The Surcharge of Big Tech

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There is a lot of talk that big-tech companies are willing to pay way more, way up north of the market to the local rates. They all seem similar:

And yet it seems that it is hard for those firms to acquire talent, even though in some cases they are prepared to offer compensation 40% to 50% higher than a standard local development agency would. Why is that?

Well, they know what they are recruiting for. It is a challenging environment, and – despite it sometimes lookign otherwise – they want the people they hire to still be able to perform.

Just a few pathological examples of what can be encountered (all of these are not invented - I know about companies that actually do this):

The end-result is that the folks Big Tech are looking for indeed are very expensive, because they are aware that “creating things” or “building things” or “maintaining things” is just a part of the story. Imagine this setup at an agency for example: your work output is a sum of

Now let’s transpose the same performance of the same individual into a Big Tech context:

Depending on how exactly your particular big tech co is extraordinary the proportions may change, of course.

So you can see the delta between a Big Tech salary and an agency salary as a bullshit surcharge of sorts. Provided your main output is things you build or ship, that is. Big Tech companies do realize that working for them does include those challenges. Not because they are bad collectives of people, and not because they are somehow “flawed” - but because large numbers of groups of people necessarily create certain phenomena that you cannot just “cancel away”. And they budget accordingly.

And for a good reason: every senior candidate they are interviewing is going to try to gauge not only whether the “base salary segment” is fair, but also the amount of bureaucracy and politics they are going to be dealing with. Is there a whiff of a toxic culture? How recently was the team formed? How many reorganizations have there been lately? What is the reorganization cadence? What kinds of restrictions exist?

And more importantly: people who are great at working in big tech (and by saying it I mean it: this is not meant sarcastically) are not only able to navigate this type of environment – they are able to ship in that environment and make meaningful contributions to the business despite the inherent toxicity of it all. And be optimistic and kind while doing so. This is the kind of person the actual big tech positions want to acquire – only it rarely will be written in a job description.

And they are ready to pay accordingly.

What is really important to understand, is that “mid-tech” (up to, say, 150 employees) or even small tech can meaningfully tip the scales in its favor by openly advertising all the things a big tech firm simply can no longer afford.

Just a small sampler:

etc etc. Smaller employers still make a measurable chance, because if you remove the bullshit you won’t need to pay the bullshit surcharge anymore. But the kind of people you are likely to want to have are different than the ones who are well oiled for success with big tech, too:

Look for those, and you may not only make more progress than big tech, but also get to know people who would never, ever go to work for big tech – and will work for you instead. And they would fit with you, and fit better. Exactly because you are not it.

At the big tech, they are still moving the button by 5 pixels.

A few articles on this by Sean Goedecke which align perfectly with my thoughts on the topic: