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0 pointsammon4y ago0 comments

Companies do pay us. But I think that our real long-term incentives still pull toward building what engineers want, not what companies want. I think that platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed have just gotten this wrong, because they focus on all jobs (not just engineers), and because demand for engineers is stronger than it has ever been. Take a look at this thread from last week:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27501675

Our bet is that LinkedIn is going to fragment. They are just not creating a hiring process that most engineers like. People tend to either get ghosted, or overwhelmed with low-relevance inbound (almost no one gets the "right" amount of attention). Companies need to go where the best engineers are, not the other way around. So I think our long-term incentive is to fix these problems.

In any case, I'm committed to giving this a try. There is danger that we get pulled toward building for companies. I want top guard against this by being public about what we're doing, and "showing our work" as we go.

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cj4y ago

> our real long-term incentives still pull toward building what engineers want, not what companies want.

> There is danger that we get pulled toward building for companies.

A common phrase thrown around with free services is "if you're not paying for it, you are the product".

> For example, companies aren’t normally incentivized to provide salary and culture data. But we can force their hand by promoting transparent companies in our search rankings.

Maybe I didn't read the article carefully enough, but are you planning to continue charging companies $15k - $30k for the ability to access candidates on your platform?

If so, companies are still your customers. And if you're building and optimizing your product for people who aren't your customers, your real customers (companies) may not be happy with you which will hurt retention, etc.

Maybe I skimmed the article too quickly, but it seems strange to charge companies $20k+ to post a job on your platform, and then actively do things that "force their hand". It might be a net benefit to the engineers on the platform, but I wonder how it will work from a business model perspective since you're potentially creating adversarial relationships with your "real" customers (companies paying you to access your candidates).

Edit: But maybe it's by design, if you actively remove employers who aren't abiding by your philosophy. Although again, that means turning away customers, which means turning away revenue, which in my mind raises questions about the overall business model. A lot of conflicting interests.

ammonOP4y ago

I generally agree with the phrase "if you're not paying for a product, you're the product". But the market for engineers is just so lopsided that I think it's less true here. There are a lot of recruiting companies. The only real thing that sets one apart from others is whether they have candidates. So one way to look at it is that yes, we are incentivized to build what companies want, but the main thing they want is for us to have engineers. And the only way we get engineers is by building what engineers want.

That does not fully express my motivations. I am an engineer and find the idea of making the process better for engineers more exciting than making it better for companies. But it explains how I think the incentives work.

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