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DeveloperAuction gets developers paid what they're worth

155 points by allangrant 14y ago

nugget 14y ago
I always liked the story of the "Microsoft Five" who joined Facebook early on. I would pay a little more if I could hire a small team of developers who already had experience working together. I bet a team of 3 or 4 devs who shopped their skills this way could demand a premium.
- pdenya 14y ago
  I'm not familiar with that story but I know teams of copywriters & art directors that do this currently in the ad industry to great success. I'm not sure how well that would work for a startup though, seems like an easy way to mess up the culture.
  - beambot 14y ago
    I wasn't familiar with the story either [1]. Cool idea. [1] http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-Microsoft-Five-at-Facebook http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-Microsoft-...
  - nugget 14y ago
    In Facebook's case (see quora link from beambot), it seems like the instant injection of a high-quality core team permanently elevated the engineering culture and probably led to a lot of the success that followed. I could see it going the other way too. Maybe it just accelerates your startup towards its inevitable destiny, one way or the other...
- gojomo 14y ago
  AKA, a "gelled team".
- heartbreak 14y ago
  One of the primary factors behind acqui-hires is a preset team.
mtgx 14y ago
I like this upside model of freelancing where the companies have to bid for the freelancer's work. I wish there were more generic freelancing websites that did this, though. Could be a start-up opportunity here.
lachyg 14y ago
Congrats on the launch, guys! I like this in theory, but in reality the most important thing when hiring is not how good they look on paper, but how well a developer fits in and works with a team. If they're a team player, how well they can resolve disputes, etc. We've surveyed a LOT of employers, and that's definitely the number one thing they look for in employees. Culture fit, personality, empathy, etc.
- seivan 14y ago
  Yeah congratulations! I like the idea! Good developers deserve their salaries. And agree, cultural fit is important.
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  Agreed 100%! The goal is to give every developer 5-7 interesting opportunities (with numbers attached). At the end of the auction, they can create a short-list and go in for in-person interviews to determine cultural fit with the team, etc. and ultimately determine what's best for them. It's definitely not going to be highest-bidder always wins, hiring is too complex to boil it down to a single number. Every developer will have personal preferences about what sorts of opportunities they want to work on, what work environment they prefer, and whether they want to join an early-stage company or a more mature one.
- nanijoe 14y ago
  This "culture fit" business is beginning to trend in a dangerous direction in my opinion..where are we going to draw the line between the so-called "fit" and outright discrimination? Can someone be explicit about what EXACTLY culture fit refers to? Referring to a different hiring post from yesterday, does my dislike for techno and alcohol make me un-hirable at companies where it is their "culture" to play techno and drink beer? What if I can't curse and swear like a sailor? Or if I can't hang out after work because I'd rather do something else? Hopefully, someone can provide a definition for "culture fit" that clears the air on these questions.
  - daenz 14y ago
    I think "culture fit" is just another way of saying "if we like you or not." It doesn't really matter how good you are, if you don't laugh at their jokes, or they don't like the way you dress, or if they think you might be a threat to their intelligence, you might as well be completely unqualified, because you're not going to "fit." Do I sound jaded? :)
capkutay 14y ago
Is signing in with AngelList really a requirement? Why must these new services force you to leave your social footprint on their website..
- swang 14y ago
  You only import from AngelList if you're a company. Otherwise if you're a developer you can either go through Twitter/LinkedIn/Github or create an account via e-mail.
- timdorr 14y ago
  It's nothing social. It's piggybacking on the authenticity of AngelList and their focus on startups. Who else has as good and reliable of a database? If they opened up signups without some sort of verification, it would dilute the usefulness of the product completely.
hashset 14y ago
"DeveloperAuction.com is currently open only to employees of Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, and Google as well as Stanford & MIT graduates. If you'd like to be notified as we expand, please contact us." Only Stanford and MIT graduates? What about the other 99.9% of tech grads?
- jquery 14y ago
  It's just so they seem exclusive. Also makes launching easier. Two birds with one stone.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Someone watched The Social Network a few too many times.
- phazmatis 14y ago
  You forgot "notable github profiles". Although their standards are probably extremely high, and anyone who measures up is buried under recruiter emails anyway.
  - Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
    Rather than being buried under recruiter emails (who frequently keep their client identities a secret), we hope they'd participate on DeveloperAuction instead in order to be exposed to some cool companies & interesting opportunities in a condensed time-frame.
- bithive123 14y ago
