> That dynamic doesn’t reflect who we are as a company, how we interact, how we make decisions, or where we need to go. We believe that in many ways it would set us back, and that the us vs. them binary already has.
What a shameful statement.
Kickstarter has a so-so 3.6 on Glassdoor, and a sub-50% CEO approval rating. A lot of reviews talk about a secretive, insulated management group.
You don’t see companies with 4.5+ stars on Glassdoor unionizing.
So I’d have to ask their leadership: who made this an “us versus them” situation? Perhaps your local superstore sells handheld mirrors.
You don’t want your employees to unionize? Offer highly competitive salaries, benefits, and opportunities to grow. Treat employees like real people you care about and avoid turning the C-level suite into a force of secrecy, discrimination, and exclusion.
or it could be even worse, the “us versus them” has gone to the next level.. its all up-to the mentality of management , if everyone flexes their muscle nothing good can come out of it.
Glassdoor's ratings are not terribly reliable. Here's something I wrote previously about my own experience with using it:
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I left a poor review for an employer only one time in the 10 years or so I've been on Glassdoor (there were only a couple other reviews). And almost immediately after, there were about 20 or 30 5 star reviews posted in a short amount of time. The company only had about that many employees, which proves that the CEO (or someone at the top) either told everyone to write a good review, or some of them were fake, both clearly 'incentivized' by any sane definition of the term. I reported this to Glassdoor and they refused to do anything about it, and I even had the report escalated and re-reviewed, without any effect.
One of my past employers did something like this. We had some negative reviews from job candidates that weren't hired. At an all hands our CEO encouraged everyone to leave honest feedback on Glassdoor. A lot of employees did, bumping our score up. It wasn't dishonest or misleading, all of the reviews were real.
Reviews are supposed to be from people who worked at the company, so if they were from rejected candidates they are fake reviews. If the company wouldn't remove the fake reviews, that further proves my point that the Glassdoor ratings are not reliable.
Sometimes I wonder if in some instances a low approval rating is endogenous to the company's employee makeup. I work in the HE sector and I can tell you that the lowest levels of student satisfaction comes from departments or disciplines comprising of mostly people complaining about society, yadayadyada
Every time I see this statement, I can't help it but wonder why people don't put some estimate what constitutes "highly competitive".
FAANG just shoot everybody expectation to the roof and non-FAANG is having hard time to compete in salary (sure, there are some exception but they are exceptions).
From the workers' perspective, why should we care exactly? That sounds like a you problem.
If you aren't able to pay your workers, I'm not sure why you think you shouldn't just go out of business. People aren't obligated to work for substandard wages so you can get rich.
I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so that the playing field is fairer to entrepreneurs and small business owners. But taking it out on workers isn't the answer.
I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers.
We're talking about 85k vs 200k for junior engineers here and probably 150k vs 500k for senior engineers.
Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die?
> I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so that the playing field is fairer to entrepreneurs and small business owners.
The NBA tried to level small market vs big market. UEFA tried with FFP. So far the result has been... _meh_
> I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers.
If the lower amount is reasonable and people are willing to work for it, then there isn't a problem. But you said, "FAANG just shoot everybody expectation to the roof and non-FAANG is having hard time to compete in salary (sure, there are some exception but they are exceptions)." So it sounds like you think people aren't willing to work for the lower wage.
Given the numbers you're proposing, I think you may have a wrong impression about what engineers are being paid, both inside and outside of FAANG.
The salaries you're quoting might be true for the bay area, but that's because of the absurd cost of living there. Those numbers are certainly not accurate for the entire US or for the world. FAANG workers are paid that in the bay area, because that's what their skillsets are worth when you adjust for the bay area's cost of living. And if you make the decision to put your startup in the bay area, it's completely unreasonable of you to expect your highly-skilled workers to live in slums because you couldn't locate your business in a place where you can pay to support the cost of living. Maybe that means your startup fails, but that's on you: you're the one who came up with that crappy business plan, and it's not up to workers to prop up your crappy business plan by working for substandard wages.
> Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die?
Ugh. Don't ignore half of what I said. If a business can't pay their workers the business should die, yes. But there are a lot of small businesses that seem capable of paying their workers, so I'm not sure why you think this is an undue burden, and I'm certainly not saying that those small businesses should die.
