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Comment by tweednose | Hacker News Reader

What a joke. Work overtime on top of my job for $25/hr and no benefits?

Fact is the companies that are the most open on HN about compensation pay the least (like Gitlab and Buffer).

My theory is that instead of paying more they simply cast a wide net via hiring. If the net's large enough you'll find enough people willing to be paid low rates.

You know who doesn't talk about salary? Companies that pay well and hire devs who know what they're worth.

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I don’t want folks to get too hung up on the 25/hr number, it’s not meant to be a negotiation or imply a salary — in fact it’s identical for every role at the company, whether you’re doing a trial project in support, engineering, or to be our new CFO. At the time when we introduced it other companies were having candidates invest a lot of time to get hired with zero compensation, which didn’t seem fair and we wanted to shift that. You can also compare 10-20 hours of a remote trial to the time spent flying to and from a city, being there for a day, and doing lots of on-site work and interviews.

I like it, especially that you have that as the trial salary for all positions (seems like a good shared experience).

If someone is optimizing to maximize a few weeks of trial pay, probably not the best fit.

Also, keep in mind that $25/hour is almost double the median wage of the USA. The software world is a bubble right now. By all means, I advocate to take advantage of that and save up, but don't get angry when a company's wages aren't 10x that of a non-software role. Sure, you can make a lot more money going to a company that earns a lot of money (generally via exploitation of unfair intellectual monopoly laws) while creating little surplus value for the world, or you can join a company like Wordpress that creates far more value for the world than they capture.

I’ve been a software developer since 1999. (before then I was a half developer/half operator for 3 years while going to graduate school). I have never made less than $25 hour.

So if there is a “bubble” it’s been going for two decades for me - and this is in Atlanta.

Thanks for the data point. I also have been a programmer since 2008 or so and don’t think I’ve ever made that either. But I also have done a lot of unpaid programming interviews and/or take home assignments. And also generally have worked at places with strict Intellectual Monopoly assignment agreements. So that’s why I think this particular offer isn’t so bad.

$45K was the average going salary in 1999 for 2-3 years of experience in Atlanta as your bog standard corporate developer. The average salary for a college graduate now is $50K (https://www.thebalance.com/college-graduate-salaries-expecta...)

50k seems really low for new grads today even in Atlanta.

I conflated two numbers. Everyone was mentioning that $25 is twice the average wage in America (which is a little off). If you use what I feel is a more accurate baseline - the average wage of a college grad in any area across the country. $50K is a better number.

So it's OK to ask developers to sacrifice 1-3 months of their time working without benefits for at least 50% less than what they would normally be getting paid at any other company simply because $25/hr is more than the median wage in the US? I'm simply surprised that anyone worth their salt would submit to such a lopsided transaction! Good on Automattic for taking advantage of the situation, though?

Money is what you capture, value is what you create.

A lot of people are willing to take a pay cut to create more value for the world. It's too bad that things are so out of whack, but in tech right now, those 2 things are very uncorrelated (the prime reason from the data I've seen is unjust intellectual monopoly laws).

If you are a YOUNG developer, I would say go take the money! Good times won't last. If you are instead more concerned about what value you are creating for the world, there are a some well known great places to work (WordPress, Wikipedia, Mozilla come to mind but there are many many more often in research, government, or academia).

He said don't get hung up on it.

> keep in mind that $25/hour is almost double the median wage of the USA. The software world is a bubble right now.

That's not the correct comparison. The median full-time wage in the US is closer to $50,000 (~$47k-$54k depending on what adjustments you're using). The median software developer salary is around $107,000 +/-.

The median wage overall includes part-time labor for example and people working very few hours. That considerably lowers the number versus what developers would expect to see, given the extremely low unemployment rate for tech workers (they overwhelmingly tend to work full-time jobs).

