It's an internship position. Plenty of CS people take internships that pay minimum wage, or nothing at all. So far as I can tell, even Spolsky's interns get a flat stipend. Royalties are uncommon even for fulltimers and contractors.
Fog Creek pays $750/week + free housing + free lunch and MetroCard for transportation. You can easily live on $750/week if you don't have to deal with housing in NYC. And even if you had to deal with housing, you can still survive on $3000/month, even in NYC.
Saying "We'll give you some $ and housing and food if you intern for us. Don't live around here? No problem, we'll give you housing!" is hugely different then "Come intern for us. Don't live in SF? Move here anyway! We might not actually pay you, but it will be a good experience."
I'm not trying to argue that this offer is better, but you're arguing about apples when I'm talking about oranges; what I said was, I don't see where it says Spolsky offers royalties on work product.
I don't know of any CS students at my university that are taking minimum wage this summer. All the places I interviewed at had a floor of about $20/hr.
Since the ad stated that they want students from very good universities, I can't imagine their prospects would be worse.
That said, if someone takes this position, they will get far more experience than working most other gigs.
It's not necessarily a bad offer, though the ability to obtain food and shelter are usually factors I consider in my job search. However, I think the comparison to minimum wage or unpaid internships is invalid. We ain't Poli Sci students.
I'd agree with you. I don't know much about cs students, but engineering internships usually always pay. While looking for engineering internships the range seemed to be between 12 and 20 an hour.
I have offered to work for free, but whenever I have done that, I have been informed that the internship paid. Also, I have only volunteered that when the internship was close to home. I understand that the startup might not be able to afford to pay, but I don't really know how affordable it would be for me to volunteer and have to pay for food, housing, and transportation.
The offer would be a whole lot more attractive if you offered housing, even if housing was just sharing a room with another employee.
Ok, just for the record: $12-$20/hr is about the range I'm arguing internships seem to land. The original claim was that interns should be making $5k/mo.
I agree with you that the big thing missing here is housing. On the other hand, if you mostly plan on picking up locals, housing doesn't matter. We pay interns, but we still end up with Chicago and NYC people for the same reason.
I just reread my post. I was referring to the startup not paying, not anyone else.
I agree with you. Royalty is a very surprising offer. But their most competitive applicants will probably be local. I don't really know how to judge the expected worth of the royalty, and the cost seems like it would be expensive for anyone not local.
Let's stipulate that there is a CS student profile that clearly would not be interested in an unpaid internship, and move on from that rathole.
This thread has already produced one apparent example of a high-profile internship that pays less than $20/hr: Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek. I could name three well-known companies in my space that also pay less than that. I believe you that there are lots of internships that pay $20+/hr, but $20/hr is still pretty far from $5k/mo.
Plenty of CS people take internships that pay minimum wage, or nothing at all.
Perhaps, but "amazing hackers" with "great references" who are taking CS "likely at a very good school" aren't going to be considering internships that pay minimum wage, or anything close. Even in this economy, I'd expect that good students should be looking at something in the ballpark of $5k/month.
$30/hr? I think you're wildly overstating what typical interns make. Interns aren't full-time employees, and they come with zero industry experience.
$60,000/yr is more than the average starting full-time salary for a CS graduate.
Fog Creek --- they of the gold-plated Manhattan offices, the first class airplane tickets, and the fridges stocked with Louis XIII --- offers ~18/hr to interns.
$30/hr? I think you're wildly overstating what typical interns make.
Well, I'm only speaking from my own experience. I wasn't talking about "typical interns", because the original article specifically said they were looking for "amazing hackers". But I think most good student hackers will have a very good chance of getting an internship offer from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and so on, and AFAIK they all pay somewhere in the ballpark of $5k/month.
Interns aren't full-time employees, and they come with zero industry experience.
Sure, but if you want to hire top college grads, a very effective way to do so is to hire them as interns, pay them well, and give them a good experience.
Plenty of smart people will take unpaid internships because they really like the company and because the position fits their lifestyle in between school years. You just implied they were subpar developers.
The two lowest-paid positions I've taken (obviously not counting the zero-salary founder role) were the two most lucrative --- in straight up dollar terms --- in my career to date.
The hard part and the fun part. Fortunately, we've been building online recruiting software for almost a year and half, so we've got just a little bit of a foundation to work from.
You may get 3 interns just from this post (we provide no information at all about what we pay our interns, only that it's a paid position, and we have no trouble filling slots). But you might get better interns if you address the risk of not being able to pay living expenses in SV.
