7 ms·

Twitter pays SVP of Engineering $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent

49 points by acak 13y ago

sthkr 13y ago
That's good for them! These engineers deserve it much more than some disposable turd in a suit!
prakster 13y ago
This should be the rule, rather than the exception.
ericthegoodking 13y ago
great story, but my question is how can i be a 10X engineer? or what does 10X engineer mean ?
- mendozao 13y ago
  I was thinking the same thing
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- antjanus 13y ago
  I think the "10X engineer" is the new word for "Rockstar Developer".
- supergirl 13y ago
  Apparently it "is a person so talented that he or she does the work of 10 merely competent engineers." So, I guess this guy is a 100x engineer, based on his income.
- Asparagirl 13y ago
  Extremely timely post from Shanley about the mythos of the "10x engineer", how it began, and why it is so pernicious: https://medium.com/about-work/6aedba30ecfe https://medium.com/about-work/6aedba30ecfe (Hint: 10x what? what is the thing being measured, and how?)
  - paulrademacher 13y ago
    Not a myth at all. I have seen this in real life many times. The engineer who finishes a task (correctly!) in 2 days instead of 2 weeks. Who fixes the system along the way. Whose code is readable and maintainable. Who doesn't get blocked.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      And does it day-in and day-out consistently.
    - mgkimsal 13y ago
      still somewhat an issue of measuring against 'what?'. If most of the people on the team are already good, it's much harder for anyone to be 10x anyone else in terms of productivity. You almost have to have dead weight on the team to be a 10x developer.
    - noir_lord 13y ago
      I pondered this for some time and the conclusion I came to is this. I'm a reasonably good developer (been selling software in one form or another for nearly 2 decades) and I've worked with people who where twice as productive as me bit I've also worked with people who where 1/5 as productive. So relative to them the x2 developer looks x10 where compared to me he looks x2. It's all relative, in a company of top-class engineering talent their should be no x10 engineers as if there are then the others by definition aren't top class (though possibly still way above average). As for been a rockstar who wants to be they die at 27 in a drug fuelled binge or live long enough to become a mockery of themselves.
    - mahyarm 13y ago
      Nobody can be a 10x engineer if they are working in a molasses of a codebase or workplace. And fixing the codebase would be a many month project.
      - paulrademacher 13y ago
        Nope. The top engineers will be drastically more effective than the average developer, in ANY codebase. They take the time to understand it, and change things when necessary. I have seen this in every place I've worked.
- pdog 13y ago
  Manage a team of ten engineers.
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> At Hotel Tonight, which offers a mobile app for last-minute hotel bookings, CEO Sam Shank described staging the office to appear extra lively for a prospective hire. He roped in two employees for a game of ping-pong and positioned another group right by the bar...It worked: the recruit signed on and built a key piece of the company's software. I don't know what's more disturbing: 1. That seeing employees playing ping pong and sitting at a bar would mean anything at all to a highly-sought after and ostensibly experienced candidate. 2. That CEOs apparently believe these things can convince the most desirable candidates to join their companies.
- 21echoes 13y ago
  a company that looks like it has a good, lively culture is way more attractive than one that does not. this seems obvious, no? clearly there was more to the interview than just pointing to a ping pong game and a bar-- the visible (albeit, staged) culture was just icing on the cake.
  - antjanus 13y ago
    Well, not really. I've interviewed at a bunch of places with different cultures; however, what I see on that day is not what I think will happen in the future. I've worked and interviewed at plenty of companies that put on the best front. Just like that ping-pong thing and similar equivalents. But as soon as I started working at these places, I realized that it's not like that and I've learned to ignore it over the years. The "lively" culture is most likely a product of the upswing that justified the hiring. Meaning that a week later, everyone will be just as shut off as at any other company.
  - nerfhammer 13y ago
    Based on my recruiter emails, every company wants to be appear to be the most fun place to work ever while I'm working on exciting challenges, of course
- curiouslurker 13y ago
  You'd be surprised. We humans are highly emotional creatures. Assuming that the top companies are all offering similar compensation packages one place can just 'feel right' based on things like these and make someone decide to choose the place without even consciously realizing it.
supergirl 13y ago
title should be "Twitter pays SVP of engineering $10mil" but I guess it wouldn't be such a click bait then.
kevinpet 13y ago
This is misleading. His compensation may have been effectively $10M last year, but it's almost certainly based on a stock grant several years in the past. Twitter did not offer him $10M/year, they offered him some probability of $250k/year and a small chance of $10M/year. Now the bet has paid off and he's collecting, but it's incorrect to compare a winning lottery ticket to how many lottery tickets are being offered to current hires.
- timr 13y ago
  "This is misleading. His compensation may have been effectively $10M last year, but it's almost certainly based on a stock grant several years in the past." They hired him this year.
  - kevinpet 13y ago
    You're right, or at least close enough to make my comment based on faulty assumptions. It looks like they hired him without the "senior" title last year. I was basing my assumption on the article's statement that he made $10M "last year".
- tyre 13y ago
  His base salary was only – 'only' being relative to the misleading title – $145k. From the article: "He drew a salary of $145,513 and a bonus of $100,000."
npalli 13y ago
Most examples given are for VP of engineering and other technical management roles. If you are a plain-vanilla engineer (from the article), no $10 million or $1 million for you. Maybe a time slot for playing ping-pong. Please don't try to break your head trying to figure out how to be 10x or 100x or whatever. Totally different skills.
- Achshar 13y ago
  How are engineering and VP of engineering "totally different"? AFAIK, there is no special qualification that makes you VP material from engineering material. An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering just fine.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "there is no special qualification that makes you VP material from engineering material" >> "An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering" I think that's the qualification - experience.
    - mogrim 13y ago
      Successful experience, too.
  - coliveira 13y ago
    The main qualification for these jobs is, besides being a software engineer, having experience at project management and political skills to do whatever the company/boss wants...
  - GrinningFool 13y ago
    "An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering just fine." If you can also manage people. If you can also manage projects. If you can also see the broader picture and how your company fits into it. If you know how to delegate. If you know how to hire and retain the right kind of talent. If you can resolve conflicts effectively. If you can communicate well with both engineers and customers. Depending on your org structure you may also need to make the correct choices regarding infrastructure and technical direction as you go consistently and over a long period of time. I've known a lot of engineers in my career. Most of them were not suitable to become a VP of engineering - including those with many years of experience. The ability to engineer is often the smallest subset of what a VP of engineering does. It's a starting point.
known 13y ago
He might be having good connections
bsullivan01 13y ago
Twitter pays engineer $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent He may be an engineer but he got the $10 Mil for being "The senior vice president of engineering"
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
michaelochurch 13y ago
Startup compensation is weird. Pretty much everyone makes about the same amount (currently, $100-150k for engineers and executives) but equity allotments are massively skewed. Equity in the VC-funded world exacerbates inequality monstrously, because management often takes 10-100+ times more per person. Personally, I don't think it's worth taking equity seriously unless (a) it's public stock, which has a published value, or (b) you know the cap table. If you don't get to see the cap table and term sheets, that employee equity is pretty meaningless-- not worth taking a pay cut or working typical startup hours.
- chii 13y ago
  it is basically a matter of getting paid the value you are worth. Unfortunately, its hard to tell sometimes, and even harder to know if you were being tricked =(
jrs235 13y ago
Pays? Shouldn't that be compensates? I do believe there's a distinct difference.