That's quite the screening though, isn't it? "Must be willing and able to take a 2-3 month salary loss"

I suppose it works out well for you, you will get only those that really want to work at Automattic and are willing do sacrifice for a chance, since they risk running a substantial loss if they aren't offered a position after doing a three month try-out. That is, for all areas where $25/hr is hard to impossible to live off of, especially for people with children, you end up either with those that are set up by previous engagements or are true believers.

I haven't met a colleague at Automattic who quit a job for the trial. And, for what it's worth, my (anecdotal) gut feeling tells me that we have quite a few people with dependents -- kids, sick parents -- apply, work, and succeed here.

Work is mostly asynchronous. Not sure if that came through properly. If you have about 90 minutes time every evening you can go through the trial within a month.

Is there pressure to work more than that while clocking 20 or less? I imagine overachievers could distort your expectations of how much gets done in 20 hours.

As far as I know the hours are just a rough guideline, and then also used for billing. When I did my trial it was OK to do more or less, depending on what worked for me.

In the end, the trial’s outcome is more determined by results — what you did and how you did it.

How am I creating “value” for the world by allowing a for profit company to take advantage of me?

I’m creating value for Automattic.

Salary is not the end-all, be-all for everyone. Some people will gladly exchange a significant amount of salary to work somewhere that has a good and healthy culture, whose end-product aligns with their own moral, ethical, or other principles, and/or just provides them some other kind of intangible benefit.

For the record, however, a lot of lousy paying companies also don't share their salaries here, so I don't quite know what actual point you're making because your conclusion does not follow from your assertion, which itself is also false.

That's assuming Automatic really is a great place to work.

Why would anyone believe that Automatic is such a great place to work if they value the time of their candidates so little? If they think it's fine to throw an extra 10 hours/week of work at candidates for little to no pay, how will they treat you once you're salaried?

They may think that this is the one true hiring system, but it's seriously weird.

Other companies have figured out how to hire people without this nonsense. Imagine if this was the standard in the industry. Some company would have the brilliant idea of hiring people without a 2 month trial period and write a breathless blog post about how they're so cool that they hire people based on interviews alone!

HN would go nuts over this forward thinking company that treats its candidates so much better.

I don’t think that companies in general have really figured out hiring. I liked the trial at Automattic much more than whiteboard coding and theoretical architectural discussions.

And it also helped me find out whether I would like to work there — it’s a trial in both directions, really. For the applicant it’s a much better way to figure out whether they like the company and its people than, say, things a recruiter tells you on the phone.

I can’t find the study right now, but there was one that evaluated predictors of job performance and found that only work samples and general cognitive ability were really usable and reliable measures.

Isn't the purpose of the trial so that you can figure that out? It beats on-site full day unpaid demo work, gives you a task and allows you to work remotely with a team around the world for a wage outside of working hours. Seems pretty straightforward to me. It avoids a lot of risk / heartburn on all sides to figure out early if the (relatively novel remote work culture there) is going to work out.

I don’t work there, but have a few friends who do, and they have all said it’s a great company to work for and the compensation is good.

> if they value the time of their candidates so little?

Get out of the bubble anonCow. $25/hour is nearly double the USA median wage, for a trial position.

Here's a dirty little secret for you: the only reason software developers are making unnaturally high amounts relative to everyone else is because of unjust intellectual monopoly laws.

You know who else doesn't talk about salary? Companies that try to get the cheapest of everything (salary usually labelled 'competitive'). I think those are more common that yours.

Let's think about it in terms of expected return on investment.

For full disclosure: I am an Automattic employee and love working remotely on the side so much that I devote my private time to promoting it [ https://www.quora.com/How-is-life-as-a-web-developer-who-wor... ]. Opinions here are my own. The way I see it (and this is my private opinion), Automattic can successfully pull off what it does, because we really filter people who are self-driven and NOT motivated by money.

