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Comment by atopuzov | Hacker News Reader

Have you tried offering other things? Like work from home, work remotely, more interesting work, various education ranging from various courses, conferences up to paid tuition at an university (and then actually giving people the time to do it)?. And please don't say you have snacks, have better working environments not snacks.

As a startup you mostly expect people to work 10+h a day.

It's not always about the money, but if all other things are equal, yeah everybody is gonna take the higher payed position.

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I can do about twice as much work if I work 'fewer' hours. Actually it's not about the number of hours, but the expectation that I should be working at some time or for some number of hours. My best work happens in spurts of a few hours a day, or less frequently, a binge of 20 hours over a 2-3 days (after which I need to take a step back). So a company who can offer me this kind of flexibility, to work when and how I work best, could pay me half the BigCorp compensation and get more and better work out of me.

This. Unless I am figuratively on fire and flying through work, somewhere around the 4-6 hour mark I hit a slowdown patch and my quality/concentration goes through the floor.

I do six days of 4-6s for my current position and feel as effective as any of my co-workers, if not more-so.

> Have you tried offering other things?

as much as employers don't want to pay you more wages, they seem even _less_ inclined to offer anything that isn't wages.

respect? pfff. sooner get another 4% out of most employers.

install some sound dampening anything to make the working environment nicer? madness, instead the marketing folks will pick some new colors for the walls.

fire the toxic asshole who fucks up all the projects? whoa, that toxic asshole is critical to completing every project going at the moment; they'd sooner let mr polite&courteous go.

I've yet to find an employer that would give me more PTO instead of a pay raise. They'd rather pay an extra 10k between a pay raise and corresponding 401k matching increase, but they won't even consider giving me 5 extra vacation days so I'll have the time to enjoy stuff with the money I already have.

As a founder who is soon to start competing in the hiring market, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but there seems to be a huge arbitrage opportunity here available to smart startups.

Innovating on tired working practices (that most founders themselves would not enjoy in the least) offers an avenue to out-compete large companies for engineers while paying less cash and making your employees happier, more effective, and more loyal.

Please note, I'm not trying to say that startups should underpay employees, but financial reality for most founders does not allow for competing with the giants on salary (or even coming close). Since equity is now viewed dubiously by many, startups need to look for other things they can offer in lieu of 300k/yr that candidates will truly value. Things like flexible schedules (remote or partly remote), generous PTO, and good working conditions are often viewed by engineers as literally priceless. And for good reason. What's the point of tons of cash if you have no free time to spend it and your days consist of stress and drudgery? Sufficient wealth is a necessary component for quality of life, but beyond a certain baseline, other factors become more important.

Note: if you want to work on fun security, encryption, devops, and ux challenges, and enjoy your life at the same time, and R.intersection(["FP", "TypeScript", "Security", "Kubernetes", "Go", "Rails"], YOUR_SKILLS).length >= 2-or-3, and you can do 2-3 days per week onsite in SF (with some flexibility for remote stints) please send me a résumé: dane [at] envkey.com

> equity is now viewed dubiously by many

This could be merely viewing it with the correct amount of doubt, as the trend has been toward less information asymmetry between founders/employers and candidates/employees.

The small size of employee option pools (which then get diluted) doesn't help, either. I can't remember where/when I read it, but I believe YC is pushing to change that.

Agreed, I keep trying to go the opposite of "three times as much pay for twice as much work". I want half as much pay for 60% as much work. Zero companies are interested in that, which is why I work freelance right now.

Believe it or not, I got reverse catfished by a faceless global megacorp, during the hiring process. I interviewed with half real people, half Skype interviews, and it turned out all my co-workers were the ones on Skype.

It never entered my mind that they would do something like that to me. They certainly didn’t tell me it would be that way. Being on the other end of a nonstop video chat is like living a lie somewhere inbetween telemarketer and infomercial goon.

As a developer, I could not code with a constant video feed of remote assholes chiming in for more bullshit. I quit in a matter of weeks, and I’d do it again, the same thing, every time.

Jesus, this is too real. I'm experiencing this 100% right now.

" various education ranging from various courses, conferences up to paid tuition at an university (and then actually giving people the time to do it)"

If you can afford that, you can afford more money for salaries.

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