Refer a Software Developer. Make $30,000 | Hacker News Reader

Refer a Software Developer. Make $30,000

dev.hubspot.com

9 pointset500018 comments

It's ironic, if they paid that 30K to the developer they wouldn't have a hiring problem in the first place.

It seems like employers are jumping through more and more hoops to avoid paying developers what they're worth.

And its interesting that they don't mention what they would do if a developer self-applies. Presumably, they wouldn't bother giving him the 30k as a 'golden hello' (otherwise if this were their intention they would say so).

The page says:

Please don’t refer yourself (feel free to apply the usual way, though)

But I'd try it anyway. ;-)

Why not get a friend to refer you and split the referral fee down the middle?

You're right, I am blind. Its the very first bullet point too.

We pay very competitively. For example, these past two years we have reviewed compensation twice a year in order to make sure we're paying what they're worth. We based our decisions on multiple salary surveys and our own offers based on new college graduates and competitors counter-offers.

Please don’t refer yourself (feel free to apply the usual way, though)

This immediately signals to me that I wouldn't want to work there. Every other scheme like this that I have seen (admittedly, not many) allow you to apply independently and if successful, receive the referral commission as a bonus.

One of my earlier employers exhaustively tried many of these strategies including generous referrals. Ultimately it came down to just a numbers game. Pay a reputable tech-recruiter for resumes, hit the grind, and you'll find some diamonds in the rough. If you have 30k budget to offer tempting bonuses, you should just hire a recruiter.

Tech hiring almost has to be approached like the NFL draft. Companies seem fixated on playing the free agency aspect, making lucrative offers to known entities and depending on word of mouth and reputation. Waiting on a 'sure thing' can cripple your business. They'd be better off interviewing and taking more chances on younger unproven commodities out of college without the rockstar resume and ego. A talented young engineer can become senior very quickly.

You are absolutely correct. It's a numbers game and we're doing everything to tilt to our advantage. We don't use external recruiters for many reasons, but we do have an internal recruiter already. We are also working for the dev community through open source, sponsorships and events. Please check out http://github.hubspot.com/

I totally agree with a talented young engineer becoming senior quickly. This summer we have 12 interns/co-ops and we have hired several from co-ops into full time positions already.

This is a signal that you're either paying under the market rate or your interview process is broken (or company culture is broken).

This seems horribly broken.

I do realize that recruiting fees for a dev may approach this amount, but HubSpot has to have a high enough profile to better attract talent than this.

What incentives are they giving people to apply directly? Why not hang a 30k bonus out there after you successfully complete six months as a dev? It's not like you couldn't hack this process anyway, unless that's what they're trying to encourage.

The sad part is that recruiters on the east coast are like rabid vermin, a plague upon the development community, which are only encouraged and emboldened by such postings. Please, give me the 30k, tell them to piss off. Want me to consider you? Hold events such that I would find out about/want to join your company. Tell me what sorts of challenging problems have you solved recently? What problems do you have now? Honestly, how much technical debt do you have? What will I be free to do?

If your developers aren't active in the tech scene locally or in enough diverse groups to have a constant flow then you're doing it wrong.

Wow. It used to be 10k for referring. I knew their turnover rate in Dev was pretty astronomical, but I didn't realize it was this bad.

Actually, our turnover is very low. We have a team of 53 engineers and over 40 are less than two years old in the company. Only 2 engineers have left in the past year pursuing different options. A few others hired in the past two years that left because of performance issues, but very small. I can tell you more if you are interested.

The original title of the page is "Refer a Software Developer. Make $30,000!" and seems to be for hiring developers in Boston and Dublin (Ireland).

I wonder if they selected Dublin as their EU base as some sort of strategy to minimize their tax exposure, as they would have more developers available to choose from in one of the more populous EU countries.

Ireland is in a recession so they are leveraging English speaking grads from a good uni and the Irish diaspora who might want to return home. Dublin also doesn't have to compete with the City for IT people in the same way London does

There is also the tax dodge aspect which it looks like the wheels are coming off in a big way.

Other EU countries would have language barrier. Also IT salaries in UK, France and Germany are actually higher compared to Ireland.

Ha! That's a year's income for me!

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