If you want more $$$, Google or Facebook is definitely your best bet. But in Google or Facebook, your role will be tightly defined. In Automattic you have LOADS of freedom and flexibility to try to have a positive impact. We sometimes succeed, sometimes need to work on something else, but the work tends to be very fulfilling.

Now, back to the money topic. My salary went up about 6x after joining A8C (yes, that is 600%). Part of this is of course due to the fact that I live in Poland.

- I can travel the world without needing more vacation time,

- I have company off-sites in Disneyland, Athens or wherever it may be.

- I can visit my grandpa during the workday because I don't have to sit in an office all day or move to Silicon Valley.

- NOT EVEN ONCE was I pushed to do overtime in Automattic. I did it because I got myself into way to many projects, but I have multiple coworkers that do not go over 40 hr/week

I promised you expected return on investment formula. My calculation went like this:

- My quality of life will go about 80% up for the number of years ( I just clocked in 4 years at Automattic, so lets use that number )

- To achieve that, my quality of life will go down 40% over 2 months, because of the trial

- I have the confidence of about 50% that I can make it.

You do the math.

I learned that to achieve better results that everybody else, you just need to do a little more upront work. People tend to not do that. The funny part is that after you do that upront work you are usually in a place where you have to work less than everybody else.

>> I learned that to achieve better results that everybody else, you just need to do a little more upront work. People tend to not do that. The funny part is that after you do that upront work you are usually in a place where you have to work less than everybody else.

I think what you and Matt are missing here is the case where things don't work out. What if Wordpress decides after the trial that I am not a good fit? What if I decide that I don't like the job? What happens to the 3 months I spent working for less? How many under-payed jobs in your mind should an engineer do before the "math" stops working?

If you don't like the deal, just don't do it. If Automattic ends up being unable to hire the developers they want, they'll change. Seriously, I don't get people complaining about this. There's no way I'd do the Automattic trial myself, but if others do, and the system works for Automattic, why should I care?

>> why should I care?

Because we all have the responsibility to improve the working conditions in the software industry? I love this field too mu ch to leave it up to "markets will figure it out".

Did you see that he included the numbers to answer your questions in his comment? An 80% gain in annual job utility, lasting four years, with a 50% chance to achieve the gain for each two month period during which he experiences a 60% utility lost. Using those numbers, it would be worth doing at least a few of these trials and it would be very unlikely to have to do more than that (especially if his skill is increasing during the trial periods.)

When I applied to work there, I was making $21/hour, Canadian, for similar work. $25USD per hour works out to around $32CAD, so it was well worth it for me.

Exactly, it is really low-balling the candidates. In some countries it is common practice to have something like a 90 day contract period, and after 90 days if all is well and good, roll over to a full-time contract (longer contract periods roll over by law in some countries). We can really take good advantage of this!

I think the industry is pretty sick with all these interviews, tests, "trials" etc. Wasting both company's and candidate's time. Let's do it the old-fashioned way. 1) Likeability of the person 2) seems knowledgeable to do the job 3) start work next week, with full pay (or why not 80%?) and we'll see how it works out.

I did the Automattic trial and have been a very very satisfied employee of the company for 4 years now so I may be a little biased. I understand it is not for everyone.

The trial is very very accommodating to whatever life situation you are in. I was young and obsessed with the startup I was working for so I was working 60-70 hour weeks (I do not do this at Automattic). I also had a pre-planned 3-week long vacation during this time when I couldn't go online or do the trial, so I had to start my trial later. And then I had an unexpected health issue. Automattic accommodated all of this.

I am from one of those countries where they have a 3-month long probation period. It is not something to aspire to. You need to quit your job to start a new job you don't know much about where you can be let go anytime.

For many of us, the fact that you get to see what your day-to-day would look like, what the company culture is really like, and what kind of people you'd be working with - without having to make a huge commitment - is invaluable. I am not sure I would've left my previous job where I was really happy if I wasn't 100% certain that Automattic was a good fit for me. And I wouldn't have been able to gauge that if I had not done a trial.

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