Compensation in 2019 – new grad tech offers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/tech-offers <comment><USER5> I don't know why I ever bother reading things like this. On one hand, I'm not driven by money, so it doesn't motivate me. On the other, my perspective of having been in software for about 4-8 years depending on how you count, and struggling to get to net zero—an amount of only about 10k cad—is just sort of crushing when I realize someone fresh out of school can negotiate a 100k signing bonus and more yearly salary than I've ever been offered. It's just this sort of awful sinking feeling knowing that I'm sort of on the periphery of an industry in which most people are making more money than they know what to do with.

That said, I'm happy that people get paid well to do something they love, but that can often be very depressing. Not always certainly, but damn if you've never looked out from behind your screen at the sun shining and thought a little less of the React component or whatever saas thing you work on.

It's easy to forget that many of these articles, and particularly posts are Blind, are just just riddled with people posturing about the same thing.

Edit: I should add the emotional response I tend to have given my circumstance, I do think it's way better to have transparency than not.

<comment><USER6> > most people are making more money than they know what to do with

Well, if they are in SF (which many of them are), they know exactly what to do with all the money: pay the rent and share pizza with their 6 roommates.

<comment><USER7> The OP of this thread, who lives in SF, mentions he has about $11k left over every _month_ after paying for rent and living expenses, _and_ after spending $1200 a month in 'fun' expenses.

See: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20943699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20943699)

Yes SF is expensive, but these salaries are absurd.

<comment><USER8> But you must also look at how much space belongs to that one individual for the rent they pay, vs elsewhere; not to mention, California's very high taxes. It's common for those with seemingly high salaries to have very little space or actually share it with many people, and if you lived like that in other places you'd also end up with more leftover each month, even with a lower salary.

<comment><USER9> ok sure, let's imagine that this specific individual decides to spend $2k more on rent to have a place just to himself, which would bring his net after all expenses to over $9k. Still a lot, so the housing costs don't make that much of a difference here.

<comment><USER8> But rent is just part of the picture, and 2k is a low estimate to match actual quality of life. What about the much higher taxes, much higher prices for other aspects of living?

<comment><USER10> He's gonna need that extra $2k now that the SALT deductions are gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The salaries for the FAANG companies are dramatically higher than even other large Silicon Valley companies. Over four years ago my first job after graduating with a MS in computer science was at an old-school Silicon Valley giant. My offer was $100,000, roughly $2,500 of stock that vested over 3 years (with a one-year cliff), and I negotiated a signing bonus that was a little less than $4,000. While the salary was about at par with what FAANG companies offered at the time to those with similar credentials, the rest of my compensation was a far cry from the offers I've heard of from the FAANG companies.

Given the large differences in compensation (which makes a big difference when trying to save for a house in this area), I wonder how older Silicon Valley giants are able to compete with FAANG companies? Startups can justify lower compensation since there is the possibility the startup would be very successful. I wonder for giants if the difference largely boils down to interviewing processes? I do know that getting into a FAANG company is difficult and requires many months of grinding LeetCode, whereas not all Silicon Valley companies have difficult interviews.

<comment><USER12> Btw, [http://levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) for FAANG salaries

<comment><USER13> Why would we trust voluntary self-reported data to be representative? There's got to be massive sampling bias here. Wouldn't human nature to brag and overstate bias these averages on the high side?

<comment><USER14> Just pegging to my own personal experience, the L4, L5, and L6 total comp amounts on levels.fyi are pretty low. I guess it is because they are blended from many different sites. Looking at just the ones from SF, MV, and Sunnyvale they are consistent with my own experience and the self-reported internal salary survey Googlers conducted amongst themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I realize California is very expensive cost-of-living compared to the Midwest, but as a developer in Michigan I'm shaking my head at these salaries. The low end in Cali is high end here. Best I could hope for in Michigan even as senior is mid-100's. the highest number I've ever seen thrown around from recruiters was about $170k base, and pretty sure that was close to VP level. Can't complain about the low housing costs though.

<comment><USER16> I more than tripled my total comp in three years by leaving Dallas for NYC.

<comment><USER17> You probably tripled your living costs and taxes too. I also moved from Dallas to NYC, so can't argue, but it's not apples to apples.

<comment><USER18> Luckily the gains from tripling compensation usually far outstrip the losses from tripling living costs and taxes.

<comment><USER19> Yeah... there's so many obvious counterpoints to everyone's knee-jerk "well you also upped your living costs!" reaction.

Number 1 is relevant for many many people: Any pre-existing loan. Student loans, car loans, etc. It won't change, and you'll have more money to pay it off.

On the same thought train, while cars sell for different prices in different places, they do not double or triple. Not even close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In Finland the highest you can hope for as an employed software developer is around 90,000 EUR a year, but average is less than 60k. Signing bonuses I've never heard of and if you get stock options, you usually need to cut your salary expectations a lot. Being freelancer you can get to around 150k-200k though. Of course at these higher figures the effective tax rate increases to around 50%

<comment><USER21> I'm surprised there aren't more startups in EU countries since the opportunity cost of lost corporate salary is lower. Or maybe there are, and we just don't hear about them?

<comment><USER22> The EU (Europe more widely) does have a fair share of small start-ups. There are two primary problems however.

First is the lack of venture capital. Major economies like Germany and France are still only typically seeing $3 or $4 billion per year in venture capital investment (an improvement over five years ago granted). The US has averaged around $85 billion per year over the prior six years, or over half a trillion dollars in that time. With interest rates & yields heading permanently lower in the US, it's likely we'll see $100+ billion routinely in annual VC in the coming decade (outside of down blips in recessions), as capital desperately chases returns.

The EU has typically been closer to $15 billion per year, with a few higher years more recently. You can't compete at those levels. Countries like Finland, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Austria, etc. are regularly seeing only $100-$300 million per year in VC. Spain is a major economy and they struggle to consistently attract $750m-$1b per year. Europe needs to pump up its VC figures considerably; more start-ups, more funding, pay engineers higher wages to retain & attract more talent (SV has been pillaging Europe for talent for decades).

The VC funding per capita in the US - 330m people - is around $250 give or take. For Italy it's about $3. That's obscene, Italy has a $2 trillion economy and $34k GDP per capita. Something needs to be done to dramatically increase such figures, probably both at the local level and the EU level.

Second is the difficulty in going from a small start-up with a small amount of venture capital, to try to scale out rapidly across the EU, much less the world. It's extremely difficult, versus the springboard US start-ups get to launch from, starting with far more capital, in a richer, larger, homogeneous economy. Canada would be the fifth largest economy in Europe, and US start-ups get that market for basically free (so to speak; low cultural barriers, relatively easy market access, very close geographic proximity).

Then finally to make the situation worse, large US tech companies routinely eat the European start-ups before they grow up. That interrupts the potential for larger exits & spread-the-wealth effects that roll/compound over decades (helping to build sustainable funding ecosystems), like you've seen over time in California. For US companies it's a great source of talent acquisition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It honestly makes me feel a bit queasy when I read posts like this. 22 and 23 year olds making $200k+ a year? For doing what, exactly? Contributing 0.001% of the codebase to an app that sells advertisements? Meanwhile teachers, researchers, nurses etc (of which many also live in SF, by the way) are making pennies and some literally starving to survive.

It makes it even worse to see the casualness that people in this thread are talking about $200-300k+ salaries, as if they have no appreciation for the fact that a $300k salary is unheard of even for most people in their 50s, let alone a kid in his early 20s. This is the type of attitude that I fear really makes Silicon Valley outsiders have a good amount of disdain for SVers.

