artemk

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring for two full-time ONSITE positions.

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

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Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - competitive salary / generous equity

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

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Engineer #8 (Full-stack Rails) - Full Time - competitive salary / generous equity

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between. We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

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Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring!

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

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Lead UI / UX Designer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/8b561633-f3a8-4be4-b1d0-93e3...

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Front-end Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/a74639cc-839e-4f4e-8437-5828...

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Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/6dae6e13-45a2-4eab-bb8f-f5f4...

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Full-stack Rails Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/de320f7b-65b9-492a-b1fe-bb51...

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See all open positions at BuildZoom: https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring!

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

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Front-end Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/a74639cc-839e-4f4e-8437-5828...

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Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/6dae6e13-45a2-4eab-bb8f-f5f4...

------------------------------------------

Full-stack Rails Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/de320f7b-65b9-492a-b1fe-bb51...

------------------------------------------

See all open positions at BuildZoom: https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring!

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

------------------------------------------

Full-stack Rails Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between. We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

------------------------------------------

See all open positions at BuildZoom: https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring!

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

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Product Manager - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

Chiefly responsible for coordinating our efforts in driving a product, currently used by millions of people each month in the enormous, trillion-dollar construction industry. Reports directly to the company's founders - we're looking for someone who is talented, diplomatic, strategic, detail oriented and works relentlessly to hit our company's goals.

https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/f80b2816-5e7c-41ce-80b7-c73d...

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Lead UI / UX Designer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

Design is a key element to our continued success - users come to BuildZoom on the brink of making large financial investments and their first impression will be framed by our design. The transactions we enable can be intimidating to the uninitiated so one of our core challenges is to lay things out in a simple and straight-forward manner while always communicating that we have the user's back.

https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom/8b561633-f3a8-4be4-b1d0-93e3...

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Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

------------------------------------------

Full-stack Rails Engineer - Full Time - Competitive salary / equity

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between. We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

------------------------------------------

See all open positions at BuildZoom: https://jobs.lever.co/buildzoom

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring for two full-time positions.

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

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Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - $90k-$110k salary / 0.25%-0.5% equity

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

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Engineer #5 (Full-stack Rails) - Full Time - $85k-$105k salary / 0.2%-0.6% equity

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between. We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

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Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

It's far from a secret. Lack of discussions means the compensation package isn't negotiated first.

Half our team has kids, and most of our team comes from a variety of countries half way around the world.

99% of candidates don't even get into the salary discussion phase. It's hard to hire because candidates think they know more than they really do. Some have 5 years experiences, many have 1 year experience five times.

This conversation is about early stage start ups. That's pre-series A. Post-series-A salaries do go back to market rate.

If the start up you worked at was sold for 500Mil while on a seed round - that's amazing! ...but I doubt it.

Did you join before Series A? For how many years did the start up exist before you joined? And how many years did it exist before it was sold?

You're correct about start ups having serious problems that need solving and a good match in a candidate having the skills to do it.

The rest is far from it. The value of those skills to the start up is not a secret. Posting a range in a job listing doesn't convey to a potential candidate what his skills are valued at.

How much you deserve is determined by the biggest offer you can get. Compensation packages for early stage start ups aren't "cheap" as many on this thread tend to call. If all you care about is the salary, then early stage start ups are simply not for you. This is what I was attempting to convey in my original reply. This isn't a negative thing. If you think equity is worthless (which is how these packages are supplemented for the salary), then instead of getting offended that a start up is trying to rip you off, enjoy working at a bigger company that has the deep pockets for the salary you believe you deserve.

An early stage start up has a very limited amount of funds and time to develop their idea into its next stage. For each idea, there is a very unique combination of time, money, and resources. Paying the salaries benchmarked by companies that have billions at their disposal, will make a start up burn through their small amount of money, without ever having enough resources, in much less time than needed.

Reading about companies like Uber, Dropbox, Pinterest, and other big names get fortune-level valuations leads to misconceptions that these companies are still start ups and other start ups have the same capital.

Early stage start ups are companies you most likely haven't heard of yet. If you listen to a podcast course from Stanford by Sam Altman, you'll learn that it takes many years to build up a start up.

All this leads me back to my original statement: if you're looking for top-level salaries, don't care about equity, and think that believing in the product/vision is a joke, you shouldn't be looking at job postings on Hacker News.

I completely agree that being excited and not capable will not get the engineer and the company far. Yet being capable and only interested in the paycheck will not make an engineer understand the customer and what the problem being solved is.

In a start up with a team of 10 or less (including all roles), it's critical everyone is excited about what the start up is doing.

Actually if you look at the history of success stories, the core team was always filled with those who believed the vision. Start ups that have failed, most likely did not fail due to the team having too much passion for their product.

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring for two full-time positions.

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

------------------------------------------

Data Engineer #1 - Full Time - $90k-$110k salary / 0.25%-0.5% equity

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

------------------------------------------

Engineer #5 (Full-stack Rails) - Full Time - $85k-$105k salary / 0.2%-0.6% equity

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between.

We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

------------------------------------------

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

Couldn't agree with you more. Higher salaries very much represent a company's ability and desire to pay top dollar. I do caution on the long term bet. It's not as solid as may seem. I've come across many companies who throw money at the problem of not being able to attract/retain talent with market rate range salaries. Could be a number of reasons, including politics, lack of interesting projects, unsustainable culture, etc.

