April 1, 2019 (460 words)
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For execs: money, more money, and protection from getting #MeToo'd. For contractors: tepid pay and working conditions, but if you complain you get fired.
Tags: working-in-tech
This post is day 91 of a personal challenge to write every day in 2019. See the other fragments, or sign up for my weekly newsletter.
Executive position at a unicorn
Requirements
- Several years’ experience at another company, ideally in the tech industry, but Wall Street or management consulting is fine too because what’s the difference anyway at this point?
- A Bachelor’s degree from a good university. We prefer Stanford or one of the better Ivy Leagues, but we’re okay with any university that rich people would pay to get their kids into.
- Culture fit, as demonstrated through an informal test we use when hiring: will the other executives want to hang out with you at an airport bar, or at Burning Man, or at a strip club?
- Demonstrated thought leadership on Twitter and/or LinkedIn.
Note: any of the above can be waived if you were in the same fraternity as anyone on our founding team, or if you’re related to any of our investors.
Benefits
- Lots of money.
- Seriously, so much money.
- We’re not profitable and we honestly don’t even have a real path to profitability anytime soon, but investors keep giving us money anyway, it’s great.
- If we manage to get to IPO stage without imploding, you’ll get even more money!
- An earmarked massive payout in case you ever get #MeToo’d and have to leave the company in a cloud of ignonimy. We support survivors - that is, our upstanding employees who survive character assassinations from disgruntled women. We’ll take care of you.
Contract position at a big company
Requirements
- Ability to take a lot of shit without complaining or leaking it to the press.
- Willingness to work overtime without getting paid for overtime.
- You must be an independent worker with good self-directed working habits, as none of our employees will be able to give you any feedback to preserve the fiction of your contractor classification, and your actual employer is just a shell company that doesn’t even know what you’re doing.
- Mindfulness, meditation, prayer, or some other internal disciplinary mechanism recommended for dealing with workplace stress, as HR will not be able to help you.
Benefits
- Higher wages than you’d get in other parts of this godawful economy, so you should be grateful, even if rent eats up most of your income.
- Possibly health insurance and other benefits, depending on which of our numerous subcontracting agencies is your “employer”.
- If you do really well, we may offer you a full-time job. Note that this “may” does not constitute a legally binding offer of employment, and in fact this rarely happens, but you should work as hard as possible for the next 3 months anyways on the off-chance that it will.
- You get to tell people that you work for a well-known tech company! (Don’t go putting it on your LinkedIn or anything, though).