I have an idea for a novel that is truly earth-shattering. It might be described as "fucking brilliant". I'm very busy and therefore don't have time to write it myself, and I obviously can't discuss the concept here; I have to safeguard this earth-shattering idea so it isn't stolen. But if you've scored at least 700 on your verbal SAT-- formal score reports, please-- and can pass a 4-hour writing test I will administer on-site in New York, you can ghost-write my novel. You'll be expected to fill out at least 900 pages, because my idea is just too epic to implemented in fewer. You'll have 2 months to complete the task, revisions and editing included, and you'll be expected to live in New York during that period, with full responsibility for accommodations being yours. If you're successful and on time, I'll offer you a full 12.5 percent of the proceeds between publication and April 20, 2011.
Your name will not appear on the novel, though mine will. However, I'll forward your name to a couple of literary agents and, without getting specific, tell them that I know you to "generally do very good work".
It sounds like a labored metaphor that's way off base.
We're not secretive; our software is already built, live and proven; we'll absolutely tell everyone who will listen about the folks who work with us; it's an internship, man.
I'm obviously joking, but those kinds of "offers" have been given (and presumably accepted) in the writing world. A common scenario is an offer (usually given by scummy, second-rate magazines) where the writer is required to use a pseudonym and forbidden by contract to disclose her relationship to that name. They don't want the writer to develop a reputation and suddenly demand a salary.
For a more serious analysis, here goes: a person who works for deferred or no salary is a founder and should be paid with some equity (a percentage of the whole company, not just a small percentage of what he produces) in the venture. Understandably, you don't want to give equity to interns. So you probably shouldn't have interns until you can pay wages.
In general, if you develop a platform and someone develops an app on it, the application writer gets more than a 50% share of the proceeds. I believe iPhone and Kindle developers get 70%.
Looking at it as a platform is interesting - we could end up paying more, and are in no way adverse to discussing it. We could also use the help and think it's a pretty sweet opportunity for the right folks, and I don't see the "shouldn't have interns" as a or the only logical answer here.
Comments
The programming is the hard part. 10% is ridiculous.
It's an internship position. Plenty of CS people take internships that pay minimum wage, or nothing at all. So far as I can tell, even Spolsky's interns get a flat stipend. Royalties are uncommon even for fulltimers and contractors.
I wouldn't do it, but it's not a BS offer.
Fog Creek pays $750/week + free housing + free lunch and MetroCard for transportation. You can easily live on $750/week if you don't have to deal with housing in NYC. And even if you had to deal with housing, you can still survive on $3000/month, even in NYC.
Saying "We'll give you some $ and housing and food if you intern for us. Don't live around here? No problem, we'll give you housing!" is hugely different then "Come intern for us. Don't live in SF? Move here anyway! We might not actually pay you, but it will be a good experience."
I'm not trying to argue that this offer is better, but you're arguing about apples when I'm talking about oranges; what I said was, I don't see where it says Spolsky offers royalties on work product.
I don't know of any CS students at my university that are taking minimum wage this summer. All the places I interviewed at had a floor of about $20/hr.
Since the ad stated that they want students from very good universities, I can't imagine their prospects would be worse.
That said, if someone takes this position, they will get far more experience than working most other gigs.
It's not necessarily a bad offer, though the ability to obtain food and shelter are usually factors I consider in my job search. However, I think the comparison to minimum wage or unpaid internships is invalid. We ain't Poli Sci students.
I'd agree with you. I don't know much about cs students, but engineering internships usually always pay. While looking for engineering internships the range seemed to be between 12 and 20 an hour.
I have offered to work for free, but whenever I have done that, I have been informed that the internship paid. Also, I have only volunteered that when the internship was close to home. I understand that the startup might not be able to afford to pay, but I don't really know how affordable it would be for me to volunteer and have to pay for food, housing, and transportation.
The offer would be a whole lot more attractive if you offered housing, even if housing was just sharing a room with another employee.
Ok, just for the record: $12-$20/hr is about the range I'm arguing internships seem to land. The original claim was that interns should be making $5k/mo.
I agree with you that the big thing missing here is housing. On the other hand, if you mostly plan on picking up locals, housing doesn't matter. We pay interns, but we still end up with Chicago and NYC people for the same reason.
I just reread my post. I was referring to the startup not paying, not anyone else.
I agree with you. Royalty is a very surprising offer. But their most competitive applicants will probably be local. I don't really know how to judge the expected worth of the royalty, and the cost seems like it would be expensive for anyone not local.
Let's stipulate that there is a CS student profile that clearly would not be interested in an unpaid internship, and move on from that rathole.
This thread has already produced one apparent example of a high-profile internship that pays less than $20/hr: Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek. I could name three well-known companies in my space that also pay less than that. I believe you that there are lots of internships that pay $20+/hr, but $20/hr is still pretty far from $5k/mo.