49 points by acak 13y ago

sthkr 13y ago

That's good for them! These engineers deserve it much more than some disposable turd in a suit!

prakster 13y ago

This should be the rule, rather than the exception.

ericthegoodking 13y ago

great story, but my question is how can i be a 10X engineer? or what does 10X engineer mean ?

mendozao 13y ago
I was thinking the same thing
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
antjanus 13y ago
I think the "10X engineer" is the new word for "Rockstar Developer".
supergirl 13y ago
Apparently it "is a person so talented that he or she does the work of 10 merely competent engineers." So, I guess this guy is a 100x engineer, based on his income.
Asparagirl 13y ago
Extremely timely post from Shanley about the mythos of the "10x engineer", how it began, and why it is so pernicious: https://medium.com/about-work/6aedba30ecfe https://medium.com/about-work/6aedba30ecfe (Hint: 10x what? what is the thing being measured, and how?)
- paulrademacher 13y ago
  Not a myth at all. I have seen this in real life many times. The engineer who finishes a task (correctly!) in 2 days instead of 2 weeks. Who fixes the system along the way. Whose code is readable and maintainable. Who doesn't get blocked.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    And does it day-in and day-out consistently.
  - mgkimsal 13y ago
    still somewhat an issue of measuring against 'what?'. If most of the people on the team are already good, it's much harder for anyone to be 10x anyone else in terms of productivity. You almost have to have dead weight on the team to be a 10x developer.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    I pondered this for some time and the conclusion I came to is this. I'm a reasonably good developer (been selling software in one form or another for nearly 2 decades) and I've worked with people who where twice as productive as me bit I've also worked with people who where 1/5 as productive. So relative to them the x2 developer looks x10 where compared to me he looks x2. It's all relative, in a company of top-class engineering talent their should be no x10 engineers as if there are then the others by definition aren't top class (though possibly still way above average). As for been a rockstar who wants to be they die at 27 in a drug fuelled binge or live long enough to become a mockery of themselves.
  - mahyarm 13y ago
    Nobody can be a 10x engineer if they are working in a molasses of a codebase or workplace. And fixing the codebase would be a many month project.
    - paulrademacher 13y ago
      Nope. The top engineers will be drastically more effective than the average developer, in ANY codebase. They take the time to understand it, and change things when necessary. I have seen this in every place I've worked.
pdog 13y ago
Manage a team of ten engineers.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

> At Hotel Tonight, which offers a mobile app for last-minute hotel bookings, CEO Sam Shank described staging the office to appear extra lively for a prospective hire. He roped in two employees for a game of ping-pong and positioned another group right by the bar...It worked: the recruit signed on and built a key piece of the company's software. I don't know what's more disturbing: 1. That seeing employees playing ping pong and sitting at a bar would mean anything at all to a highly-sought after and ostensibly experienced candidate. 2. That CEOs apparently believe these things can convince the most desirable candidates to join their companies.

