Ask HN: Why is the pay rate for these roles at Neuralink so low? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is the pay rate for these roles at Neuralink so low?

4 pointsQuinzel8 comments

I was looking at jobs at Neuralink out of curiosity. Partly because I am actually genuinely interested in what kind of clinical roles they might have. I work in a technical/clinical role, and neurosurgery is one of my key specialties I work in. I suppose it would be like a top dream job to do what I do in for a company like Neuralink that is doing cool new sciencey-stuff… but not for the shitty pay rates I just saw!

I saw the following roles, but they seem to pay so unbelievably poorly:

https://neuralink.com/careers/apply/?gh_jid=5621770003&gh_src=c356a2533us

https://neuralink.com/careers/apply/?gh_jid=5761185003&gh_src=c356a2533us

I’m not from the US so what I was wondering is this the sort of pay rates people in the states get for these kind of jobs? Or is Neuralink just cheapskates?

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Medical residents traditionally earn very little money in the USA. They have to wait to become full doctors.

That’s terrible.

It seems like this actually pays pretty well for a residency, if I'm reading it right. It looks like it's an hourly pay around $45. At a standard 2000 hrs per year that's $90k. However residents are usually working way more hours than that for a salary of around $70k.

Although I could be reading it wrong. The posting is terribly unclear if is an hourly rate or a salary. If it is a salary there is no indication that it is in thousands. If we take it at face value, then it actually would be a salary of just fourth five dollars. That doesn't make sense.

Neuralink also is not listed as having a residency program: https://www.aans.org/Trainees/Residency-Directory

So while I'm not a doctor and could be wrong, isn't that fairly important? Because tacking on the word "Resident" to a job title doesn't make this a residency program.

Good catch. I didn't notice that.

There's no right answer, but do you value a short-term or long-term monetary payoff more?

If you're content playing a long-game and taking a bet that Neuralink is successful as a company, it might be better for a career to spend some time with a well-known company like that and then cashing in with your next role rather than finding a little better pay at an unknown hospital right now and not having any notable career accomplishments for the rest of your career.

Why would you assume that anyone looking at being a neurosurgeon is going to get crap pay at an unknown hospital and never accomplish anything?

Even if they did have a terrible career as a surgeon, they'll still make $500K/year, which is far better than what these positions offer.

> your compensation package will include two major components: salary and equity.

> Meals provided.

Equity and good meals at a startup with deep pockets, vs no equity and cafeteria food at the hospital down the road. Pay's the same.

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