<comment><USER23> i don't know what part of the country you live in, but this 200k to 300k is barely scraping by with a middle class living in the bay area, especially if you just moved here. CA and the bay area's high cost of living means most people here with less than 200k/year are going to be really poor unless they bought a house over 20 years ago. Your not going to be able to attract talent to move to the bay area with sub 200K salaries. And since, Google and facebook have money to burn, they'd rather pay those high salaries than move to a more cost effective area.

<comment><USER7> I see this comment a lot, but it's just not true. If $300k was "barely scraping by", then it would be impossible for people making less than $100k to even live _at all_ in the bay area, and yet the average income in SF is indeed $75k.

In other parts of this thread, an SFer mentions that with a salary of $300k, he saves $100,000 a year after paying for his 'expensive hobbies' without even trying . Another commenter says they have ~$13,000 per month in disposable income (after rent in a nice apartment, utilities, and food). Thats certainly not "scraping by" to me.

<comment><USER23> It's different if you already live here. If you already live here probably you have some arrangement: maybe you're in a rent protected home (75% of SF is like that), or maybe you live with 5 other roommates or maybe live with parents, etc.

It's different, if you're moving to here from another area you're not going to be able to get one of those rent protected rentals.

<comment><USER7> I just went shopping online for apartments in SF. If I were to move there now, a 1 BR in a very nice luxury tower in Nob Hill will run me about $3,700/mo. And let's throw in, say, $200/mo for utilities and expenses? And let's give a very generous $1000/mo for food expenses?

According to a tax calculator, a $200k salary in SF is about $130k/year take home, or about $11k/month.

After rent and expenses, that's still $5,100 in disposable take-home pay every month. That's _not_ scraping by.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apologies if this wasn't clear but these are California-centric offers (and can probably be extended to include Seattle and New York). They are not across the US, or across _all_ software jobs.

<comment><USER24> I thought you were possibly Canadian because your domain name is jonlu.ca. Then again, CA could also be interpreted as California...

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, just another one of those people that accepts higher TLD risk by locating it internationally in exchange for a cool domain. I'm actually Italian!

<comment><USER25> And, indeed, from a region renowned for its cat recipes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm fascinated by the phenomenon of the signing bonus, which in many other countries Doesn't exist.

Do people really get a lump of money just for agreeing to come work there - while they could just leave on day 2 (or day 1) and pocket the thing? Or - <USER2> it like a higher first salary? Also, if the position is highly sought-after - isn't it a bit weird that a signing bonus is offered?

<comment><USER27> Signing bonuses often have a requirement to stay for a certain amount of time (or you have to return it).

Some signing bonuses help compensate for losing bonuses or unvested stock at a company you're leaving.

Signing bonuses are also _great_ from a company's perspective, because they're a one-time payment that may get you to accept a lower salary. From the employee's perspective, they may be good or bad depending on your needs; consider carefully if you'd rather negotiate for a higher salary instead.

<comment><USER28> You need to divide a signing bonus by three to average it over your average time at the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Make sure you understand the (at least in the US) tax implications an offer might entail. For example, when your stock vests, you owe income tax on the value of the stock on its vesting day, even if you don't sell it. (Tax when you sell is capital gains.) You will probably find yourself paying estimated taxes as a result.

(Not an accountant, just someone who's spent time trying to guess what the stock in my husband's company might be worth at vesting for the coming year in order to figure out what we might have to pay in estimated taxes, and to figure out where that money might come from as you might be in a position where you can't sell it to cover the taxes!)

<comment><USER30> Lest anyone leave confused, this only applies for privately-held companies.

If you are entertaining an offer from Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc., when your shares vest, the default option is usually "sell to cover", which means they will automatically sell shares to use as a tax withholding. Everything will be on your W-2, no estimated taxes needed.

<comment><USER31> This is dangerous advice, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone assume that everything is 'just handled' when it involves taxes and anything more complex than regular salary.

RSUs, bonuses, etc. will likely be withheld at the IRS supplemental rate of 22% (37% once employees receive >$1mm of it in a year), whereas your marginal rate could easily reach above that depending on how much equity and bonus compensation you're getting.

In your first windfall year, the IRS has rules that will prevent people from being hit with overwitholding penalties. After that, if you don't pay at least 90% of your calculated end of year taxes, you're going to see a penalty.

My advice to _anyone_ starting off is to just talk to a professional when equity and bonuses are involved. It is going to cost you money, but it is going to save you money in the long run.

<comment><USER30> I don't understand the situation you are concerned about where you don't end up paying the minimum of 90% of your current year's tax or 110% of the previous year's tax (these are the numbers to avoid a penalty).

Can you explain this situation?

As I see it, even in the wild case where your company's stock explodes, if your brokerage is "selling to cover", you will more than hit 110% of your previous year's tax bill (since you are paying 22% tax on those shares). Yes, you will get a whopper of a tax bill, but you won't pay penalties on it.

Btw, I don't know why you quoted "just handled" when I didn't use those words. I wanted people to recognize what "sell to cover" means, since usually when you start with a company you have to create a brokerage account and they will ask how you want your taxes handled.

<comment><USER31> If you're vesting enough equity, your brokerage is only holding on to 22% and you don't have enough of your salary withheld, it's very possible to end up with a marginal rate that is in the high 20s or low 30s, and not enough tax paid.

This can happen without triggering the 110% of previous year portion if you're regularly vesting a lot of equity - the more you vest, the farther 22% is going to be from your actual marginal tax rate.

I used single quotes instead of double quotes around "just handled" to quote the idea and summary of what you were saying - that it would be handled automatically by the brokerage - and not as a direct quote

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Any more context on the $275,000 offer? Did the returning intern have a PhD in a specialized field, did their name rhyme with Midas?

<comment><AUTHOR> As Tyler said that's first year TC only (although with average SWE tenure reaching ~18 months, it's not unrealistic to hop around and integrate a signing bonus into your comp every other year - also depends what stage company you like working at and how comfortable you are with accepting risk). After that it's "only" around $200k, without any raises, bonuses, or stock refreshers.

<comment><USER32> I understand that it's a one-time bonus and TC drops off after that. I'm still curious what the circumstances were for that specific candidate and whether they had unusual circumstances that gave them more leverage than the usual bachelor degree new grad.

<comment><AUTHOR> B.Sc. from a top 20 university, 10+ competing offers from FLAAG and various unicorns, and no doesn't rhyme with Midas

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I should really stop reading these posts, but perhaps the worst part is people denying these people exist.

Once someone at my undergrad didn't believe my very average new grad TC... the information gap is insane.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's funny because these salaries aren't even that unreasonable just that most other wages have remained stagnant for 20 years in the us

</comment><comment><USER35> Salaries at FAANGs are hard. I received an offer (New England based) for an L6 position from one this week and was shocked at the package. After getting off the phone and doing more research, I realized there's a chance I'm being lowballed, and I should negotiate for more if I choose to go to said company. I've done pretty well in my career so far, but even taking the initial offer would almost double my salary.

<comment><USER28> But Boston is ultra expensive. Like a mini NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> One counter intuitive case where quarterly vest is actually better than monthly: tax harvesting in usa.

I am no tax expert, but my read of the IRS rules put restrictions around when you can buy or vest the next batch after doing a harvest. This comes in very handy if the company goes through a rough patch.

<comment><USER37> The main pain is more paperwork, some of the time. It won't have an appreciable effect on your taxes, unless you

* Sold X shares are massively underwater, and

* Within the same period, vested Y shares, where Y is a large fraction of X

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Exploding offers (offers that expire 5 business days or less from the day you receive them) are unfortunate but they exist, and not just from companies that are not ideal places to work. There's not much that can be done in these cases besides ask for an extension, and if you don't receive one, spend some time figuring out whether your expected value increase from more recruiting will be worth turning it down.