  Kind of rude of them not to mention this when you create your profile. Am I supposed to spend my time filling it out only to be rejected because I'm not already part of their club? Message received! Edit: It seems there is no way to delete my profile either.
  - johnbellone 14y ago
njharman 14y ago
> “notable GitHub profiles,” CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square for upcoming auctions. That is a narrow field, artificially scarce, driving up prices.
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  Those were the developers represented in our first auction, but we're definitely not going to be turning away senior talent in the future just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe.
  - hashset 14y ago
    "...just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe." What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?
    - Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
      That we'd love to have them!
      - ghettoCoder 14y ago
        I've been reading HN for a long time but I never registed since I never felt the need to comment, until now. What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe. I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated. BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect. Epic. Fail.
grep 14y ago
did they make 15% of the $30M?
- NonEUCitizen 14y ago
  From their web page, they only make money if there is a hire: http://developerauction.com/for_employers http://developerauction.com/for_employers "If you end up hiring a candidate within 6 months of viewing their profile, we will invoice you..." Note the phrasing "142 startups... submitted over $30m in job offers." Sounds like if company A bids $200K for SuperNerd, and company B bids $250K for SuperNerd, they'd count that as $450K of submitted bids. SuperNerd may have declined both offers, so income might be zero. See the "Vanity Metrics" section of this article (but ignore its title): http://nickoneill.com/silicon-valley-is-filled-with-liars/ http://nickoneill.com/silicon-valley-is-filled-with-liars/
  - grep 14y ago
    Once you sign up, they tell you about the "15% feee", that is not public in the website.
    - NonEUCitizen 14y ago
      It's public here: http://developerauction.com/for_employers http://developerauction.com/for_employers
citricsquid 14y ago
> How do I know the offers I’m receiving are legitimate? Only pre-screened employers, who have raised outside funding, are allowed to bid. huh, so a company has to have venture capital to be eligible?
- kapilkale 14y ago
  Elsewhere it says that employers need to have raised money OR be profitable. edit: elsewhere= TC article. "The company manually verifies employers via AngelList and only lets approved startups, defined as having raised capital or being profitable, browse engineer profiles."
  - Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
    The goal is to have only credible, vetted, companies browsing profiles who are able to honour the offers they are making.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
gojomo 14y ago
Mixed feelings. On one hand: Yay, developers capturing more of their surplus value! On the other: winner's curse, mercenary cultures.
xianshou 14y ago
If I wanted to get the best developers for my new startup, perhaps I'd launch a company like DeveloperAuction first, find all the vetted A-list engineers, and secretly swoop in on the best ones for my DeveloperAuction clone. Then that clone would pivot and become the startup I was actually planning to build. Meta enough?
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  My head is spinning.
rbucks 14y ago
I know Doug and Matt really well and they are great guys. Fully support what they're doing with DA. As a co-founder of another tech company, I still get barraged by inbound tech recruiters claiming they have the next great Ruby engineer for us. This approach is much more transparent and fair from an employer perspective, and I think it's friendly to developers too.
shaggyfrog 14y ago
> 142 startups, including Quora and Dropbox, submitted over $30m in job offers. That $30 million figure is useless. It tells us nothing. Why was it included? Reminds me of the latest trend in news, "how much were people Twittering when <person> made a political speech".
- ernestipark 14y ago
  It doesn't seem that useless to me. Sure a better, less hyperbolic measure would've been saying there were x number of offers given, but assuming ~$100K salaries, that means there were about 300 job offers given out for 88 engineers.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    If these were elite software engineers and the compensation was $100,000 per year, then either (a) the auction did not work, or (b) that is a fair market value for engineers (which would mean that the auction worked, but the raison d'etre for it is suspect). Engineering comp. is a long discussion, but I don't think the best engineers are under-compensated so much as under-utilized. Companies pay appropriate to the work people are doing, but staff engineers 3-5 years below what they're usually capable of.
    - jorgeortiz85 14y ago
      I don't think he was claiming that $100k was a good or bad offer. He was doing napkin math. If the offers were within the ballpark of $100k (a nice round number), then there were about 300 offers. Which makes the given $30m number not useless at all.
  - shaggyfrog 14y ago
    For all we know it was 600 job offers @ $50k, or 1200 @ $25k. Because no where do we learn how many offers took place. Nor does it say if they are counting multiple offers per bidder. But boy does $30 million in job offers sure sound good for a weary journalist, amirite?