21echoes 13y ago
a company that looks like it has a good, lively culture is way more attractive than one that does not. this seems obvious, no? clearly there was more to the interview than just pointing to a ping pong game and a bar-- the visible (albeit, staged) culture was just icing on the cake.
- antjanus 13y ago
  Well, not really. I've interviewed at a bunch of places with different cultures; however, what I see on that day is not what I think will happen in the future. I've worked and interviewed at plenty of companies that put on the best front. Just like that ping-pong thing and similar equivalents. But as soon as I started working at these places, I realized that it's not like that and I've learned to ignore it over the years. The "lively" culture is most likely a product of the upswing that justified the hiring. Meaning that a week later, everyone will be just as shut off as at any other company.
- nerfhammer 13y ago
  Based on my recruiter emails, every company wants to be appear to be the most fun place to work ever while I'm working on exciting challenges, of course
curiouslurker 13y ago
You'd be surprised. We humans are highly emotional creatures. Assuming that the top companies are all offering similar compensation packages one place can just 'feel right' based on things like these and make someone decide to choose the place without even consciously realizing it.

supergirl 13y ago

title should be "Twitter pays SVP of engineering $10mil" but I guess it wouldn't be such a click bait then.

kevinpet 13y ago

This is misleading. His compensation may have been effectively $10M last year, but it's almost certainly based on a stock grant several years in the past. Twitter did not offer him $10M/year, they offered him some probability of $250k/year and a small chance of $10M/year. Now the bet has paid off and he's collecting, but it's incorrect to compare a winning lottery ticket to how many lottery tickets are being offered to current hires.

timr 13y ago
"This is misleading. His compensation may have been effectively $10M last year, but it's almost certainly based on a stock grant several years in the past." They hired him this year.
- kevinpet 13y ago
  You're right, or at least close enough to make my comment based on faulty assumptions. It looks like they hired him without the "senior" title last year. I was basing my assumption on the article's statement that he made $10M "last year".
tyre 13y ago
His base salary was only – 'only' being relative to the misleading title – $145k. From the article: "He drew a salary of $145,513 and a bonus of $100,000."

npalli 13y ago

Most examples given are for VP of engineering and other technical management roles. If you are a plain-vanilla engineer (from the article), no $10 million or $1 million for you. Maybe a time slot for playing ping-pong. Please don't try to break your head trying to figure out how to be 10x or 100x or whatever. Totally different skills.

Achshar 13y ago
How are engineering and VP of engineering "totally different"? AFAIK, there is no special qualification that makes you VP material from engineering material. An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering just fine.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "there is no special qualification that makes you VP material from engineering material" >> "An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering" I think that's the qualification - experience.
  - mogrim 13y ago
    Successful experience, too.
- coliveira 13y ago
  The main qualification for these jobs is, besides being a software engineer, having experience at project management and political skills to do whatever the company/boss wants...
- GrinningFool 13y ago
  "An engineer with enough experience can do the job of a VP of engineering just fine." If you can also manage people. If you can also manage projects. If you can also see the broader picture and how your company fits into it. If you know how to delegate. If you know how to hire and retain the right kind of talent. If you can resolve conflicts effectively. If you can communicate well with both engineers and customers. Depending on your org structure you may also need to make the correct choices regarding infrastructure and technical direction as you go consistently and over a long period of time. I've known a lot of engineers in my career. Most of them were not suitable to become a VP of engineering - including those with many years of experience. The ability to engineer is often the smallest subset of what a VP of engineering does. It's a starting point.

known 13y ago

He might be having good connections

bsullivan01 13y ago

Twitter pays engineer $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent He may be an engineer but he got the $10 Mil for being "The senior vice president of engineering"

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

michaelochurch 13y ago

Startup compensation is weird. Pretty much everyone makes about the same amount (currently, $100-150k for engineers and executives) but equity allotments are massively skewed. Equity in the VC-funded world exacerbates inequality monstrously, because management often takes 10-100+ times more per person. Personally, I don't think it's worth taking equity seriously unless (a) it's public stock, which has a published value, or (b) you know the cap table. If you don't get to see the cap table and term sheets, that employee equity is pretty meaningless-- not worth taking a pay cut or working typical startup hours.

chii 13y ago
it is basically a matter of getting paid the value you are worth. Unfortunately, its hard to tell sometimes, and even harder to know if you were being tricked =(

jrs235 13y ago

Pays? Shouldn't that be compensates? I do believe there's a distinct difference.