[HN Gopher] Coinbase rethinking its approach to compensation
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       Coinbase rethinking its approach to compensation
        
       Author : zacharycohn
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2021-05-11 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.coinbase.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.coinbase.com)
        
       | cmsj wrote:
       | I found it weird that they describe themselves as "remote first",
       | but all of their currently open roles are geographically
       | restricted (to pretty much either USA or India).
        
         | LVB wrote:
         | Some detailed comments on that point from a founder of
         | HashiCorp, which is also remote first:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563
        
         | tempoponet wrote:
         | Their "remote first" policy is likely newer than those
         | postings. I think they sent out a press-release about it this
         | week.
        
       | zuhayeer wrote:
       | Seems like the main things are
       | 
       | 1) no more negotiation
       | 
       | 2) switching to single year equity grants
       | 
       | Some more info about single year grants:
       | https://www.levels.fyi/blog/lyft-vesting-schedule.html
       | 
       | Also comes as an opposite to the rest and vest culture.
        
       | WhySoCEREAL wrote:
       | "This year we've continued our commitment to top talent by
       | further increasing our cash and equity compensation -- from the
       | 50th percentile amongst our peers to the 75th -- across the
       | entire company."
       | 
       | "Because our standard offers are world-class, we are officially
       | eliminating negotiations on salary and equity from our recruiting
       | process."
       | 
       | Aren't these things mutually exclusive? Wouldn't moving from 50th
       | to 75th percentile mean your offers are not world class?
        
       | rmk wrote:
       | The big thing that has been slipped in is the yearly granting of
       | shares. This means that people with the risk appetite will no
       | longer have a shot at possibly higher upside. This also gives
       | employees incentives to hop on the leetcode bandwagon,
       | interviewing towards the beginning of every anniversary to ensure
       | they are not booted out or forced out via reduced pay packages.
       | 
       | Every year the VCs and greedy founders are finding new ways to
       | screw engineers over. First, it was the AirBnB founders cashing
       | out while still building the company
       | (https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/01/chamath-palihapitiya-
       | airbn...), now we have Stripe and others shifting to yearly
       | grants. It appears that there is very little incentive for
       | employees to stick around for more than two years maximum at any
       | one place, which is a shame because it will lead to a loss of
       | valuable experience (supporting your coding/architecture mistakes
       | and learning from them) and loss of the ability to capture the
       | value they have created.
        
       | akomtu wrote:
       | "Because our standard offers are world-class, we are officially
       | eliminating negotiations on salary and equity from our recruiting
       | process."
       | 
       | Lol. Their chief-of-something has declared themselves exempt from
       | market forces. The Great Market Defeater.
        
         | kookiekrak wrote:
         | They have some of the worst offers for a company of their size.
         | 
         | They rely on your "passion" for crypto to underpay and hire
         | naive engineers.
        
           | akomtu wrote:
           | Oh, that explains it. They should also offer subsidized
           | housing then, because their employees will quickly figure
           | that the non-negotiation policy doesn't work on the housing
           | market.
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | This would explain the network lag.
        
       | bdavisx wrote:
       | >the best candidates for Coinbase are those who are looking for a
       | highly competitive package and are ready to let their
       | contributions speak for themselves.
       | 
       | I like their concept, but contributions don't speak for
       | themselves.
        
       | 1cvmask wrote:
       | No negotiations and "equality" but:
       | 
       | We will continue to apply multipliers to our equity and cash
       | rewards for high performers identified through our rigorous
       | performance management process. This way, our high performers
       | receive compensation commensurate with their impact
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | Can someone explain the difference between how other companies
       | compensate different levels of skillset.
        
         | doktorhladnjak wrote:
         | Plenty of places where everybody gets the same raise and no
         | bonuses each year especially outside of tech companies. My
         | parents both worked for the government. Their raises were
         | entirely based on multi year schedules in the contract the
         | union had negotiated. E.g., everyone gets n% raise on year 1,
         | m% on year two; once you have n years of tenure, you get an
         | extra m%
        
           | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-11 23:01 UTC)