Originally posted at juraj.blog/p/startup-co...

Large bigtech corporations typically have no clue about who is actually creating a ton of value and who is not. But a nimble startup with technical leadership can recognize it & reward it.

But at the same time, for different colleagues, we left the comp unchanged over the same 2-3 consecutive reviews. Because the comp should be proportional to the real value people create.

It’s in our best interests to aggressively increase compensation when appropriate. In the past, we increased the comp of our colleagues by 50%+ in three consecutive bi-annual reviews — effectively increasing the comp by more than 3.4x within 18 months.

At Better Stack, we revisit the compensation of every team member twice a year. That doesn’t mean we automatically increase everyone’s comp every 6 months. It means the company opens up the conversation about your comp with regards to your performance so that you don’t have to.

Imagine you have a colleague who’s simply killing it: the last thing you want is for them to start thinking about leaving because of a different company offering them more $.

The long-term compensation, on the flip-side, is the responsibility of the company. And it’s in the company’s best interest to aggressively increase comp when appropriate.

We could pay you a million a month, but I’d need you to have a tangible impact on the business on your first day.

But the higher the introductory compensation, the higher the expectations. And thus the shorter “time to enough value created”.

The introductory compensation is the responsibility of the person joining the company. An experienced engineer with 2 mortgages, 3 kids and a dog has different expectations to a fresh grad.

In the short-term, they don’t. The rest of the team subsidizes a new colleague when they’re getting up to speed during onboarding.

So when does “short-term” end and “long-term” begin?

That depends on the introductory compensation.