eswangren 14y ago
Wow... Zynga... really? Because Zynga only takes the best of the best. I mean, not everyone can write trivial web versions of existing games and claim it as their own, right? It must be extremely challenging from a technical perspective. Only javascript gurus need apply! Bleh, what a joke. If you don't have the first clue as to how to judge a technical candidate then don't bother launching your site. For every cut-rate javascript monkey you include here there are thousands of highly skilled engineers (yes, "engineers", not front end web-app developers) who you are ignoring. The most brilliant engineer I have ever had the pleasure to work with wouldn't meet any of your criteria. He currently spends his days writing control systems for very expensive satellites (doesn't compare to FarmVille, I know). No, no glorious github profile, he chooses to do something other than programming with most of his spare time (ridiculous, I know). No, he didn't attend a prestigious ivy league college (where does he get off?), but I'll tell you what; I would put money on the fact that he is in the upper echelon of software engineers. I'm not saying that there aren't highly intelligent people working at Zynga, I honestly have no idea, but it certainly doesn't seem like ground breaking stuff. Again, until you figure out how to judge applicants appropriately, do everyone a favor and shut down.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Neat concept, but the exclusivity douched it up bad and I'd short-sell it because of that. In the age of the Internet, you have to find a way to create exclusivity that isn't elitist. Hacker News is an exclusive community (the people we don't want here find technology boring) but not elitist. By the way, I think you should limit your field to people who would never work for Zynga, not people who currently work there.
- veyron 14y ago
  It's adverse selection: the type of people who would use this service are probably not the people you want working for your startup. The really successful people would be picked off in other ways (not actively recruiting) so you are left with the B and C players (which ironically are a dime a dozen)
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    They have a hard problem. Looking for a job makes you less attractive, and there are a lot of people on the market who aren't qualified at all (non-Fizzbuzzers). They want to have only desirable applicants, which means they need to control quality (otherwise they'll get spammed) and the intention behind the exclusivity is rate-limiting, which makes a lot of sense, but I think they douched it up by focusing on the wrong things (school and company affiliation). That's especially bad now with all the MBA carpetbaggers in tech. Focusing on degrees and prestigious companies makes you (at least seem like) the wrong kind of people. I would have made it Silicon Valley only: either you live there, or you'll move there. (I'm in New York, so it might seem unusual that I'm suggesting excluding my city, but you need to limit inflow and that's the best way to do it, because job markets are pretty local. You add cities once you have traction and are looking to scale.) Then I would have partnered with a company like Kaggle in order to get access to people who can actually code. I've met a lot of mediocrities with prestigious resumes. One of the biggest problems with hiring is the number of people who have established a great connections <-> great jobs loop but don't know anything.
    - veyron 14y ago
tejaswiy 14y ago
So what's the current average pay for someone that gets an offer using this auction? Any stats?
jstrate 14y ago
>"DeveloperAuction says it is accepting applications from developers with “notable GitHub profiles,” CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square" >"We help developers get paid what they’re worth through a competitive process," Only if worth is exclusively dependent on Academic Pedigree. Or having worked at a large corporation that relies on a consumer product. Seems to me it's a pretty limited service.
chamza 14y ago
Great idea, hoping they open this up to UI/UX designers in the near future.
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  Yep. Despite our name, we're accepting UX/UI designers who are based in major cities (Denver/Boulder, NYC, SF Bay Area, NYC, Boston).
jason_adleberg 14y ago
10-15% of first year salary sounds like a laughably high commission. Surely it can't cost >$5K to find a good coder... Frankly, I don't see why it should cost more than 1K, tops, to find an excellent, excellent coder...
- zeroonetwothree 14y ago
  Many companies pay referrals of $5-10k. So you could be making a lot of money if it's really that easy :)
- billpaetzke 14y ago
  I have met recruiters that ask for 33% of first year salary. And I'm guessing that many settle for 15-25%.
drivingmenuts 14y ago
Aaaawesome. Pretty much everything I've done in the last 8 years has been NDA'd. I'm screwed.
- 23david 14y ago
  Well by this point most of those NDA's have probably expired. NDA's usually have an expiration date within a few years... Not sure how legal it is to make them arbitrary long.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    I've signed many NDAs and have yet to see one with an expiry date. I don't see where there would be a legal issue making them unbounded. Do you think after 5 years, someone can quit coca-cola and divulge the secret recipe with impunity?
    - 23david 14y ago
