Startups vs Large Corporations Q&A

[00:00:00]
>> Paul DeBettignies: Last things, yes.
>> Speaker 2: Can you talk about salary expectations ,specifically for Minneapolis, St. Paul? So I know the correct amount of money to ask for is the largest amount you can say with a straight face, but what is realistic?
>> Paul DeBettignies: So you don't even need me to answer.

[00:00:13]
You already know the answer to your question.
>> Paul DeBettignies: I'm going to give you some general, not, so again, these numbers are for Minneapolis, St. Paul, start there. Jumping off, so I can say, someone who has gone through Prime Digital Academy, the boot camp code school up the street.

[00:00:36]
My guess is they're getting 50 to 58 grand a year after having gone through that program. Was it, 16, 20 weeks, whatever it is now. Most of the folks that get admitted in there have some, whatever that definition is, some experience previous to, but not all. University of Minnesota, IT grads this year, we're making 62, 67 give or take.

[00:01:01]
Anybody with a data analytics background who went through that program were getting offers at UnitedHealth Group for 70 grand. So that's that pool of people. I'm seeing a lot of internships for 15 to 25 an hour.
>> Paul DeBettignies: So that's 30 to 50 grand a year, so to speak, if you just double it to make the math simple, real quick.

[00:01:24]
The hard part though is that you then have large companies who would just say this is our salary band. Startups and small tech companies don't tend to pay as much as the big companies, but they can offer equity and maybe ping pong if that's your deal. I'm getting to is this, it sounds like I'm trying not to answer your questions.

[00:01:42]
There's actually four answers.
>> Speaker 2: Sure.
>> Paul DeBettignies: I'm a fan of asking questions like what did last year's intern make? Can you give me an idea what the general developers are making on your team? Usually, you can try to, if you ask it four different ways, the recruiting I do, I tell everybody my salary range from the get-go.

[00:02:09]
And then they tend to fudge less. Cuz they already know what we're doing. I also would go to a, do it over the weekend, do IT, in this case, I would do entry level as a search, entry level IT developer salaries, do some of that. I would go look at Robert Half, Lotus, any of the other large national consulting firms all have salary surveys.

[00:02:35]
Now understand that they're Fortune 500 clients. So the pay tends to be more. And they tend to say three years, plus seven years, plus ten, so they're not getting here, but at least you can get an idea of where does three start and back it up a bit.

[00:02:51]
It's the one part of this thing I don't like. Cuz in town right now, the same front end a developer could be making 50 at one place, 62 at another and 70 at another, same person. Because none of this stuff is really out there and it's not easily obtained.

[00:03:06]
So I'm not trying to dodge your question, a little maybe, anyone else?