This is a pretty good summary, IMO. I hate exploding offers as a candidate, and also dislike them as a hiring manager. Unfortunately you do get some candidates that hum and haw, drag their feet, or shop your offer around for something better. Which is their prerogative, but it wastes your time and delays your hiring process.

I think honest and open communication is key here. Don't go silent on the offer, or be vague - tell them you have another interview, and you want to wait to see if you get an offer. If they don't want to give you an extension and try to strong-arm you it's a pretty good sign that they know they're under-offering (and, also, gives you some insight into the nature of the people involved).

Still, it's not a clear-cut signal to walk away, and I like that this section captures that nuance.

</comment><comment><USER39> Of course this will vary widely, but how much can people living in the bay area, working for FAANGS expect to save every month?

Can somebody share an estimated figure?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can outline my rough budget. Rent is roughly $2400, recurring charges and utilities is roughly $200, and then other expenses and "fun" is about $1200. Luckily all 3 meals are paid for from my employer 5 days a week.

Once all is said and done (all stock accounted for and distributed on a weekly basis rather than on the vesting cycle) and the expenses above are taken out, there's ~11k left over a month. This is post tax.

<comment><USER40> You have more leftover than I make as a senior software engineer at a unicorn startup in Palo Alto.

lol FML...

<comment><USER41> I cut my total comp in half to move to a startup. That's just the price you pay. If you've worked in both environments, you know what you prefer. I don't think I'd go back to the other one.

The only thing I miss is that there's a lot of diversity in bigger companies you don't find in startups. Here, everyone is like me :D

<comment><USER40> I wasn't taking an option. I just never got an offer from a public tech company. Not from a lack of trying - mind you!

I'm pretty confident if I was making 2-3x what I am now - I would stay with that. As it stands - I cannot afford to continue living in silicon valley on this current salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As for the more frequent vesting (as opposed to the 1 year cliff): I heard companies started doing that to reduce or eventually eliminate the signing bonus. The theory being that a more frequent vesting schedule will accomplish the same thing.

For example, one recent offer from a big tech company was for a 6 month vesting schedule with no cliff. Most are switching to quarterly vesting schedules with no cliffs.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. Yeah most of my FAANG offers had no cliff (quarterly or monthly). All my unicorn offers were 1 year cliff though :/

I wonder if they'll bake the bonus in. Getting those $100k signing bonuses are pretty nice, especially since some companies give 25% or 50% before you start, which allows you to do a trip. Plus $100k added into a 4 year vesting schedule is a pretty large opportunity cost (assuming you could grow at 7% a year, which is admittedly aggressive, is leaving ~$30k on the table).

<comment><USER43> RSU vs. option is a big difference here too, you can see shifting "signing bonus" into RSU with quicker schedule, but if it's options you can't get out anyway in the short term so they really are oranges vs. apples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I had no idea FAANG offered paid overtime.

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite a few friends at Apple have offers that were paid hourly for the first year, and switched to salaried after that.

<comment><USER44> So it was an hourly probationary period? I can't see why one would opt for salaried if hourly was on the table - in my experience I never work less than the assumed salary hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually not that sure about the rationale. It wasn't optional - <USER3> offer said "$52.88/hr for the first 12 months, $110,000 a year after the first year". I'm not sure if it's to incentivize working more the first year, whether it's "probationary" (in case the person doesn't work at all?) or if there is some other form of logic to it.

<comment><USER44> Bizarre. Maybe it was encouragement to get the employee up to spend as much time as possible to get up to speed? But then again, that's incentivizing burning the candle at both ends when you're the least equipped and familiar with everything to really take advantage of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yes, the geolocal hotspots of the west coast and east coast offer significant pay bumps just to be geolocal. No I don't care. No I don't want to live there, where the Car is King or where you can't own/rent anything bigger than a closet for any sensible amount of expenses. Where the next significant disaster is a big question of "when" not "if".

Hire me where I live already, with my network of friends and loved ones. Where my cost of living is low and my lifestyle is easy going. Guess what, I work better when I'm in my home office. I get stuff done.

Put me in the most depressing cubicle farm or highly distracting shared space and its a lot less likely.

I really don't understand the "you need to go to the office" mentality anymore, especially with how easy it is to have a video meeting.

<comment><USER46> In my experience, you have to make remote working a high priority in order for it to work well, otherwise remote employees end up treated as second-class citizen. People have to actually base their workflows around it, and not the office. So I can understand if smaller companies can't accommodate it - <USER4> all a lot of business simply isn;t managed that well. Large ones definitely should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Given how expensive college is these days you'd almost have to get such a role to pay you a bonus and a high six figure income and stock options to have a chance of paying it all off.

</comment><comment><USER48> Its depressing that companies would rather ratchet up pay than give better vacation, family care packages, or flexible schedule / location policies.

<comment><USER49> I'd rather take the money and so would many others.

<comment><USER48> thats nice, not me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> based upon some of the work you've shown on your blog [https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/illegal- streams](https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/illegal-streams) I'm glad they are compensating you fairly.

Most people could not do this type of mental work.

</comment><comment><USER51> Who is the L in FLAAMG? And why is there no N?

Facebook L? Amazon Apple Microsoft Google Netflix

<comment><USER52> LinkedIn I guess, but that's Microsoft already. Redundant.

<comment><USER53> LinkedIn has an entirely different pay scale from Microsoft

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I have never seen a signing bonus. Options, yearly bonus, even rev-share, sure.

> There can be other facets of a company that should influence your decision, > such as what type of healthcare they offer,

Almost universally, company health care SUCKS. Look for major medical. If it's not there, don't bother. Save yourself the 7$ a month they will rebate you, if you opt-out. JPMorgan? Trash. Experian? Trash. etc

> What the 401k matching looks like

This is important. Generally % of paycheck up to a limit. It does take a chunk from your paycheck, which is you saving for yourself.

> whether they offer a mega backdoor Roth, whether they allow auto-sell of > your vested stocks, whether there's an employee stock purchase plan, and > whether they offer free food or gym.

This is all marginal and rare in my experience. Other than a little gym you can pay for or some snacks (which will eventually be abused and changed if the company is growing) or Kombucha on tap or whatever is not a consideration for me.

<comment><USER15> I've worked at startups in Michigan my whole career and have not seen a signing bonus either. Are these typically exclusive to FAANG companies?

<comment><USER54> Not just specific companies, but largely specific areas (which have to compete with specific companies). New grads will, statistically, never see signing bonuses in their career, much less out of school. People paying bonuses for new grads is a sunk opportunity cost and a company should never do it unless it hurts them in some measurable way (cost-benefit analyses are important).

I've interviewed hundreds of people in Southern California, some who came out of google (does give signing bonuses) or Amazon (rarely signing bonus) and it has happened that Blizzard tempted some people with a little bonus...but these are uncommon.

People who jump company to company (google to amazon and back) don't get bonuses (as rehires), although that's outside the topic of "new grads".

<comment><USER55> I joined Amazon as a new grad. Signing bonus was part of the standard new grad offer.

> People paying bonuses for new grads is a sunk opportunity cost

Sure but FAAMG aren't really trying to pinch pennies. Signing bonuses also usually have a clause where you have to return it, if you don't at least stay a year. Signing bonus as a new grad is a HUGE help to the new grad. When you're competing between FAAMNG, that signing bonus can sway what offer a new grad would accept.

> google (does give signing bonuses)

I'm currently at Google but I had to negotiate the signing bonus. It wasn't part of my original offer.

> People who jump company to company...

They absolutely do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> lol I'm a senior developer, been in the industry since I graduated with a BS in 2010. I'm in NYC. My salary is currently $82k. I'm not doing anything wrong here - the numbers in the article are way exaggerated.

<comment><USER55> I have no idea how you live with that salary in NYC. Maybe go to a bar and meet some people in tech/finance, they'd paint you a better picture of reality.

<comment><USER57> Post tax, that's ~5 k$/mo, which is (by choice) roughly my monthly spending as a single/no kids 28-year-old in NYC. It's not a bad lifestyle at all. I personally would feel uncomfortable spending that much if I wasn't also able to save on top of it, but if you disregard that, it's 100% doable

<comment><USER56> Yeah, in general I find people to be excessive with their spending. $5k a month sounds like an insane waste to me. I'm pretty thrifty. I feel like tech workers are living in a different world than me.

My direct deposit income is something like $2400 every two weeks. That's after my IRA investments, monthly health insurance cost, metro card cost through my job, etc. I work at Columbia University, by the way.

I live in a rent stabilized 1br apartment in west Harlem: $1500/mo rent. After that I have no major expenses other than food, and I shop at local grocery stores and cook at home a lot. I make my own bread, because I like to, not because I have to. I always feel like I have more than enough money. I put around $800 a month into savings and investments.

I'm even able to travel frequently to Europe, Latin America, and to see my parents in Seattle. I agree with Bradley Kuhn on this one: in general, tech workers are wayyy overpaid.

<comment><USER58> You are being paid well under market by a very wide margin. Check out [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) for supporting data. It's possible you believe that tech workers are overpaid rather than believing you are underpaid because of psychological factors, such as the cognitive dissonance of having to face the unfortunate reality that you've been leaving money on the table for at least 7 years, and you've probably left over half a million dollars on the table due to your inability to properly understand and measure market compensation. That's unfortunate, but it probably makes sense for you to face that if you don't want to miss out on another few million over the course of your career due to a fear of revising your thinking and admitting you were wrong.

Your call.

<comment><USER56> I wouldn't work at any of those companies as long as I have the choice not to: they all make money off of proprietary software.

<comment><USER58> You have made a choice to not work at companies that make money off of proprietary software, then you exclude the vast majority of the market of commercial software engineering, but that also means you have no idea of or don't care market rates are. So, you really shouldn't comment on that unless you figure that out, and it's a little disingenuous to do so this way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bail on One Idea Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/5/11/bail-on-one-idea-today/10152/view.aspx <comment><USER2> What happens if you only have one idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> lol.....it better be a good one

<comment><USER3> I thought the idea was to be super focused on your one idea, which is why you should jettison extraneous ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> if you only have one idea you've got bigger problems</comment>


Show HN: Picnic CSS Build System - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fpresencia/picnic-css-3-0-build-system-5875860305c5

<comment><USER2> I honestly don't get this article. From the first looks, it seems like some CSS framework has its own build system now. Fine. (BTW, I thought SASS was a language, not a build tool).

But the second half of the story is a complete mystery to me. I read stuff like

> Enter the absolute url containing your style within "external assets".

So ... are _you_ hosting _my_ code on _your_ site? Why would I ever want to trust some external site to host my CSS? Or am I supposed to use the picnicss build logic to create my own concatenated CSS files? If I am supposed to do it locally, what's the advantage over using grunt/gulp and simply include the (previously downloaded) picnicss files?

> 5\. [optional] Set the option "fresh" if you are developing it, to keep > updating the style on each call.

How? When I develop, my code runs on somesite.local, so you can't possibly fetch the code from my localhost. And even if I used it on some public-facing development site, this roundtrip would dramatically slow me down.

Changing the build logic to provide a single CSS file containing Picnicss is a fine thing to do, but I don't get all the future plans and stuff. And I haven't learned a single bit about why doing the CSS magic on demand via Express is a good thing, what challenges you had to overcome and what to take home from this.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is completely true and I didn't think of it. When first I made the external assets thing, I was thinking of external plugins that were publicly available in places like github. I'll keep only the changes for the story not to confuse anyone and I will update it when something is working, sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I haven't tried the new build system yet, but from perusing the new site, the additions to Picnic CSS 3.0 look to be exactly what I would have asked for if I had bothered to ask: flat default style, modularity,...and the option to have a modal box!

I really feel like I've picked the right "horse" at the race with Picnic since it's been so actively improved since it was first introduced. Thank you for continuing to agonize over a few Kb of file size.

It's the well-crafted minimalism of projects like this and Mithril.js that keep me excited about the future of web development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your words, it's what I found lacking by using it in different projects. If you are using Picnic in some projects, I'd love to see it in action (:</comment></comment>


Solar powered weeding robot for your garden - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar-powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g <comment><USER2> >The area of a typical garden in the US is about 100 square feet.

Let's say that according to the project's page, gardens in the US are very, very small, 10 feet by 10 feet (if square). Roughly 9 sqm, or 3x3 m for the rest of the world.</comment>


Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-microsoft-book-idUKBRE90L04320130122 <comment><USER2> I am not sure why this is considered news. Guess just because this guy went on the record to state the obvious?

Every large company develops internal politics with various degrees of harm to itself and its performance. If the business is led by a non-founder, non- technical, non-performing CEO it is a given that he will always feel like an insecure usurper/impostor more concerned about protecting their job from rivals than actually leading.

This is yet another data point in support of Andressen Horowitz's thesis about backing founding CEOs. I might add that's also a strike against promoting a head of sales to CEO.

<comment><USER3> This is not just some sort of non-innovative company well know for it's vicious internal fighting like EMC. This is Microsoft, an extremely important and, yes, innovative company.

I think that this really is news - peeling back the covers to see the mess going on at Microsoft seems to my mind quite interesting.

<comment><USER4> You can find/replace Microsoft with Oracle and many other companies though. Oracle is led by one of the founders and in many ways it's even a bigger mess there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every call for Ballmer's ouster ignores two important points. He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest.

No analyst has clout with the shareholders. Nobody inside does either.

What I see in Sinofsky's departure is a clear signal that the type of politics which this article assumes to be the proper way of creating succession is being deprecated within Microsoft. What I mean is that the argument is premised upon the idea that rivalries at the executive level should be acceptable.

Just because that is the way most public corporations work, doesn't mean it ought to be the way. Gates and Ballmer have been running Microsoft for thirty years. They've got real long term interest in creating a sustainable culture.

<comment><USER6> > He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest.

Being a college buddy of one of the founders hardly qualifies someone to run a multibillion dollar company.

<comment><USER7> It also doesn't disqualify someone. At the end of the day, it's the shareholders decision.

<comment><USER6> No, but it's Ballmer's job to prove himself competent for the job he occupies. I'd be disappointed if he did that by voting for himself.

<comment><USER8> The company is still afloat and still profitable - he's doing a much better job than quite a few CEOs out there.

<comment><USER9> Microsoft is losing the new operating system war in a big, BIG way. Just because the boat is still afloat doesn't mean it's not rotting below the water line.

<comment><USER10> I would not be so sure about that. I know a lot of people who like Windows 8 and others eager to get a Windows 8 tablet Pro(Intel). The one OS across different devices could turn out to be a powerful choice.

<comment><USER11> > I know a lot of people who like Windows 8...