      As far as I know from various legal issues I've had to deal with, the general issue with unbounded contracts is that 'forever' or 'lifetime' in legal terms actually has a legal definition different from the common definition. So a 'lifetime guarantee' could actually be held to mean 20 years. Different states handle this issue differently. Consult google or attorney friends for specifics. Real trade secret issues like Coca-Cola's secret formula are very very unusual in the real world, and really shouldn't apply to most software if a company is claiming that their entire code base is a trade secret. I can understand how an incredible 5 line cooking recipe or encryption algorithm could possibly be a trade secret, but it's ludicrous to extend that 'trade secret' protection to an entire 300,000-line software code base. People who worked on trivial and basic parts of a codebase should definitely be able to talk about it after a reasonable amount of time. I believe that this is particularly true after a product is discontinued or a company goes out of business. NDA's should recognize this and founders should put reasonable time limits in their contracts, even if their attorneys say that they should go for as much protection as possible and try to protect all code/data/etc for 100 years. When a software company discontinues a product, it would be great for them to just release the source code and share with the community. Our laws regarding trade secrets and copyright are outdated, and just because the law allows a company to do something doesn't mean that they should do it. I totally respect John Carmack for being a great example of putting old code into the public domain. Carmack makes a point to release the source code of his old game engines (see doom3 code review: http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php ) once they're obsolete. I believe that this has a huge impact, and serves to help educate and inspire the next generation of game engine developers. An attorney or CFO could say that it's irresponsible to do that, but I'm sure that the benefits that he gets indirectly by doing this far outweigh any negative thing that has come out of it.
LukeRB 14y ago
This is a pretty revolutionary idea is applicable to more than developers. It would be great to see a similar concept/site be developed for UX/UI designers…
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  We're allowing UX/UI designers into the system, despite our name. Huge, huge unmet demand from the employers that we have in our database. Might have to rebrand to be more all encompassing :) Just make sure you include a portfolio of your work with your application.
Uchikoma 14y ago
I assume the get paid what they are perceived to be worth.
oliwarner 14y ago
DeveloperAuction gets developers paid the least the market can pay and get away with Auctions with a scarce supply get collectors and enthusiasts. Prices soar. Auctions with a constant stream of the same old stuff are just a race to the bottom. They're currently following the first model by limiting where the engineers can come from. They clearly want to be seen as the Southerby's of the recruitment auction world. So it'll be interesting to see how long before they figure out they'll probably make more money being Ebay.
- JoachimSchipper 14y ago
  I have no idea how this will play out, but note that Sotheby's is still in business and made a profit of $171.4 million. Which is to say, exclusivity can pay pretty well, especially if they manage to keep money that would usually go to recruiters' fees for themselves.
  - oliwarner 14y ago
    This is the truth but —to continue the analogy— ebay profits are double that... every month. It is definitely a choice and differentiation is much, much easier when you're snobby about your merchandise but are they going to have enough product to sell to keep the doors open indefinitely? Are there really that many A* candidates in major tech firms and positions that want to move job?
sanxiyn 14y ago
Agents for all: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for-all.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for-all...
angelbob 14y ago
So... Fully non-binding on both parties, is what I'm reading. So we can expect, if we interview through there, that we'll see an artificially inflated offer to get us to interview there, followed by a much lower salary on the actual offer letter? Not that I work for one of those companies anyway.
- corin_ 14y ago
  The best part is the way TC explained how it's non-binding: > "startups are required to honor their highest bid if follow up, in-person interviews are successful and they want to make a hire."
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    The people they want to hire are fine with walking away from insulting tactics like lowering the bid. Plus there would be serious reputational damage.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      It just seems kind of irrelevant to say that they are "required to honor" anything, given that they are entirely free to decide not to hire someone they bid on, and that someone is entirely free to not accept any offer they make.
    - angelbob 14y ago
      I'm not used to actually seeing "serious reputational damage" materialize. It doesn't help that the company running the auction has a strong vested interest in these stories not coming to light.
abuiles 14y ago
This is a really neat idea, I think this market still can be disrupted in many ways, trying to flip the coin like they do is certainly one. I'm kind of excited with this since I'm also working on an idea related with changing the way in which recruiting works, this proves we are right and that the jobs market needs a change.

