Last quarter, was SingleSprouts busiest quarter to date. Our team was able to place over 100 engineers and lawyers at growing startups. Because of this plethora of data, we decided to start running our compensation report on a quarterly basis.
To find our comp report, please use the following link (here).
Here are a few extra facts, about the recent hiring market.
The hiring market is greatly affected by world events. In March, with the uncertainty of the stock market, mortgage rates, Ukraine, etc we saw both candidates and candidates change their behavior.
- We saw candidates act a bit more risk-averse and a majority of them were seeking high cash offers (with less emphasis on stock). Previous motivators like the companies mission, projects, growth opportunities, and other huge motivators dropped in significance, compared to cash compensation.
- At the same time, we saw a handful of our companies giving much more conservative offers, which were not matching candidates’ demands.
- As a result, our offer accept rate dropped slightly in early March. Towards the end of the month we saw our companies recognized the new client demands, and as such made some quick changes. The biggest change we saw was a significant increase in signing bonuses during late March, to compensate for changes in the market. (Average signing bonus was 10-25% of base salary).
A huge piece of news in the tech hiring market this quarter was Amazon sudden announcement, that they have more than doubled the max pay rate for their engineering teams. This huge increase in salary has brought them in line with other competitors in the talent market including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. It has not only put pressure on other large companies to re-think their comp plans but this change may make it somewhat harder for startups to compete in the talent market.
Another large change we have seen was a sudden increase in salary for engineers with 10+ years of experience.
- Background: We had 2 candidates in the same week get great offers from our companies above what they told us they were seeking (both got offers in low $200,000 in base salary, with plenty of equity). Even though our candidates had told us that said companies were their top choice, both of these two candidates accepted offers outside of us for more than $250,000 in base.
- Our findings: We have found that engineers that receive an offer of +$15,000 per year in base salary are +80% likely to accept the highest offer (even if the company was not their top choice). Despite what candidates tell us, cash is still the greatest motivator.