My experience is the opposite. The reaction I see to Win8 is a lot more negative than the reaction to Vista. They are all power users though, or former power users considering that none of us can figure out how to do basic tasks in Win8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> MS revenues have grown by 45 billion dollars under Ballmer (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer>). Without Ballmer .NET would not have existed and the XBox would not exist as it exists today. I have no great love for the guy but I've yet to read a convincing argument for his ouster. Just priggish former executives badmouthing the company that lifted them into the 1%.

<comment><USER13> Saying Ballmer is responsible for the existence of both .NET and Xbox is like saying Al Gore invented the internet.

There were lots of very smart leaders and engineers involved in the creation of both of those and their contributions far outweigh Ballmer's decision to "green light" those projects back in the late 90s.

<comment><USER14> "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

I don't know, it seems fair to say that the person who made decisions about the direction of development that fostered the development has a claim on having caused said development.

<comment><USER15> I think the question you need to ask is whether the outcome would still be the same if the "decision maker" did not exist.

It's fair to say that Steve Jobs was a decision maker. Did he not take the "initiative"? Would Apple exist as it is today without him? Certainly not.

Also, President Bill Clinton ordered Selective Availability for GPS. Basically allowing for more precise GPS coordinates for civilian use. Do you think this decision did not help foster the use GPS system in cars?

My point is that decision makers cannot claim FULL credit for the development of a technology but they can claim credit nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is a piece of uninteresting, content-free, gossipy garbage and I'm not sure why it was voted to the front page. This guy doesn't like Ballmer and he writes a book about it and that's news?

</comment><comment><USER17> Probably throws chairs at them...

To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people.

* This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

<comment><USER18> Steve Ballmer does not have an MBA.

<comment><USER17> I should have made the more generic point "MBA types" (high business, executives etc). Not specifically MBAs.

<comment><USER19> The vast majority of MBA's are not executives, but work in either mid- management or finance-specialist jobs (accounting, audit, financing, etc).

Are you sure that MBA-typical people are really what you call "MBA types" ? In mass media you'd be seeing only a small, very nonrepresentative, very biased sample of them.

<comment><USER17> Yes entirely. I work in the financial sector and deal with ALL levels of management that you mention above. In fact, I regularly deal with an organisation that has 2500 managerial staff.

I've been on the end of management politics for 20 years as well so I know how it works. I've watched climbers and sinkers and the climbers are ruthless and have a statistically higher quantity of MBAs between them (it's amazing what you can suck out of linkedin).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There does seem to be a lot of own goals going on at Microsoft at the moment. But then again, some of the "talent" that has left is still making those own- goals.

Stephen Elop went to Nokia, and instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the market - Maemo and then Meego - was dropped in favour of Microsoft's operating system. That's an own goal, if ever I've seen one.

So IMO, it's not really just Balmer who is at fault here, there seems to have been quite a lot of problems with even the executives leaving the company.

<comment> glass- > instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the > market - Maemo and then Meego

I owned an N900 and I liked it, because it had a full terminal and could run a Debian desktop on it if I really wanted to, but normal people don't care about any of that.

If Nokia had stuck with Maemo and Meego they would be in the same position as they are now, except their "ecosystem" would have less apps, less Microsoft- marketing dollars behind it, and Nokia wouldn't be getting $250 million cheques from Microsoft every quarter.

<comment><USER3> I don't consider tightly coupling Nokia with Microsoft a particularly wise decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ballmer probably knows it's his last executive position he'll ever get in this industry. So he's squeezing as much out of it as he can. Or he's just a fanboy of the "old Microsoft."

<comment><USER21> His net worth is $15.7 billion[1] so I doubt he's concerned about "squeezing as much out of it as he can".

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer>

<comment><USER20> Good point, but on the other hand rich people have a weird habit of trying to get even richer. I'm not saying it's wrong btw.

<comment><USER22> It's the same drive that everyone has, to progress in their life. They see the money as a way to count up all their successes. Not an unheard of algorithm. Not my personal one but not unusual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In a parallel universe: Gates returns, fires Ballmer and turns MS around. Reality: He's probably happier solving much bigger problems in the world.

But still, it sucks to see someone drive his company to the ground. Has Ballmer ever done anything right for Microsoft? I can't think of anything.

<comment><USER24> He's kept the ship afloat and is good at maximizing profits from MS's traditional businesses. The problem is that Ballmer isn't the person you need in a transitional phase for a company.

<comment><USER25> Gates was that guy.

Remember when they haven't shipped a web browser in Windows 95 and then they turned around and produced a kickass browser that killed Netscape Navigator? Or how MS Word took marketshare from WordPerfect like taking candy from a baby? Or how Win 95 won against IBM's OS/2, even though OS/2 was also binary compatible with DOS and Win3.11?

<comment><USER24> Gates used to be that guy. He doesn't care anymore. He's involved in something greater than even what MS was. Under current conditions, I'm not even sure that Gates could even do what he once did but he would drive a shot into the company and the perception of it.

There's no question Gates was as much of a skilled tactician more than a coder (which he was great at when he did it) but, while I'm sure he still loves MS, he is a man in the real world looking for a cause to drive him. MS is in the past.

I can't blame him. A good woman changes you and that's what Melinda did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I may be wrong, but I always had the impression on Ballmer as a weird (in a bad sense weird) and inadequate guy. I also usually give credit to him for all "WTF MS?" moments.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people

It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands

Anyway it's not news.

<comment><USER28> There are many companies that are much larger than Microsoft in terms of number of employees. Microsoft employs 94,420 people worldwide [1], but by this measure it isn't even in the top 100 of the Inc 5000 according to [2].

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/inside_ms.aspx#Employmen...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/inside_ms.aspx#EmploymentInfo)

[2] <http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/top/employee-count>

<comment><USER29> Probably worth looking at the Fortune Global 500 to see lists of really large companies:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500>

e.g. Walmart has 2.2 _million_ employees

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Never happened before in any other company.

</comment><comment><USER31> "They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look" ...yeah i bet Paul Allen would second that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Kempin is of dubious character:

<[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/>);

<comment><USER32> Whoops broken linky:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well duh. Find one CEO of any Fortune 500 company who does not.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think this is hillarious, Ballmers best moments. <http://youtu.be/e8M6S8EKbnU>

</comment><comment><USER35> CEOs hardly matter in big corporations . I don't see hiring a 35-40 yr old CEO moving Microsoft in a new direction.

<comment><USER35> [http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do- ceos-matter-anymore/)

[http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_...](http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_reading.fortune/index.htm)

for the down votters

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> That site is awful. Almost all links are broken.

</comment><comment><USER37> M$ is a festering money hub of individuals with indy goals reeking to create beyond the bounds.

<comment><USER38> Goddammit. I accidentally pressed the uparrow on this noise and there's no way of undoing it. Damn that is a big flaw in this software.

<comment><USER39> Careful now! You wouldn't want to get caught thinking bad thoughts about HN and get hellbanned to the cornfield! Happy thoughts!</comment></comment></comment>


Why Miguel de Icaza is Wrong About Desktop Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/LinuxActionShow/comments/z7rdu/why_miguel_de_icaza_is_wrong_about_desktop_linux/ <comment><USER2> My take: "The Desktop will die WAY before Linux dies". Nuff said.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _This is where I think Miguel's got the most traction, it's a historically > weak area for Linux. But it's quickly becoming less of a problem. "Cloud" > apps remove the issue of client compatibly breakage, Google's very > successful internal use of Goobuntu proves this, and is an indicator of > future business application._

At best that argument translates to "compatibility is not such a problem anymore with cloud apps". Maybe so, but that's hardly an argument for "desktop linux" not being dead. Thin clients and the "cloud" mean that it hardly matters if you are using Linux or not.

And it's not that clear cut that the cloud is wining either. For some stuff it is, for other stuff native trumps it, and he have seen a heavy switch back to native, even for mobile apps. The web and HTML being what it is, there are tons of apps that won't feel any good in cloud form, and those apps are what the desktop is all about.

> _Native client apps can be distributed through Ubuntu's Software Center, and > they can target LTS releases of Ubuntu for guaranteed compatibility._

It doesn't matter, since that doesn't mean you get the commercial apps that OS X/Windows have. Even the LTS releases provide a too small period of stability for a platform with such small market share.

> _He fails to notice that innovation in OS X has begun to slow, and age. It's > HFS+ file system is disastrously out of date_

Which doesn't matter at all. For the things people use desktop computers for, HFS+ is perfectly fine. Journaling, extended attributes, ACL, Unicode, are all there.

Just because some geeks drooled over the possibility of ZFS on their desktop doesn't mean it solves any real problem desktop users have (oh, and if some desktop OS X user objects to this, let him check the terms "outlier" and "statistical noise").

Plus, even if it was true that "innovation in OS X has begun to slow", it doesn't matter, because it already has a huge, consistent, feature complete and widely deployed code base out there already. And, as Miguel said, too much innovation is one of the problems with desktop Linux.

> _and OS X remains tied to hardware that's priced beyond what a large market > will pay._

Actually OS X sells better than ever every year, and it got from 2% to 10-15% of the market. Linux being available on cheaper hardware (and free) itself, didn't help it. So the argument is moot, except in developing countries and such (where most of the population will rather pirate Windows anyway).

> _The future of Linux on the desktop, in the context of something that's > targeted by commercial parties and has years of stability expected, already > has become Ubuntu LTS._

That's a "too little, too late" kind of stability. The LTS kind of releases are of more interest to server deployments and the enterprise, anyway, than in any commercial party interested in desktop apps. And we were speaking of "Linux on the desktop here".

E.g Adobe won't release Premiere for LTS only to see that in the next LTS base Linux/Gnome APIs and frameworks have been rewritten and replaced with something else "just because".</comment>


Ask HN: How Do You Sell? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Do ya think maybe you could find a way to put a little less information in this post? I mean, it's pretty bloated at a whopping _FOUR_ words. How is anybody supposed to parse all that information in order to extract the meaningful bits that would be used to construct any kind of useful answer to the question?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sell what? Sell to who?

Given the lack of context, only the most general information makes sense, so here you go.

I do not sell products that suck. I believe in what I sell, and the sales process is one where the prospective buyer and I both validate the benefit of the product makes sense.

I do not sell by talking my competition down. They are hard at work trying to succeed, making what they believe are good products, and they get to do that.

Selling down, "buy from me because those other peeps and their product suck", means the basis for the business relationship is fundementally toxic and not honest. Karma is a bitch. Just be warned, go down that road eyes wide open.

I ask them for the business once the work has been done to prove out that ask makes good sense. I ask them, because selling is hard and those people who do the work, in the fashion I put here, have earned the business and there will be mutual benefit.

I qualify my prospects early and as accurately as I can. There is not unlimited time. At any given time, the sales work you do should be aligned with these things:

Finding and approaching new prospects.

Qualifying prospects:

Some enter the sales process

Some are not really prospects

Some need more time

Some need more information.

The others are advancing to close. Recognizing when your efforts move toward a close and when more time must pass is vital.

I sell at list, unless there is a clear reason to do otherwise. Get consideration, give consideration. Have great answer to, "why are we selling at discount?"

Prospects may put unreasonable terms or presales requirements into a deal. When cost of sale exceeds margin and value of customer, and the deal does not present as some strategic investment, I will walk. Making a high maintenance sale is more like an expensive loan. Avoid these.

All of that should all be well understood, but in my experience so far, one or more are missing. The biggest ones, and the most expensive when not well understood, are:

Failure to ask for the business. Asking is OK to do, and asking for money sucks. It sucks less when one does the other work well, but let us be honest. It sucks. That is why commission is paid.

Failure to qualify. Cost of sales goes way up, close rates go down.

Failure to assign finding new prospects a sufficient priority to maintain and grow the pipeline means fast or famine type sales numbers, generally.

There you go. Technical B2B sales 101.

</comment><comment><USER4> I stand on the street corner in a PVC skirt and fishnet stockings and ask anyone if they want "business"

seriously this question is too lacking in information to get any sort of proper answer</comment>


Are game consoles dying? A 26 minute argument. - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/5892836/the-best-26+minute-argument-that-game-consoles-are-dying

<comment><USER2> This is a really interesting perspective, and a very convincing argument. The decline of past media industries does show a trend that looks similar to the changes occurring in the current games media industry. These changes are never destructive (despite what the affected platform holders will say), merely transformative. It also presents an interesting argument for entrepreneurs; could old media formats like Arcade or Movie Theatres be bought back with some disruptive change element, just as PCs have recovered some ground with digital content (steam) and free2play models.

I think it's hard to say "Most game development is changing to mobile"; I think there's also a resurgence in PC gaming at the same time, but in a free2play/subscription model sense, without the restrictive policies of the console and mobile platform holders. With the launch of the PS Vita and the new technological advances on the horizon (A15, anyone?) I can definitely see mobile gaming and entertainment becoming a mainstay for most people. If gaming gatherings were as simple as bringing your phone/tablet/other misc. mobile device and meeting some people at a cafe or something to play together it would be a revolution. Imagine LAN parties with tablets + controllers or something. Self-contained portable gaming systems. This was sort of what I hoped the Vita would attempt; to make traditional gaming more social. To break down the physical barriers between gamers. But with the lacklustre games lineup and no real innovation in the platform, it appears mobile gaming is headed in a much more fruitful direction.</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't we have universal postal codes? - <AUTHOR> We have a standard for internet addresses, IPs, so why not the same for postal codes. I really dealing with this on forms especially when filling out credit card information. <comment><USER2> What good would it do? It still would have to be compartmentalized on country borders because that's the way the mail system operates.

Also, existing codes vary a lot in resolution.

So, chances are you would get something as cleanly designed and as useful as IBAN ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Num...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Number)):

 _" The IBAN consists of up to 34 alphanumeric characters comprising: a country code; two check digits; and a number that includes the domestic bank account number, branch identifier, and potential routing information"_

For example, bank account numbers in East Timor (population 1.2 million and AFAIK not known for its banking sector) are 23 characters long now; those in Iceland (population 333,333 or thereabouts) have 26.

</comment><comment><USER3> The podcast Surprisingly Awesome had an episode not too long ago about postal systems and what it was like to try and establish a new one. [1]

As part of the podcast they mentioned a system called What3Words which assigns a unique combination of three words to every ~10x10ft space on the planet as a 'universal' postal code. The system sounded rather impractical, the only country that was supposedly using it (Mongolia) didn't have any citizens who actually seemed to use it.

[1] [https://gimletmedia.com/episode/21-postal- addresses/](https://gimletmedia.com/episode/21-postal-addresses/)

[2] [http://what3words.com](http://what3words.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> The cost of changing all systems is probably not worth of it. Most mail is send inside the countries.

There is UPU Addressing S42 standard and Universal POST*CODE® DataBase. S42 tells how to transform address elements into an accurately formatted address.

[http://www.upu.int/en/activities/addressing/s42-standard/app...](http://www.upu.int/en/activities/addressing/s42-standard/application- form.html)

[http://www.upu.int/en/resources/postcodes/universal- postcode...](http://www.upu.int/en/resources/postcodes/universal-postcoder- database.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> The Universal Postal Union has 117 members with a postal code system (73 members lack a postal code system) [1]. Convincing all members to submit to a single standard would be challenging.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_code)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not use a geohash, that would be pretty universal at least for this planet.</comment>


Ask HN: If not LeetCode, then what? - <AUTHOR> I have been preparing to get the new job (If you are hiring in India or remote, please get in touch), and starting to get bothered by the interview specific preparation by leetcoding.
Is this the best our industry can come up with to evaluate the skills and experience of fellow professionals?
I wonder if I'd still be leetcoding in my 40s and 50s, or the industry would evolve to better ways to interview candidates?
Have you tried anything else in your organizations other than leetcoding that worked well? <comment><USER2> Been interviewing people with this:

[https://github.com/sergiotapia/task-list- kata](https://github.com/sergiotapia/task-list-kata)

Simple, 1 hour take-home, touches on code format, if they can code, logic, conditionals, recursion, and such.

I'm very explicit that this should take only about an hour, two if they want to go all out, but really no need to sweat the UI much.

</comment><comment><USER3> For what it's worth, I haven't seen any of that in interviews in Europe, for senior positions. At most, there may be some fizzbuzz level question to make sure you're not a fraud. The interviews are mostly a chat about past experiences, opinions about technologies or something like "propose an architecture/tech stack for a problem we had". Also, often there are queries about specifics of technology they're using. All seems to be huge improvement over whiteboarding people.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the standard template is just to find someone who is "smart and gets things done". I've been taking on both junior and senior dev interviews lately (junior because I considered a career switch to game dev) and the junior questions have been much harder than the senior ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We don't leetcode. Our technical portions are coding and design. Coding is based on a real, recent thing the team or similar team has faced, distilled down to something that a team member should be able to do in about 15 minutes and the candidate gets 45 minutes. This gives time to ask and dig deeper in understanding. The design part involves designing a distributed system on a white board to achieve some kind of goal. We then talk about edge cases, failure modes, etc.

The rest of the interview portions are talking with someone about previous projects, how you have dealt with or would deal with given situations, what you've experienced so far, what you're looking to learn, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> That is the best that companies cargo culting the big four have for evaluating the skills and experience of professionals.

The industry is going to have better ways in the future for sure. The current state of the industry is that many have access to a computer and the attitude that programming pays a lot so just walk onto the job and into excellence. Reality is obviously further from that dream.

Other comments have already shown other ways evaluating a programmer and I don't anything to really add.</comment>


Show HN: For those who don't want to bother about design but need a website - <AUTHOR> http://Launchick.com <comment><AUTHOR> Very sorry to those who signed up, I'm experiencing a bit of technical glitch with convertkit, they are very awesome. I know you are supposed to get a free starter kit once you sign up, there's some problem linking some of you to get it downloaded. I'm on it now, those who've signed up will get the free kit soon, thanks for your patience!

</comment><comment><USER2> I am on the latest firefox, and your email capture box that appears on scrolling is a little too above the fold. It is actually getting partly hidden by the nav bar.

<comment><USER3> I am also using Firefox but on a small screen smartphone. There wasn't any way for me cancel the email capture box and read the content. Well, I hope that wasn't the kind of design that I was going to learn, anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops! Really sorry, was using convertkit for the forms. I'm taking it out right away. Looking forward to more comments from you. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Springfox 3.0.0, at long last (thanks) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/springfox/springfox/releases/tag/3.0.0 <comment><USER2> Great news. Why not just snapshot for another few years? Seriously though, would an RC have killed anyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I had hoped for a RC, instead we pinned a version in our own Artifactory. But I'm glad it's there now.

I was following that long-running issue #3070 for a while, and discussing it in our team we thought that this project was maybe not going to make it. And yes, we are discussing maybe trying to contribute (though it's a slow-going discussion). This is an important project for the Spring ecosystem, or at least the way we're using it, that I don't quite see an alternative for. So yeah, again, glad it's there now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Received an email from Substack, including other users' email addresses? - <AUTHOR> I received this email a couple of hours ago. It appears to be from Substack. It includes many email addresses in the 'To' line. Presumably these are all Substack users. If genuine, it's a strange mistake given that the email is about a new privacy policy, and compliance with California's CCPA.
--
You're receiving this email because you have signed up to a newsletter powered by Substack.
We at Substack are making several updates to make our Terms of Use, Publisher Agreement, and Privacy Policy simpler and more transparent. Our privacy policies now also reflect evolving best practices and laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (the "CCPA").
The updates we've made will be effective for existing users as of July 28th, 2020. We encourage you to review them in full. Below are some highlights:
Privacy Policy: We've updated the Privacy Policy to make it easier to understand and better describe the information we collect and how we use such information to help us provide the best possible service to you.
CCPA Policy: For California residents, we've added a CCPA Policy to provide you with information about the types of personal information we collect and use pursuant to the requirements of the CCPA, as well as your rights under CCPA, including your right to make certain requests regarding such rights, and how to make those requests.
Publisher Agreement and Terms of Use: These have been updated to make them easier to read and understand and to make it clear that Substack does not collect information for advertising purposes.
If you have any questions, please contact us at email@example.com. By continuing to use our services on or after July 28th, 2020, you acknowledge our updated Privacy Policy and new CCPA Policy.
Best,
The Substack Team <comment><AUTHOR> They sent an apology email 3 hours later:

\--

Hi,

We have an apology to make. Tonight, in sending out an email notification about updates to our privacy policy, terms of use, and publisher agreements, we mistakenly included a number of email addresses in the 'to' line. We caught the error early and less than 1 percent of Substack users were affected. However, it was too late to retract that first batch.

We are so sorry this happened – and we are aware of the irony of the situation. This was a genuine mistake, we feel terrible about it, and we will do everything in our power to never repeat it.

Sincerely, The Substack Team

</comment><comment><USER2> > If genuine, it's a strange mistake given that the email is about a new > privacy policy, and compliance with California's CCPA.

It is genuine. A friend of mine showed me this same email with the list of other user emails leaked.

Unfortunately, it is a fatal mistake of the sender at Substack of not being able to know how to BCC in an email. Therefore this is a privacy policy breach. This is why throwaway fake emails exist.

Anyone can now look up the identities of each other with this email.</comment>


Companies need to stop using memes - <AUTHOR> https://kolemcrae.com/stop-using-memes-in-your-advertising/ <comment><USER2> One notable exception are ascended memes, i. e. when a company is the target of a meme and ends up embracing that same meme eventually.

Details:

[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedMeme](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedMeme)

Example:

[https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/609115871747833856](https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/609115871747833856)</comment>


Experience of investing in the stock market causes rightward policy/value shift - <AUTHOR> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12517 <comment><AUTHOR> We designed a large field experiment to evaluate the impact of financial markets, which have grown dramatically in recent decades. Participants from a national sample in England received substantial sums they could invest over a 6‐week period. We assigned them into several treatments designed to distinguish between different theoretical channels of influence. Results show that investment in stocks led to a more right‐leaning outlook on issues such as merit and deservingness, personal responsibility, and equality. Subjects also shifted to the right on policy questions. These results appear to be driven by growing familiarity with, and decreasing distrust of markets. The spread of financial markets thus has important and underappreciated political ramifications.

