[fitzn]

> The best engineers make more than your entire payroll. They have opinions on tech debt and timelines. They have remote jobs, if they want them. They don’t go “oh, well, this is your third company, so I guess I’ll defer to you on all product decisions”. They care about comp, a trait you consider disqualifying. They can care about work-life balance, because they’re not desperate enough to feel the need not to. And however successful your company has been so far, they have other options they like better.

Yep

[guywithahat]

The only addendum to this I'd add is the best engineers rarely have to go through the hiring process in a meaningful way, it's usually someone recognizes them from a previous job and vouches heavily for them.

I say this because if you're going through the hiring process like a chump, I'd leave the ego at the door and not talk about compensation or try to demand remote work on a desirable position.

[terminalshort]

Only at very small companies or at very high levels at larger companies. Typically everybody is going to have to go through the full loop. In 99% of cases knowing someone gets you to the interview and nothing more. If you mean the "best engineers" like people whose names are known or the type op AI people that Zuckerberg is personally making offers to, then yes that's different, but those people are such outliers that statements like "going through the hiring process like a chump" don't really make sense because 99.99% of engineers are "chumps."

[OkayPhysicist]

If you're not talking about compensation, you're leaving money on the floor. I'm no "best engineer", but I've never failed to get meaningful bumps to my starting comp by giving some pushback on a company's initial offer. Most of the time the only leverage you'll have is the innate friction in the hiring process: By the time a company has extended an offer to you, they've committed non-trivial resources convincing people you're the right pick. It's a PITA to throw all that away, so something like "I'm very interested your offer. For $(offer+X) I could sign today" or "I like your company, but you're offering a bit below market rates. (A contractual pay bump after 3/6 months, an additional week PTO, whatever) or an extra $X would make me willing to accept immediately." will likely work. This should be ideally in person, or at lease over the phone or VOIP, so you have the opportunity to smooth things over and retreat with your tail between your legs if they take it very poorly, but I've never seen that happen. Worst I've heard of is a firm "Sorry, that's the offer, take it or leave it", leaving the applicant no worse off than they were before.

Not negotiating compensation just means you're paying a conflict avoidance tax.

[janalsncm]

> leave the ego at the door and not talk about compensation or try to demand remote work

This makes it sound like these things are written on stone tablets and we just need to accept them as is. They are businesses buying labor. Everything is negotiable.

Talking about those things is not “ego” it’s a perfectly rational thing to do. Whether you should be paid $50k or $500k is not a law of nature but a compromise between buyers and sellers of labor.

Similarly, if you’re willing to trade remote work for a lower salary it’s perfectly rational to bring that up.

[xtracto]

This.

The best software devs I've hired again and again are basically people i know they are good, or someone I trust a lot recommended them. My "technical" interview is just basically trying to sell them the position.

Likewise I've had the luck of not having real technical interviews in the last 4 jobs I've had, the last being for Principal Engineer. It has been basically acquaintances referring me and soft "what's the problem to solve?" Chats.

[rachofsunshine]

This is a good addendum. Do you mind if I add it to the post (credited, of course)?

[closeparen]

Big companies (that pay real money in RSUs) have bureaucracies designed to thwart this. A referral through the hiring manager practically guarantees an interview loop, but there's going to be an interview loop, with at least one veto point outside the hiring manager's sphere of influence.

Several former coworkers have offered me jobs at their startups, but it's like 2/3rds of my current base and 20% of total liquid comp.

[bityard]

Yes. The more experienced you are, the more your network does all of your job searching for you in the background. (Of course, this assumes you are actively building and maintaining your network.)

[zuppy]

it's more like short term gain vs long term gain. experienced engineers can design an architecture that will allow you to scale cheaper and faster in the future, at the high initial cost. it will be cheaper to maintain, better for security.

depends at what point your business is at the moment of hiring and what you plan to do with the product. do you need volume or quality (both variants are right)?

[throwway120385]

If your business is going to cease to exist in 4 months, who cares about scalability? Pay the interest when it comes due and when you can afford it. If someone is serious about building a company they will be okay with that.

[rrr_oh_man]

Counterpoint: Experienced engineers will design the architecture that is appropriate for the current state of the business.

[jerf]

You know, three years ago I would have said that I can give you a pretty good architecture fairly quickly but if you just want banged-out code I'll be beaten by someone who just plows forward for at least a couple of months... but after some vibe coding I've done I think I could do both at the same time now fairly well. Vibe code very quickly that I also know I can make scale fairly well with not much more effort.

[feoren]

This is ignoring the fact that there are very few opportunities for the best engineers to thrive. I guarantee you there are thousands of John Carmacks laboring away at mid-tier companies with mid-tier managers, inventing paradigm-shifting technologies that get underutilized and shelved behind IP protection by their clueless leadership, living in a B-tier tech city with kids in school and a wife with a job, not able to move, looking at job postings every few weeks and seeing the same dumb-as-bricks derivative adtech vibe-coding middleman companies looking for someone to fill a seat, not developing a network because the few good engineers they know are all in the same situation as them. If you define the best engineers as those that are already incredibly successful, you're doing a terrible job of recruiting for your company. Even a little effort to recognize under-appreciated talent would skyrocket your team's ability, but instead you're salivating over some over-hyped over-paid Silicon Valley rockstars? What a waste. But it doesn't really matter, because your company is also dumb-as-bricks derivative adtech vibe-coding middleware, so why are you even trying to recruit talented engineers at all? Just fill your seats with someone who knows how to type a prompt into an LLM and make your exit before everyone realizes you're a sham.