Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

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> I imagine it must be a bit like what working with minicomputers in 70s thru the 90s was like.

I had a chance to talk to someone who worked at Oxide once. I got excited because my experience matches up nicely with their products on several levels.

The person got excited as well and started talking about how to interview there, but the conversation got kind of weird. They kept emphasizing how important it was to not talk about compensation in the interview. Apparently they pay engineers all the same comp (not bad, but would have been a significant step down from every offer I received during that time of my life) and they select for people who aren't interested in getting paid a lot for their unique skills.

Probably not a bad deal for people who like working in that domain with like minded people. At the time I got some very uneasy feelings from being aggressively coached to not bring up compensation or ask any questions about equity during the interview like it was some unspoken rule that would get me disqualified. Maybe the person was exaggerating, but I found at least one other person with a similar story.

Honestly, their comp would have been awesome if I was a single guy living in a low cost of living location and working remote, but at the time it would have meant giving up quite a bit to work for an early stage startup with high expectations and an unspoken rule that I should never ask about compensation.

This conversation strikes me as unlikely on several levels. First, no one would have coached you on "how to interview at Oxide" because that's not where the process starts -- it starts with you preparing your materials.[0] (Our review of the materials constitutes ~95% of our process.) Second, we have always been very explicit about compensation (that is, we ourselves brought it up early in conversations); no one at Oxide would tell you to "not bring it up" because everyone at Oxide knows that it is a subject dealt with early in the process. And finally, this is all assuming that you were talking to someone before March 2021, when we published our blog post on it.[1] After the blog post, compensation simply doesn't come up: everyone has seen it -- and indeed, our approach to compensation is part of what attracted them to the company!

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xtofg-fMQfZoq8Y3oSAKjEgD...

[1] https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-...

The person to whom you are replying clearly meant (IMO) that you shouldn’t ask for more compensation or you will make people act defensive. Frankly, your reply reads a little defensive so maybe that’s not awful advice?

It also seems like this was a spontaneous initial conversation and not part of the process, so I’m not sure why you are suggesting that they made it up.

I didn't realize there are two ways of looking at it until your comment. It didn't occur to me that if you randomly have Oxide on a list of 40 other companies to apply to, and you expect to talk to them about compensation as you would with most others, you're going to have a weird time because they have an uncommon policy.

But on the other hand, Oxide is very up-front about it, and their CTO is happy to go on HN and chat about it. So not knowing about it makes you look like you didn't do your research before the interview, or knowing about it and trying to force the issue anyways makes you look kind of arrogant (if you don't agree with it, you can just not apply).

> It also seems like this was a spontaneous initial conversation and not part of the process, so I’m not sure why you are suggesting that they made it up.

Yes, it was an initial conversation as I said. When I asked about equity compensation I was told that compensation discussions are to be avoided because bringing it up could be considered a negative by the company.

Hey Bryan, I enjoyed reading the cash compensation article, but I'm curious about how it meshes with your equity compensation? Is it awarded purely on when people joined? Does everyone who wasn't a founder get the same amount? It feels like you could run into much of the same problems the article points out about transparency and so on if the equity component isn't as straight-forward?

speaking as someone who dropped on the first round: for the nobodies like me, they say equity is based on time joining. it was early 2021 i think and amount already published on the job or mentioned pretty early (don't really recall)... and it was brutally low considering the pay cut. maybe they keep it to negotiate the somebodys.

> First, no one would have coached you on "how to interview at Oxide" because that's not where the process starts

I was using “interview” as a generic term for applying to a company, not literally referring to your internal process.

I didn’t interview with or even pursue Oxide after the conversation (and never said I did)

This all came up because I asked the person what the equity compensation was like. Not an unreasonable question when talking about a startup. That’s when they started advising me that I shouldn’t bring it up and it’s not something they talk about. After that I got uncomfortable about pursuing a company that discourages any conversation about compensation to the extent that someone felt necessary to warn me about it when I hadn’t even applied.

> no one at Oxide would tell you to "not bring it up" because everyone at Oxide knows that it is a subject dealt with early in the process.

They were trying to tell me that it was important that I avoid giving the impression that I cared about compensation, as that would be a negative if I talked to anyone else at the company. Just repeating what I was told.

> And finally, this is all assuming that you were talking to someone before March 2021, when we published our blog post on it.[1]

No, they told me to look up the blog post, but I had not read the company blog before taking to this person.

> After the blog post, compensation simply doesn't come up: everyone has seen it -- and indeed, our approach to compensation is part of what attracted them to the company!

Or maybe your approach to compensation is what filters people out of the application pipeline? I don’t think it’s realistic to think that this compensation strategy is what attracts people to the company rather than pre-selecting people out.

I read the blog post, but I feel like I’m missing the equity portion of the conversation still.

Regardless, is it so hard to believe that compensation “simply doesn’t come up” because potential candidates (like me) are sometimes coached to not bring it up? Or that the company’s stance appears to discourage bringing it up? This feels like some circular logic: Nobody brings it up because we discourage people from bringing it up.

It definitely wouldn't be viewed as a negative to talk about it, and in fact our transparency on this topic makes it very easy to talk about directly. So we absolutely don't discourage talking about it -- but it's also true that people for whom the compensation is going to make Oxide impossible do self-select out. And that's okay! People have different needs at different stages of their career, and there are different things that they want; there is nothing wrong with optimizing for compensation -- but it's also true that Oxide is very unlikely to be a fit for someone optimizing for compensation, for many reasons.

> People have different needs at different stages of their career, and there are different things that they want; there is nothing wrong with optimizing for compensation -- but it's also true that Oxide is very unlikely to be a fit for someone optimizing for compensation, for many reasons.

I think you are missing that there are other reasons to avoid Oxide that doesn't have to do with optimizing for compensation. They may very well be optimizing for something else, but compensation is still a data point and while they may take less money, maybe not too much less.

Oh, there are definitely many reasons to not work at Oxide -- not least that it's hard, grueling work! (Indeed, part of our process is getting candidates sufficiently understanding what the work actually entails to allow them to make a decision for themselves.)

> Apparently they pay engineers all the same comp

Yes, that is a sad point. I love Oxide and everything about them. It is the only company in Silicon Valley that I'm honestly kid-like excited about (I fake the "passion" for others but don't feel it). My partner is probably tired of hearing me drool about this one company I wish I could work for...

But with a family to support, it's never going to happen. The pay cut would be brutal, so I never apply. If I ever become an independently wealthy multimillionaire, the first thing I'll do it apply to Oxide. As long as I need a paycheck, it's impossible.

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