from Hacker News

Developer Auction raises $2.7M for exactly what you’d think

by allangrant on 3/14/13, 4:43 PM with 48 comments

• by ritchiea on 3/14/13, 5:33 PM

  I was a developer in the most recent auction and it was a great experience.

  As a developer it appeared the only required field for employers was salary. Often equity, vacation days and perks were listed but sometimes they were listed as negotiable. All but one of the offers I received were for significant raises above my previous salary. And the offers included some from high profile companies.

  Once you receive an offer you have the choice to either interview with the company or decline to interview. I actually chose to decline three of the six interview offers I received because one company looked like a horrible fit off the bat, one company offered a small raise but required moving to the bay area (which I was open to for the right circumstances but not that one) and one company offered me a salary below my current salary (Developer Auction allows you to set a minimum salary it would require for you to consider moving to another company, I actually listed my minimum as below my current salary to try to leave open the possibility of moving to an early stage company).

  If you choose to interview with a company the process proceeds as it would normally and you may have still have to go through a rigorous hiring process. The purpose of the site is less to create an actual auction and more to shift the power in the hiring process toward the employee. It really helps you do a comprehensive job search with a lot of companies in a short amount of time. It solves the job search problem of accepting an offer and wondering if something else is out there that's a better fit. All in all it was a great way to look for new opportunities and I ended up accepting an offer from one of the companies I interviewed with.

• by cliftonmckinney on 3/14/13, 6:31 PM

  Co-founder of Work for Pie (the other company mentioned in the article) here. I will say I'm glad that these guys expanded from their original, pretty elitist degree and/or experience requirements.

  There are companies that do it right--like Github and Etsy--and there are companies that do it wrong. The big problem is that doing it right probably takes more time. Supporting the local developer ecosystem, presenting at conferences and meetups, mentoring others, open sourcing projects, writing blogs that help others, etc. are all great recruiting strategies (and just darn nice things to do overall), but they all take a lot of time (and none are guaranteed to bring you new employees).

  I think the fact that these guys are successful tells me that a fair number of companies are saying "my time is more valuable than $xx." I'm not sure how I feel about that. I completely understand it--especially when you're a part of a super-small team--but I still kinda wish it didn't have to be that way. And fwiw I'm not sure how well cultural fit is addressed by this platform, but maybe the companies figure all that out in interviews.

  I'm biased, but I think giving developers the chance to discover the one company (among as many options as possible) that fits them best is the way to really improve recruiting. That forces companies to actually be worth a damn--not just have deep pockets--to recruit successfully.

  ..and now for the shameless plug. It's free to set up a company page on Work for Pie, and you can post up to two jobs for free too. Tell our thousands of developers how awesome you are: https://workforpie.com/companies/join/

• by mkrecny on 3/14/13, 6:18 PM

  A friendly warning to fellow developers. While Dev Auction is a great idea, there's no way to ensure that your current employer doesn't know you're on the site. I wasn't given the option of returning to my job after my employers found out i was on Dev Auction. Matt was pretty callous about it ultimately ignoring my emails.

  [reposted from disqus comments]

• by jrabone on 3/14/13, 5:33 PM

  From the T&C:

  "You are expressly prohibited from accessing DEVAUCT through a virtual private network or by proxy;"

  WTF?

  a) unenforcable. b) breaks IronKey Secure Sessions. c) breaks compressing mobile browsers eg. Opera Mobile etc. d) don't tell me what I can and can't do with my network.

• by sethist on 3/14/13, 5:17 PM

  A job seems like the last thing I would want to leave up to be "sold to the highest bidder." From an employee's perspective there are so many other factors outside of compensation that are relevant to whether I would want to work somewhere. From an employer's perspective if you are hiring mercenaries willing to work for the highest bidder, what do you do when company X is willing to pay more than you can afford?

• by epoxyhockey on 3/14/13, 6:22 PM

  If I call any recruiting agency in the Bay Area, I will be offered interviews with at least 3 companies, along with promises that I would be offered a salary of 20% above market. The interviews would be conducted in the recruiter's offices and the salary figures will quickly decline once actually speaking to a company representative.

  I feel like I'm still not seeing the additional value that Developer Auction brings to the table. Am I missing something or are they just offering an air of exclusivity?

• by hkmurakami on 3/14/13, 5:18 PM

  B) AirBnB for oil tankers

  Is it just me or does this actually sound quite interesting?

• by ericmsimons on 3/14/13, 6:10 PM

  What's crazy is that this reminds me of how slaves used to be sold. Round up a few folks who can do hard work, put them on a podium and then sell them to the highest bidder.

  Not a perfect analogy by any stretch, although it is interesting.

• by biot on 3/14/13, 5:09 PM

  I was half expecting that some developer was auctioned off for a $2.7M signing bonus just like in the good old days.

• by altcognito on 3/14/13, 5:35 PM

  Great! I've always wanted to be treated like a consumer good sold on ebay. Are we going to have the accompanying site - CEOauction?

• by n00b101 on 3/14/13, 6:14 PM

  The FAQ says "Our primary focus is the SF Bay Area, LA and NYC. We accept great engineers from Seattle, Boston, Boulder/Denver, Chicago and Washington DC as well."

  Does this mean that DeveloperAuction will only accept developers residing in these specific cities? What about non-US residents (e.g. Canada)?

• by jskonhovd on 3/14/13, 6:12 PM

  I like work for pie better. This just seems creepy.

• by liamk on 3/14/13, 5:16 PM

  I wonder if the auction includes benefits like vacation time, signing bonuses, parental leave, work hardware etc?

• by norabean on 3/14/13, 4:51 PM

  This is great! Curious to see how many HackerNews folks are registered at Developer Auction.

• by saranagati on 3/15/13, 1:03 AM

  Would be nice if the site offered a valid SSL certificate. Maybe they should bid on a better sysadmin?