Ask HN: What compensation to ask for at an early company with no defined paths?

4 points

3 years ago

Context: Self Taught Full Stack Software Engineer, with 2.5 years experience at a London based start up. Prior job, Strategy Consultant @ ACN. Employee no. 5, with 4 co-founders. Company now 6 times the size/employees, with £1.5m ARR. Raised a similar sized seed, looking for A soon. I design, run, manage/ lead on several major data functions of the company. Plenty of proven value, lots of tacit knowledge. I'm doing the role of a senior dev.

Started around £40-45k, now at £70k with 0.2% equity. I've been asked what I want as my next compensation target (6-10 months). This can be salary, equity and/or "something else".

There are no career pathways, the companies org is changing a lot, not many devs, no proof points etc.

I'm not sure how to benchmark my next ask when a company is so fluid, so looking for some advice.

- What is a good next salary to ask for which doesn't take the piss. - I feel short on equity, especially being #5 and big rounds coming up. Is 0.2% typical or should I expect more? - Any ideas about "other asks" I could push for? - That's all what they will give me, but any generic ideas for what I can give them/ what it's normal for me to get assessed against?

Quite an unusual position, but need to send my asks asap where they will come back with a 'meet in the middle' typically.

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