</comment><comment><USER2> Sure it would. Skimp and save until you can invest $100 using Robin Hood. Put it all at risk. Guess right and double your money in less than 12 months. That's when you find out that the government (in the US) takes a 20% cut of your winnings. Much higher cut if you are in a higher bracket.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup - Snapza.com - <AUTHOR>

I'd love some feedback on my startup: http://snapza.com?invite=6142
It's a simple photo sharing site. You can post a pic via webcam, upload, or email/mobile.
Right now the focus is on taking photos of yourself, similar to dailybooth. If that doesn't catch on, I may focus more on photography and pushing content out to other sites (IE, posterous for photography).
What do you think? <comment><USER2> So, what differentiates this (at this point in time) from dailybooth? (Apart from having fewer features)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's simpler and hopefully easier to use. Dailybooth is certainly doing well, and part of what inspired me to start this project, but I don't think it's at the size where I have to compete with it (many people haven't heard of it). I'm definitely not trying to get existing Dailybooth users to switch to Snapza, at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://snapza.com?invite=6142></comment>


Tell HN: A Health Care Startup Idea.  And a question to ponder. - <AUTHOR>

I recently acquired idiopathic tinnitus.  In other words, I now have ringing in my ears 24/7 and I don't know the cause.
What's even more maddening is that there are no good treatments for this condition.  It is one of many "Cinderella Conditions" in healthcare - very little money is spent on what seems to be an eminently treatable and maybe even curable disease.  Not to mention a profitable one.
As of right now, "Approximately 40 million Americans have chronic tinnitus. For 10 million of these people, tinnitus can be a severely debilitating condition." according to Oregon University (source: http://www.ohsu.edu/ohrc/tinnitusclinic/factSheet.html#relieving%20tinnitus)
Not only that, but each of those 10 million people would be willing to spend SIGNIFICANT sums of money for viable treatments.  Look no further than what one YC user had to say about this condition:
---
"Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?" A proven cure for tinnitus. I'd clean out my bank account and cash in all my 401Ks, if need be, to pay for the treatment. For those who don't know what tinnitus is, just imagine having a high-pitched ringing sound in your head that never, ever, ever stops. Ever. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=551872
---
The closest viable option comes from a company called "Neuromonics" which basically charges $5000 for an IPod like device that retrains your brain to not hear the sounds.  Really?  That's the best solution the market can provide for 10 million sufferers with money in their hands?
Not to mention the fact that the number of people needing a solution like this is going to explode given the prevalence of noise induced hearing loss that is going to be present in this and future generations.
So that's my idea - take it and run with it, please. :)
<comment></comment><comment>
The broader question is: Why Aren't There More HealthCare Startups?
Every one of us probably knows someone suffering from a condition for which there aren't any good treatments?  Why aren't WE doing MORE to improve these conditions?
Additionally, every one of us will eventually come down with a disease or chronic condition that will either kill us or make certain aspects of our lives' miserable.  Do you really want to trust that other people will solve these problems before we encounter them?
I understand that health care startups are hard.  The barriers to entry are high, the success rates are fairly low, and the problems are difficult to solve.  But the reward to humanity and quality of life is higher than just about any web app you could build.
Does the world really need another twitter mashup?  Or should we be striving to work on more impactful things?
Food for thought, I guess. </comment><comment><USER2> A bit off topic, but I have been doing medical startups for 10 years now and can provide a little insight into your questions.

Directly helping people with technology is extremely satisfying and I would definitely recommend it as a career. That said, it is not an easy career. You have to be patient. Getting a new device from concept to even human trials (much less market approval) can take 2-4 years and depending on the complexity. You have to be diligent and tireless. The complexity and amount of paperwork to meet regulatory compliance requirements would shock you. The current product I am working on has about 15,000 pages of documentation, test reports, etc. Nothing extra above the regulatory requirements is included in this number.

In the end, my opinion is that the direct difference you can make in peoples lives in the healthcare industry outweighs the difficulties.

</comment><comment><USER3> I study medicine. We studied about ear, in French, but I identified the illness. In fact, this is a neurological disease and I'm not sure about the "Neuromonics" device. The reason is that your auditory fibers are affected and keep sending signals even if there is no sound at all. So I would be curious to know how that handy device work to solve this problem.

Now solving this problem isn't easy, and solving it will consequently solves other problems. Solving it needs someone that study neurophysiology in depth and does endless researchers. Someone that spends his day/night/holiday studying, testing and trying things. He can end up with a result and this result would solve many problems.

He'll need at least 15 years studying this specialty in depth and may be another 10 years researches. So someone young of 20 years old, will end up with the result when he is 45 years old, wouldn't be easier to start a high- tech startup and make money in his first year? Or loss his youth and 'may be' become rich (extensively rich but 'may' is a matter).

The shorter way is the safer.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.soundtherapyinternational.com/for_the_ear_tinnitu...](http://www.soundtherapyinternational.com/for_the_ear_tinnitus.htm)

</comment><comment><USER5> There are lots of health startups. Where I live (Seattle), biotech/pharma/medical startups are a major part of the local economy. If you're doing research that points to a viable solution for a health problem that affects tens of millions of people, you can get funding for it.

<comment><USER6> "Were". The Seattle biotech industry is in shambles. Icos is gone, Rosetta is gone, Zymogenetics has scaled down, and so on. The debris is pretty visible. The non-profit research side is going great guns though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess it depends in part on your approach. I promote dietary and lifestyle changes as a means to treat chronic illness, which isn't subject to the same regulation as "medical" stuff. If you want to create medical stuff, then you are talking heavy regulation. If you want to create or promote alternative stuff, you are likely to face less regulation. Study after study after study shows that chronic illness is significantly influenced by diet and lifestyle. Encouraging dietary and lifestyle changes to promote wellness is usually not considered "medical" per se.

My current plan is to work on better ways to share my mental models and experiences/practices so people can more effectively implement lifestyle changes and protective practices that work for me. To that end, I intend to write a simulation at some point -- aka a game. I doubt I will run up against any medical regulation in writing a game as a means to promote health and wellness education.

FWIW: Tinnitus can sometimes be treated successfully with chelation and supplements. (Magnesium comes to mind.)</comment>


A VC: The MBA Mondays Curriculum - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/the-mba-mondays-curriculum.html <comment><USER2> Things like this are the seed of new ways to learn in my opinion. I have this belief that everything you'd ever want to learn is out there on the internet, but it needs to be curated + bundled together. In this case, the entire course is on Fred's blog, but even then, I bet he references a lot of outside sources.

</comment><comment><USER3> i had a feeling he was going to put these together in some comprehensive form. tons of great info that's relevant moving into 2011, esp from a business financing perspective.

if fred went back and further tagged the posts, it would be a great move in to bring it all together in a digestible form. i know nivi & naval have done a wonderful job of neatly categorizing the venturehacks archive: <http://ht.ly/3tJTv>

i've heard a number of references to the startup incubators as the new form of grad school. i wonder if there's a way to correlate his writings? obviously y-combinator & techstars are highly selective, but maybe his series could be a great stepping stone?

</comment><comment><USER4> Just created a course here: <http://nixty.com/course/AVC-MBA-Mondays> . It is a wikicourse, so feel free to add content and help build it out.</comment>


Show HN: Making an open-source 2D physics iOS game in 2 weeks - <AUTHOR> http://www.sparepartsapp.com/

<comment><USER2> I love seeing unedited programming sessions because it shows how you'll have to problem solve on the fly and how sometimes things don't work as expected. Nice job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's one thing i've really enjoyed about doing this on livestream - i have a general plan each stream, but definitely need to adjust as problems are easier/harder than expected.</comment></comment>


Derek Sivers' upcoming [2011] TED talk: Why You Need to Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhxcFGuKOys

<comment><USER2> This is a TED talk I gave in India last month (December 2010), here: <http://theinkconference.com/>

(Didn't want anyone to think it was going to be at the next 2011 TED Conference.)</comment>