> pays less than $20/hr: Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek.
$750/40 = $18.75
plus
free meals =~ $100/week, so now we're up to $21.25 an hour
plus
free nyc housing =~ $200/week, so now we're up to $25.25 an hour.
That's a good point.
Plenty of CS people take internships that pay minimum wage, or nothing at all.
Perhaps, but "amazing hackers" with "great references" who are taking CS "likely at a very good school" aren't going to be considering internships that pay minimum wage, or anything close. Even in this economy, I'd expect that good students should be looking at something in the ballpark of $5k/month.
$30/hr? I think you're wildly overstating what typical interns make. Interns aren't full-time employees, and they come with zero industry experience.
$60,000/yr is more than the average starting full-time salary for a CS graduate.
Fog Creek --- they of the gold-plated Manhattan offices, the first class airplane tickets, and the fridges stocked with Louis XIII --- offers ~18/hr to interns.
But Fog Creek is small. Both of my offers for this summer were at least 30/hour.
Furthermore, the average wage at my school is 22/hour (for ECE interns).
I'm interested in what the company profiles were of the places that extended you offers (I know you don't want to name names).
$30/hr? I think you're wildly overstating what typical interns make.
Well, I'm only speaking from my own experience. I wasn't talking about "typical interns", because the original article specifically said they were looking for "amazing hackers". But I think most good student hackers will have a very good chance of getting an internship offer from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and so on, and AFAIK they all pay somewhere in the ballpark of $5k/month.
Interns aren't full-time employees, and they come with zero industry experience.
Sure, but if you want to hire top college grads, a very effective way to do so is to hire them as interns, pay them well, and give them a good experience.
'appreciate that. We think it'll be a sweet experience for the right folks.
I think you've set yourself up so that anyone who would be willing to take your offer shouldn't be trusted.
why?
Because its a shitty deal. A good developer wouldn't take it.
Plenty of smart people will take unpaid internships because they really like the company and because the position fits their lifestyle in between school years. You just implied they were subpar developers.
The two lowest-paid positions I've taken (obviously not counting the zero-salary founder role) were the two most lucrative --- in straight up dollar terms --- in my career to date.
The hard part and the fun part. Fortunately, we've been building online recruiting software for almost a year and half, so we've got just a little bit of a foundation to work from.
What number do you think is fair?
You may get 3 interns just from this post (we provide no information at all about what we pay our interns, only that it's a paid position, and we have no trouble filling slots). But you might get better interns if you address the risk of not being able to pay living expenses in SV.
I have an idea for a novel that is truly earth-shattering. It might be described as "fucking brilliant". I'm very busy and therefore don't have time to write it myself, and I obviously can't discuss the concept here; I have to safeguard this earth-shattering idea so it isn't stolen. But if you've scored at least 700 on your verbal SAT-- formal score reports, please-- and can pass a 4-hour writing test I will administer on-site in New York, you can ghost-write my novel. You'll be expected to fill out at least 900 pages, because my idea is just too epic to implemented in fewer. You'll have 2 months to complete the task, revisions and editing included, and you'll be expected to live in New York during that period, with full responsibility for accommodations being yours. If you're successful and on time, I'll offer you a full 12.5 percent of the proceeds between publication and April 20, 2011.
Your name will not appear on the novel, though mine will. However, I'll forward your name to a couple of literary agents and, without getting specific, tell them that I know you to "generally do very good work".
How does this deal sound to you?
It sounds like a labored metaphor that's way off base.
We're not secretive; our software is already built, live and proven; we'll absolutely tell everyone who will listen about the folks who work with us; it's an internship, man.
I'm obviously joking, but those kinds of "offers" have been given (and presumably accepted) in the writing world. A common scenario is an offer (usually given by scummy, second-rate magazines) where the writer is required to use a pseudonym and forbidden by contract to disclose her relationship to that name. They don't want the writer to develop a reputation and suddenly demand a salary.
For a more serious analysis, here goes: a person who works for deferred or no salary is a founder and should be paid with some equity (a percentage of the whole company, not just a small percentage of what he produces) in the venture. Understandably, you don't want to give equity to interns. So you probably shouldn't have interns until you can pay wages.
In general, if you develop a platform and someone develops an app on it, the application writer gets more than a 50% share of the proceeds. I believe iPhone and Kindle developers get 70%.
Looking at it as a platform is interesting - we could end up paying more, and are in no way adverse to discussing it. We could also use the help and think it's a pretty sweet opportunity for the right folks, and I don't see the "shouldn't have interns" as a or the only logical answer here.