155 points by allangrant 14y ago

I always liked the story of the "Microsoft Five" who joined Facebook early on. I would pay a little more if I could hire a small team of developers who already had experience working together. I bet a team of 3 or 4 devs who shopped their skills this way could demand a premium.

pdenya 14y ago
I'm not familiar with that story but I know teams of copywriters & art directors that do this currently in the ad industry to great success. I'm not sure how well that would work for a startup though, seems like an easy way to mess up the culture.
- beambot 14y ago
  I wasn't familiar with the story either [1]. Cool idea. [1] http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-Microsoft-Five-at-Facebook http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-Microsoft-...
- nugget 14y ago
  In Facebook's case (see quora link from beambot), it seems like the instant injection of a high-quality core team permanently elevated the engineering culture and probably led to a lot of the success that followed. I could see it going the other way too. Maybe it just accelerates your startup towards its inevitable destiny, one way or the other...
gojomo 14y ago
AKA, a "gelled team".
heartbreak 14y ago
One of the primary factors behind acqui-hires is a preset team.

mtgx 14y ago

I like this upside model of freelancing where the companies have to bid for the freelancer's work. I wish there were more generic freelancing websites that did this, though. Could be a start-up opportunity here.

lachyg 14y ago

Congrats on the launch, guys! I like this in theory, but in reality the most important thing when hiring is not how good they look on paper, but how well a developer fits in and works with a team. If they're a team player, how well they can resolve disputes, etc. We've surveyed a LOT of employers, and that's definitely the number one thing they look for in employees. Culture fit, personality, empathy, etc.

seivan 14y ago
Yeah congratulations! I like the idea! Good developers deserve their salaries. And agree, cultural fit is important.
Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
Agreed 100%! The goal is to give every developer 5-7 interesting opportunities (with numbers attached). At the end of the auction, they can create a short-list and go in for in-person interviews to determine cultural fit with the team, etc. and ultimately determine what's best for them. It's definitely not going to be highest-bidder always wins, hiring is too complex to boil it down to a single number. Every developer will have personal preferences about what sorts of opportunities they want to work on, what work environment they prefer, and whether they want to join an early-stage company or a more mature one.
nanijoe 14y ago
This "culture fit" business is beginning to trend in a dangerous direction in my opinion..where are we going to draw the line between the so-called "fit" and outright discrimination? Can someone be explicit about what EXACTLY culture fit refers to? Referring to a different hiring post from yesterday, does my dislike for techno and alcohol make me un-hirable at companies where it is their "culture" to play techno and drink beer? What if I can't curse and swear like a sailor? Or if I can't hang out after work because I'd rather do something else? Hopefully, someone can provide a definition for "culture fit" that clears the air on these questions.
- daenz 14y ago
  I think "culture fit" is just another way of saying "if we like you or not." It doesn't really matter how good you are, if you don't laugh at their jokes, or they don't like the way you dress, or if they think you might be a threat to their intelligence, you might as well be completely unqualified, because you're not going to "fit." Do I sound jaded? :)

capkutay 14y ago

Is signing in with AngelList really a requirement? Why must these new services force you to leave your social footprint on their website..

swang 14y ago
You only import from AngelList if you're a company. Otherwise if you're a developer you can either go through Twitter/LinkedIn/Github or create an account via e-mail.
timdorr 14y ago
It's nothing social. It's piggybacking on the authenticity of AngelList and their focus on startups. Who else has as good and reliable of a database? If they opened up signups without some sort of verification, it would dilute the usefulness of the product completely.

hashset 14y ago

"DeveloperAuction.com is currently open only to employees of Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, and Google as well as Stanford & MIT graduates. If you'd like to be notified as we expand, please contact us." Only Stanford and MIT graduates? What about the other 99.9% of tech grads?

jquery 14y ago
It's just so they seem exclusive. Also makes launching easier. Two birds with one stone.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Someone watched The Social Network a few too many times.
phazmatis 14y ago
You forgot "notable github profiles". Although their standards are probably extremely high, and anyone who measures up is buried under recruiter emails anyway.
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  Rather than being buried under recruiter emails (who frequently keep their client identities a secret), we hope they'd participate on DeveloperAuction instead in order to be exposed to some cool companies & interesting opportunities in a condensed time-frame.
bithive123 14y ago
Kind of rude of them not to mention this when you create your profile. Am I supposed to spend my time filling it out only to be rejected because I'm not already part of their club? Message received! Edit: It seems there is no way to delete my profile either.
- johnbellone 14y ago

njharman 14y ago

> “notable GitHub profiles,” CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square for upcoming auctions. That is a narrow field, artificially scarce, driving up prices.

Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
Those were the developers represented in our first auction, but we're definitely not going to be turning away senior talent in the future just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe.
- hashset 14y ago
  "...just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe." What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?
  - Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
    That we'd love to have them!
    - ghettoCoder 14y ago
      I've been reading HN for a long time but I never registed since I never felt the need to comment, until now. What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe. I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated. BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect. Epic. Fail.

grep 14y ago

did they make 15% of the $30M?

NonEUCitizen 14y ago
From their web page, they only make money if there is a hire: http://developerauction.com/for_employers http://developerauction.com/for_employers "If you end up hiring a candidate within 6 months of viewing their profile, we will invoice you..." Note the phrasing "142 startups... submitted over $30m in job offers." Sounds like if company A bids $200K for SuperNerd, and company B bids $250K for SuperNerd, they'd count that as $450K of submitted bids. SuperNerd may have declined both offers, so income might be zero. See the "Vanity Metrics" section of this article (but ignore its title): http://nickoneill.com/silicon-valley-is-filled-with-liars/ http://nickoneill.com/silicon-valley-is-filled-with-liars/
- grep 14y ago
  Once you sign up, they tell you about the "15% feee", that is not public in the website.
  - NonEUCitizen 14y ago
    It's public here: http://developerauction.com/for_employers http://developerauction.com/for_employers

citricsquid 14y ago

> How do I know the offers I’m receiving are legitimate? Only pre-screened employers, who have raised outside funding, are allowed to bid. huh, so a company has to have venture capital to be eligible?

kapilkale 14y ago
Elsewhere it says that employers need to have raised money OR be profitable. edit: elsewhere= TC article. "The company manually verifies employers via AngelList and only lets approved startups, defined as having raised capital or being profitable, browse engineer profiles."
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
  The goal is to have only credible, vetted, companies browsing profiles who are able to honour the offers they are making.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

gojomo 14y ago

Mixed feelings. On one hand: Yay, developers capturing more of their surplus value! On the other: winner's curse, mercenary cultures.

xianshou 14y ago

If I wanted to get the best developers for my new startup, perhaps I'd launch a company like DeveloperAuction first, find all the vetted A-list engineers, and secretly swoop in on the best ones for my DeveloperAuction clone. Then that clone would pivot and become the startup I was actually planning to build. Meta enough?

Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
My head is spinning.

rbucks 14y ago

I know Doug and Matt really well and they are great guys. Fully support what they're doing with DA. As a co-founder of another tech company, I still get barraged by inbound tech recruiters claiming they have the next great Ruby engineer for us. This approach is much more transparent and fair from an employer perspective, and I think it's friendly to developers too.

shaggyfrog 14y ago

> 142 startups, including Quora and Dropbox, submitted over $30m in job offers. That $30 million figure is useless. It tells us nothing. Why was it included? Reminds me of the latest trend in news, "how much were people Twittering when <person> made a political speech".

ernestipark 14y ago
It doesn't seem that useless to me. Sure a better, less hyperbolic measure would've been saying there were x number of offers given, but assuming ~$100K salaries, that means there were about 300 job offers given out for 88 engineers.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  If these were elite software engineers and the compensation was $100,000 per year, then either (a) the auction did not work, or (b) that is a fair market value for engineers (which would mean that the auction worked, but the raison d'etre for it is suspect). Engineering comp. is a long discussion, but I don't think the best engineers are under-compensated so much as under-utilized. Companies pay appropriate to the work people are doing, but staff engineers 3-5 years below what they're usually capable of.
  - jorgeortiz85 14y ago
    I don't think he was claiming that $100k was a good or bad offer. He was doing napkin math. If the offers were within the ballpark of $100k (a nice round number), then there were about 300 offers. Which makes the given $30m number not useless at all.
- shaggyfrog 14y ago
  For all we know it was 600 job offers @ $50k, or 1200 @ $25k. Because no where do we learn how many offers took place. Nor does it say if they are counting multiple offers per bidder. But boy does $30 million in job offers sure sound good for a weary journalist, amirite?

