Why such a low rate?

I'd be curious to hear your benchmarks that give you the impression this is a low rate.

When accounting for total compensation including base salary, benefits, bonuses, 401k programs, time off, and non-monetary benefits like a clean codebase and positive team, we find our total package exceeds most/all comparable offerings on the market (such as those seen on https://larajobs.com/)

Ziprecruiter gives $131,390 national average for "Senior PHP developer salary"

Glassdoor gives $135,000 average for "Senior PHP Developer"

My experience: The lowest I've seen for a Sr. Dev in my area is $120k base salary.

However, this looks like a fullstack engineer since you mention frontend components so that may mean even more.

It's fine to set the pay at whatever you want, but it's objectively low for the role. If you have calculations on what the overall comp would be that would probably help.

Comparing to Larajobs is comparing yourself to a very narrow slice of the job market which (admittedly based on my limited understanding) is populated by a larger-than-average number of offshore contractors. This likely skews the average compensation package lower compared to other types of roles.

Based on your description, this role seems to be more of a Senior Full Stack Engineer, a title with significantly more responsibility than "Laravel Developer."

Until your clean codebase and positive team can pay my mortgage or other bills, I will not factor them into compensation comparisons.

The national average for a senior full stack engineer, according to Glassdoor, is $160k. You could probably argue that Pittsburgh is a lower-cost area than average, but I still think you're 10-20k low in base salary alone, at bare minimum.

> non-monetary benefits like a clean codebase

“We’re going to pay you less because our code is clean” seems... odd.

If you benchmark based on other posts on this month’s “Who is Hiring” thread, I currently see two other roles with a low bound at or below $100k. Both have upper bounds much higher than $100k, though. If we assume that most other posters here will have similar PTO/benefits policies, then $100k is on the very low end unless the bonus component is very large. (I have no dog in this fight but thought it was an interesting question.)

If you find your package compelling, that’s all that matters really.

Hey Charlie - I reached out on Twitter as I tend to not keep up with comment chains very well here and you don't have any alternative contact methods on your HN profile.

I’ll check Twitter in a bit and respond there, I didn’t see the messages but may have gone to the silenced folder

Charlie, would you accept an application for an amazing [according to my wife] Sr. Software Developer located in Canada?

We listed this for USA but I’d encourage you to apply and I’ll check on the details from an HR standpoint.

Are you open to part-time/contract folks instead of full-time?

For this position our preference is a full time team member. We may have other opportunities available for contract based work on different products - please email my first initial + last name at discoveryapp.io with more information

Thank you for the followup! ;)

Is there equity available?

Thanks for asking - we are building the company for a long term hold and do not offer traditional equity that you’d see in a VC backed company. Instead we’ve committed to a quarterly bonus based upon revenue.