Salary Guides

The Importance Of Personality In Hiring Good Engineers

The author was an Engineering Manager at Saama Technologies in 2013 and was under pressure to hire 11 engineers quickly. He interviewed 600 candidates and shortlisted a few, taking into account their personalities and communication skills, as well as their technical abilities. He then worked with his management to create a special budget for salaries and bonuses, and continued to talk to the candidates until they joined the company. The team was a success and the author learned that it is important to never take shortcuts when it comes to hiring, and to consider the environment, culture, and personalities of the company and team when selecting a candidate.

Strategies You can Use to Convince Your Leadership about Promotion and Salary Upgrades

The author faced two challenges in their company: managing eighteen direct reports and working for founders who were not open to spending for salaries. To resolve these issues, the author conducted weekly one-on-ones with their direct reports, identified two engineers as team leaders, and consulted with a 3rd party HR company to come up with a pay scale structure. The key lesson learned was the importance of educating founders on fair compensation and pursuing this cause even if there was push back.

I managed to convince top notch engineers to accept my offer

In a tricky negotiation to hire three rockstar engineers from a failed start-up, the negotiator leveraged different aspects to convince them to accept the offer. These included emphasizing the challenging role and professional growth, showing that the stock value would be higher, putting them in contact with people who had faced a similar situation, and looking for positions for their significant others. The negotiation was successful, and the negotiator learned the importance of listening to the person's concerns and finding ways to show that the company cares about their wellbeing.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

Why I Made My Company’s Compensation More Structured

Pilot has implemented a new compensation process that eliminates negotiation components and rewards employees based on their skills. The company has also taken steps to ensure that employees are not discriminated against based on their location, by benchmarking salaries to the most expensive country they are comfortable hiring in. The key lesson learned is to focus on creating a fair compensation scheme that does not rely on negotiation skills.