eswangren 14y ago

Wow... Zynga... really? Because Zynga only takes the best of the best. I mean, not everyone can write trivial web versions of existing games and claim it as their own, right? It must be extremely challenging from a technical perspective. Only javascript gurus need apply! Bleh, what a joke. If you don't have the first clue as to how to judge a technical candidate then don't bother launching your site. For every cut-rate javascript monkey you include here there are thousands of highly skilled engineers (yes, "engineers", not front end web-app developers) who you are ignoring. The most brilliant engineer I have ever had the pleasure to work with wouldn't meet any of your criteria. He currently spends his days writing control systems for very expensive satellites (doesn't compare to FarmVille, I know). No, no glorious github profile, he chooses to do something other than programming with most of his spare time (ridiculous, I know). No, he didn't attend a prestigious ivy league college (where does he get off?), but I'll tell you what; I would put money on the fact that he is in the upper echelon of software engineers. I'm not saying that there aren't highly intelligent people working at Zynga, I honestly have no idea, but it certainly doesn't seem like ground breaking stuff. Again, until you figure out how to judge applicants appropriately, do everyone a favor and shut down.

michaelochurch 14y ago

Neat concept, but the exclusivity douched it up bad and I'd short-sell it because of that. In the age of the Internet, you have to find a way to create exclusivity that isn't elitist. Hacker News is an exclusive community (the people we don't want here find technology boring) but not elitist. By the way, I think you should limit your field to people who would never work for Zynga, not people who currently work there.

veyron 14y ago
It's adverse selection: the type of people who would use this service are probably not the people you want working for your startup. The really successful people would be picked off in other ways (not actively recruiting) so you are left with the B and C players (which ironically are a dime a dozen)
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  They have a hard problem. Looking for a job makes you less attractive, and there are a lot of people on the market who aren't qualified at all (non-Fizzbuzzers). They want to have only desirable applicants, which means they need to control quality (otherwise they'll get spammed) and the intention behind the exclusivity is rate-limiting, which makes a lot of sense, but I think they douched it up by focusing on the wrong things (school and company affiliation). That's especially bad now with all the MBA carpetbaggers in tech. Focusing on degrees and prestigious companies makes you (at least seem like) the wrong kind of people. I would have made it Silicon Valley only: either you live there, or you'll move there. (I'm in New York, so it might seem unusual that I'm suggesting excluding my city, but you need to limit inflow and that's the best way to do it, because job markets are pretty local. You add cities once you have traction and are looking to scale.) Then I would have partnered with a company like Kaggle in order to get access to people who can actually code. I've met a lot of mediocrities with prestigious resumes. One of the biggest problems with hiring is the number of people who have established a great connections <-> great jobs loop but don't know anything.
  - veyron 14y ago

tejaswiy 14y ago

So what's the current average pay for someone that gets an offer using this auction? Any stats?

jstrate 14y ago

>"DeveloperAuction says it is accepting applications from developers with “notable GitHub profiles,” CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square" >"We help developers get paid what they’re worth through a competitive process," Only if worth is exclusively dependent on Academic Pedigree. Or having worked at a large corporation that relies on a consumer product. Seems to me it's a pretty limited service.

chamza 14y ago

Great idea, hoping they open this up to UI/UX designers in the near future.

Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
Yep. Despite our name, we're accepting UX/UI designers who are based in major cities (Denver/Boulder, NYC, SF Bay Area, NYC, Boston).

jason_adleberg 14y ago

10-15% of first year salary sounds like a laughably high commission. Surely it can't cost >$5K to find a good coder... Frankly, I don't see why it should cost more than 1K, tops, to find an excellent, excellent coder...

zeroonetwothree 14y ago
Many companies pay referrals of $5-10k. So you could be making a lot of money if it's really that easy :)
billpaetzke 14y ago
I have met recruiters that ask for 33% of first year salary. And I'm guessing that many settle for 15-25%.

drivingmenuts 14y ago

Aaaawesome. Pretty much everything I've done in the last 8 years has been NDA'd. I'm screwed.

