. Based on a few debriefing conversations with candidates, we learned and changed to a bog standard system; now all offers are in the range listed (or higher.)

Our interview process can be involved when we’re hiring for key roles; at minimum we require a discussion with 4-5 folks, which can take 2-3 weeks. Generally the process is that you send us an email, and we try to get you on the phone with the best hiring manager for the role. We often request a 3-hr work assignment, a couple of Skype calls, then move to an onsite if that makes sense for all involved.

I can see how you’d be bummed spending the time without the expected outcome. We’ve taken a lot of risks and made plenty of mistakes building this company, but we try to adapt and improve pretty quickly. The important thing is that we try to assemble a team of honest people with big ambitions and a lot of talent… and in broad strokes we’ve accomplished that. It’s led us to an enviable market position with some awesome technologies and unique challenges. If you’re curious, we were at Facebook's F8 two weeks ago on stage talking about specific innovations at Blackstorm: http://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/65620/blackstorm-labs-o...

If you’re willing to have a quick discussion about this by following up with me over email (carter@blackstormlabs.com) I can do my best to listen carefully, and try to return the favor if you ever want advice on something I know well, like fundraising, engineering careers, or network programming.

-Michael Carter CEO Blackstorm

> On salary: We previously had a program where we gave significant monthly raises in effort to drive fair and aggressive compensation in an ongoing basis. The goal was to pay more, not less, by forcing a review and adjustment on a regular cadence. However, we decommissioned that system in favor of standard offers because we struggled for a lot of reasons you pointed out about complexity. Based on a few debriefing conversations with candidates, we learned and changed to a bog standard system; now all offers are in the range listed (or higher.)

To be honest, this is a pretty bad answer to his claim. If you advertise 140 minimum, don't offer 120. This is unethical, you should edit your posting.

I believe the original commenter was referring to a previous compensation structure which was over specified almost to a fault before we changed it. We were quite public with how it worked, so you can read about it here: https://www.cnet.com/news/silicon-valley-talent-wars-enginee...

From the article: "New hires get a base salary commensurate with their experience -- at least $100,000, and more than they were previously paid. They join with the promise, if they perform well, of automatic $10,000 monthly bumps until they hit $250,000."

We had attempted to find innovative and more fair compensation structures, but we abandoned the effort because those systems were hard to communicate effectively, which I believe is the root of the problem here.

Regardless, if my company advertised something and didn't follow through, I would put myself out there personally to follow up and make it right, as I've done here. I can say with 100% certainty that any offer from this post absolutely standard and falls within the range advertised.

I wouldn't waste the effort. Never even got a rejection email back. Pfft.

What's the interview process?

Generally the process is that you send us an email, and we try to get you on the phone with the best hiring manager for the role. We often request a 3-hr work assignment, a couple of Skype calls, then move to an onsite if that makes sense for all involved.

Usually we can touch base in the first call to get on the same page. We operate a bit differently for management roles, or other key positions. Looking forward to your application if you're interested!

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