Again, why do you think that workers should prop up your insolvent business by accepting substandard pay? Pay fair wages or GTFO.
Whatever unfairness you think exists in competition between small and large businesses, exists tenfold between employees and employers. If small businesses are underprivileged, crapping on workers who are even more underprivileged is not the solution to that problem.
Austin, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, (and maybe London UK) branches of FAANG pays 2-3x from the top-10% market average in that area.
SDE1 @ Amazon Vancouver get at least 160-180k (CAD).
SDE3 @ Tableau Vancouver can hit $300k-$350k (CAD).
SDE3 @ Amazon Seattle can get paid 400-500k (USD).
I don't know how much Google Singapore, Zurich, and China pay compare to the market. I heard Alibaba pays $200k USD (if you're OK with 996) for Soft Eng (not in management).
All I said was that "competitive salary" is loosely defined because once FAANG landed in a specific location, they will absolutely "crushed" your notion of competitive salary.
This is the reason why I find the notion of "competitive salary" is interesting (and a bit funny). Employees will demand "competitive salary" and when we asked them, they will point out to the maximum TC that they can find in their area. That's not "competitive" salary. That's "I want to get paid the max".
Of course... it wouldn't be sexy to say "pay us fairly" since that equates to "market average".
If they can't afford the price of labor why should the business continue to exist? If the going rate for a plumber is $100 an hour, why should I be surprised if I get no responses when I'm only willing to pay $40?
And? My point remains: why should software developers willingly work for less pay? People aren't entitled to have software developers work on their projects. If companies not willing to pay the going rate for software development, then why are they surprised when they can't find workers?
> Is it what everybody else is paying you or FAANG level?
It depends on a variety of factors like domain and location. But if you're not finding developers, then its higher than whatever you're offering. And if it's in major tech metros (SV, Seattle + Eastside) it's close to FAANG levels.
> But if you're not finding developers, then its higher than whatever you're offering. And if it's in major tech metros (SV, Seattle + Eastside) it's close to FAANG levels.
This is not entirely true. People aren't finding developers because most of them failed the interview (unless you are digital agencies).
In major tech metros, nobody pay close to FAANG levels. Either you pay at FAANG levels (and they compete at that level) or you go down one-tier (Pinterest, Airbnb, etc) or you're the rest.
> In major tech metros, nobody pay close to FAANG levels. Either you pay at FAANG levels (and they compete at that level) or you go down one-tier (Pinterest, Airbnb, etc) or you're the rest.
Contrast this with your original comment in this chain:
> FAANG just shoot everybody expectation to the roof and non-FAANG is having hard time to compete in salary (sure, there are some exception but they are exceptions).
If what you say is true, that most companies don't pay close to FAANG levels, then why are non-FAANG companies having a hard time to compete?
Unemployment in software is near zero. You insist that few companies are paying close to FAANG levels, yet at the same time say that non-FAANG companies are having trouble attracting talent. If a company is having a hard time attracting talent at their current compensation levels, then this indicates that their current compensation levels are not competitive (assuming other factors are the same).
Ultimately, the price of labor is whatever people are willing to pay. If workers can get better pay for the same work elsewhere, then the company is going to have trouble staffing - and that's natural.
> that most companies don't pay close to FAANG levels, then why are non-FAANG companies having a hard time to compete?
Hard time to hire engineers according to their bar. Their bar is high (FAANG level) but they don't pay FAANG level so this is interesting => They don't want to lower the bar (rightfully so) and nobody wants to be perceived as "FAANG" reject.
> You insist that few companies are paying close to FAANG levels
Few? I'd say they're "exceptions" (like Uber... for a while before they laid people off) and the rest aren't even close.
What a shameful statement.
Kickstarter has a so-so 3.6 on Glassdoor, and a sub-50% CEO approval rating. A lot of reviews talk about a secretive, insulated management group.
You don’t see companies with 4.5+ stars on Glassdoor unionizing.
So I’d have to ask their leadership: who made this an “us versus them” situation? Perhaps your local superstore sells handheld mirrors.
You don’t want your employees to unionize? Offer highly competitive salaries, benefits, and opportunities to grow. Treat employees like real people you care about and avoid turning the C-level suite into a force of secrecy, discrimination, and exclusion.