23david 14y ago
Well by this point most of those NDA's have probably expired. NDA's usually have an expiration date within a few years... Not sure how legal it is to make them arbitrary long.
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  I've signed many NDAs and have yet to see one with an expiry date. I don't see where there would be a legal issue making them unbounded. Do you think after 5 years, someone can quit coca-cola and divulge the secret recipe with impunity?
  - 23david 14y ago
    As far as I know from various legal issues I've had to deal with, the general issue with unbounded contracts is that 'forever' or 'lifetime' in legal terms actually has a legal definition different from the common definition. So a 'lifetime guarantee' could actually be held to mean 20 years. Different states handle this issue differently. Consult google or attorney friends for specifics. Real trade secret issues like Coca-Cola's secret formula are very very unusual in the real world, and really shouldn't apply to most software if a company is claiming that their entire code base is a trade secret. I can understand how an incredible 5 line cooking recipe or encryption algorithm could possibly be a trade secret, but it's ludicrous to extend that 'trade secret' protection to an entire 300,000-line software code base. People who worked on trivial and basic parts of a codebase should definitely be able to talk about it after a reasonable amount of time. I believe that this is particularly true after a product is discontinued or a company goes out of business. NDA's should recognize this and founders should put reasonable time limits in their contracts, even if their attorneys say that they should go for as much protection as possible and try to protect all code/data/etc for 100 years. When a software company discontinues a product, it would be great for them to just release the source code and share with the community. Our laws regarding trade secrets and copyright are outdated, and just because the law allows a company to do something doesn't mean that they should do it. I totally respect John Carmack for being a great example of putting old code into the public domain. Carmack makes a point to release the source code of his old game engines (see doom3 code review: http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php ) once they're obsolete. I believe that this has a huge impact, and serves to help educate and inspire the next generation of game engine developers. An attorney or CFO could say that it's irresponsible to do that, but I'm sure that the benefits that he gets indirectly by doing this far outweigh any negative thing that has come out of it.

LukeRB 14y ago

This is a pretty revolutionary idea is applicable to more than developers. It would be great to see a similar concept/site be developed for UX/UI designers…

Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
We're allowing UX/UI designers into the system, despite our name. Huge, huge unmet demand from the employers that we have in our database. Might have to rebrand to be more all encompassing :) Just make sure you include a portfolio of your work with your application.

Uchikoma 14y ago

I assume the get paid what they are perceived to be worth.

oliwarner 14y ago

DeveloperAuction gets developers paid the least the market can pay and get away with Auctions with a scarce supply get collectors and enthusiasts. Prices soar. Auctions with a constant stream of the same old stuff are just a race to the bottom. They're currently following the first model by limiting where the engineers can come from. They clearly want to be seen as the Southerby's of the recruitment auction world. So it'll be interesting to see how long before they figure out they'll probably make more money being Ebay.

JoachimSchipper 14y ago
I have no idea how this will play out, but note that Sotheby's is still in business and made a profit of $171.4 million. Which is to say, exclusivity can pay pretty well, especially if they manage to keep money that would usually go to recruiters' fees for themselves.
- oliwarner 14y ago
  This is the truth but —to continue the analogy— ebay profits are double that... every month. It is definitely a choice and differentiation is much, much easier when you're snobby about your merchandise but are they going to have enough product to sell to keep the doors open indefinitely? Are there really that many A* candidates in major tech firms and positions that want to move job?

sanxiyn 14y ago

Agents for all: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for-all.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for-all...

angelbob 14y ago

So... Fully non-binding on both parties, is what I'm reading. So we can expect, if we interview through there, that we'll see an artificially inflated offer to get us to interview there, followed by a much lower salary on the actual offer letter? Not that I work for one of those companies anyway.

corin_ 14y ago
The best part is the way TC explained how it's non-binding: > "startups are required to honor their highest bid if follow up, in-person interviews are successful and they want to make a hire."
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The people they want to hire are fine with walking away from insulting tactics like lowering the bid. Plus there would be serious reputational damage.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    It just seems kind of irrelevant to say that they are "required to honor" anything, given that they are entirely free to decide not to hire someone they bid on, and that someone is entirely free to not accept any offer they make.
  - angelbob 14y ago
    I'm not used to actually seeing "serious reputational damage" materialize. It doesn't help that the company running the auction has a strong vested interest in these stories not coming to light.

abuiles 14y ago

This is a really neat idea, I think this market still can be disrupted in many ways, trying to flip the coin like they do is certainly one. I'm kind of excited with this since I'm also working on an idea related with changing the way in which recruiting works, this proves we are right and that the jobs market needs a change.