Ask HN: How much do you make at a startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much do you make at a startup?

87 pointsstartupsalaries17 comments

I recently joined an early-stage startup and while I feel like I come out of negotiations with a fair compensation package, I was sorely disappointed by the lack of public information on how much startup employees can expect to make. While there was some information (e.g., the Andreesen Horowitz salary leak), most of it was outdated, incomplete, or not clearly from a reliable source.

In an effort to make this more transparent for others in a similar situation, I’m hoping to collect and publicize compensation details from current startup employees. If you currently work at a startup, please fill out the attached form in as much detail as you can and feel comfortable with. Note that while the questions are somewhat targeted at US-based employees because that’s what I’m most familiar with, this information should be equally valuable for other locations and I encourage those working elsewhere to fill out the form and suggest changes/questions that would make this information more relevant for you.

The responses to this form are available at the second link, and please feel free to comment with suggestions of other questions to add!

Survey: https://forms.gle/imnTvSV35UjY5EC28

Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZX_bcVE9bbuFbz20N4fMbFYVgltxsVeFpQ7gXlJpBrI/edit?usp=sharing

The developer at timestamp "10/21/2019 10:24:14" with 10 years of experience making $85,000 in the US with 0 equity, can you please explain yours situation? ;)

To be honest, "10 years of experience" in this industry means nothing.

I have worked with (and interviewed) A LOT of devs with 10-15 years of experience who can't do a basic fizz-buzz (I'm exaggerating, of course, but really, really weak devs who due to whatever reason didn't bother to improve their skills past what they learned in school in 1980s).

Even $60,000 can be acceptable for a dev with "15 years of experience", if his skills are worth $60,000.

That's so true. Diploma, years of experience, experience itself doesn't mean anything. I've interviewed a lot of people who came to interview with a pile of of diplomas and recommendations and were quite weak and hired people without prestigious education and extensive experience who produced amazing results.

People tend to collect toys like diplomas, certificates, etc... I'd probably be downvoted, but imo correlation between actual skills and those toys is getting weaker lately.

to be honest, I think this has more to do with the way a lot of companies interview. I was probably a much stronger interviewee immediately after graduating college than I am now after having worked in the field for half a decade. I'm a much more skilled developer now though. I don't read textbooks in my free time, so if I end up in an interview where they are asking me textbook questions I'm not going to do as well. I had an interview recently for a senior dev role and they were asking me things like, "what are the 4 pillars of OOP?", and I thought to myself, "Off the top of my head, IDK, but it sounds like something I probably learned in school."

edit: I guess you're more so comparing people with degrees vs. those without so my response would better fit under the parent comment. basically all I'm saying is yes, 10 years experience does mean something in this field, but if your interview style isn't picking up on that then your interview process is broken.

Clickable links:

Survey: https://forms.gle/imnTvSV35UjY5EC28

Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZX_bcVE9bbuFbz20N4fM...

It would be great if someone would do some quick data analysis on this.

Older version of salary survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l...

I am never sure, when it's not explicitly stated, so can somebody clarify it for me? These are gross or net annual base salaries? If gross, then what how much taxation is on it usually in the US? (As the majority of responses comes from the US currently)

Most taxation can't be considered because it depends on things unrelated to the job. Income taxes vary according to how many children you have, how much interest you pay on a mortgage, how much money a spouse earns, and many other things. There is no VAT. Sales tax depends on what you buy, with food often being untaxed. There are various taxes for vehicle and property ownership, but again that depends on what you buy.

There are a few taxes that would be subtracted out. The employer part of social security taxes is probably such a tax; this would not normally be considered income in the USA.

Gross. Probably 20-35% effective tax rate combined federal and state. State income taxes vary from state to state.

Does it include 401K?

At Codacy, we have a public salary calculator on our careers page: https://www.codacy.com/careers

As well as a blog post with the detailed process: https://www.codacy.com/blog/open-salary-transparency-culture...

Check it out!

According to your calc An intermediate level engineer in sf makes more than a director level in Europe.

That’s not shocking.

No options for Canadians

This is somewhat related but does anyone know what the market rate for a mid level backend services dev in Seattle is? I’m looking but it’s a little hard to find a range.

Thanks for doing this!

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