Another major point to keep in mind is salary today vs growth in coming years. Getting a high salary today may bring with it unrealistic expectations. It may be your future bonus and raises that suffer. Your annual review will roll around and the managerial perception will be that you're already paid more than everyone on the team, so you're not getting a notable slice of the budget.

My point is that things aren't always black and while, and long term may be not as advantageous as they seem. If you're looking for a career, hoping jobs every year will not help. Becomes a red flag on the resume.

This thread, and even forum, may not be the best place to get salary information first. Reason being, is this is a YC-related forum, full of early stage start ups, who are looking for core team members. A key attribute of key members is to be excited about the problem the company is solving first.

Salary is a very reasonable point of interest when it comes to new opportunities. This may not be the right place to seek those opportunities. Glassdoor, dice, craigslist may suit your needs much better.

Simply being blunt, if all you care about is a paycheck and hopefully writing great code, being Engineer #X at a start up is not for you. Every early member needs to be a natural advocate for the company.

There's also a middle ground between posting salaries on listing and going through 4 rounds of interviews. Companies don't want to waste their time either. You can also easily find out salary ranges for many of the jobs posted by looking at angellist.com.

In the end, if you and a company are a great match for each other, the compensation package will be much less of an obstacle.

Do you really want to miss the opportunity of a lifetime by skipping a company that simply doesn't post salaries?

BuildZoom (YC W13 - www.buildzoom.com) is hiring for two full time positions:

Our goal is to take the risk and complexity out of construction and remodeling by providing homeowners with all the information they need to make great decisions. To get there, we put the product first and are passionate about building something people love and want to use.

Headquartered in a beautiful office in downtown San Francisco, our diverse company includes an economist who lectures at Berkeley, a licensed general contractor, game designer turned marketer and a team of talented engineers.

------------------------------------------

Data Engineer #1

We're looking for a talented data engineer with experience in large data sets, to take ownership over our system that collects, analyzes & publishes the data.

------------------------------------------

Engineer #5 (Full-stack Rails)

In this role, you’ll be working throughout the stack to move our consumer marketplace site forward. Responsibilities will range from server configuration to front-end implementation and everything in between.

We're looking for someone that will jump at the opportunity to take ownership of product features that drive traction, which will be used by tens of thousands of users each day.

Email artem@buildzoom.com to chat about the roles.

Outsourcing works if you're able to define the requirements of new features in extreme detail, covering every nuance and edge case. This is the opposite of what start ups are all about: incremental steps and iterations.

The result of outsourcing in start ups frequently ends up with a most of misunderstanding and back and forth. Code not written with potential business needs in mind, and everything that goes with that.

It would be cheaper if it took the same time as doing locally and provided same level of quality. This usually doesn't happen. So what's saved in developer salaries is spent in founder/product manager time and delay of release.

You're not screwed. If you're within commuting distance from San Francisco shoot me an email: artem@buildzoom.com. We are hiring smart engineers with potential.

That's where the options vs RSUS comes in. There's a high chance of RSU at early stage start ups

And definitely agree with experience and knowledge that benefits a career for the future.

I agree that the risk is high and isn't for everyone.

I was approximating of course. Yet the $50x20 is a $100 million valuation, not $1 billion ($1 million is 1% of $100 million, not $1,000 million). This isn't that unheard of.

There are a number of details to understand that explain the salary / equity.

The first thing is the range. More jr. candidates are on the lower end of both salary and equity. Yet relatively close to market rates. More sr. candidates are on the higher end of range and usually have to decide if they value equity or salary more, for the final compensation package.

The second thing is the type of start ups that offer this level of compensation: early stage / seed-funded. These are not Uber, AirBnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, etc. especially given that many companies that post on HN are graduates of YC, these guys have their first major investment to work with post-demo day. They aren't working with $25-50-100 million. They have $1-2 million to make the most out of. This limits the ability to pay market rate. Yet allows for engineers to be on the ground floor of a potentially a huge opportunity (or not).

Third thing is the equity...and a bit of a reality check. The founders came up with an idea, worked on it for quite a while, with $0 salary, applied to and got into YC, raised (in all absolutes) a large amount of money (you try getting someone to give you $1 million), gave up some of the equity for that funding, and you want what, 10%? 20%? What sounds fair? Unless you're the first engineer, with a background of leadership that will make you qualified to lead the growing team, 1% is extremely fair. If the company is truly successful, you're looking to make over $1 million. Even if you're underpaid by $50k, that's 20-years worth of difference, which you'll see in under 5 years. Of course there's no guarantee, but that's business.

The other question to ask is are you getting options or RSUs - huge difference.

And finally, the low salaries are typically brought up to market rate after series A (the first big round). This round is usually raised with 0-2 years of the seed round. So you take a risk of $50Kx2 and stand to make $50x20.

That doesn't sound that crazy.

BuildZoom - San Francisco, CA - Full time

BuildZoom is a marketplace for remodeling and construction services that is changing the way people approach home improvement. With over half-a-million monthly users, we're the fastest growing company in this enormous sector of the market.

Full-Stack Rails Developer

http://www.buildzoom.com/jobs#senior-developer

with...

- Extensive experience with medium-to-large scale RoR deployments

- Strong fundamentals: OOP and application architecture

- Experience with scaling for exponential user growth

- Appreciation for quality, maintainability, and performance

- Attention to detail and personal pride in your work

Data Analyst / Quality Engineer

http://www.buildzoom.com/jobs#data

with...

- Programming experience

- Effortless comfort with SQL

- Experience manipulating large volumes of data

- Experience with machine learning algorithms is a plus

To learn more, email me at artem@buildzoom.com