Morgan Missen

Is there a sadder song with a melody more sublime? No, probably...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:46:04 -0400

Is there a sadder song with a melody more sublime? No, probably not.

Bored on a conference call.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:12:30 -0400

Bored on a conference call.

Today’s Dilbert cartoon on startup talent acquisitions.

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:05:00 -0400

Today’s Dilbert cartoon on startup talent acquisitions.

What new a difference 8 years makes. St. Peter’s Square in...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:13:29 -0400

What new a difference 8 years makes. St. Peter’s Square in 2005 vs. 2013.

- NBCnews’s Instagram

Actual first thought: “oh no! what if I’m a...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 01:46:37 -0500

Actual first thought: “oh no! what if I’m a ghost?!”

I’m not so into httpster fashion but this Internet t-shirt...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:06:22 -0500

I’m not so into httpster fashion but this Internet t-shirt on Etsy is pretty cute. There’s also a sweatshirt whose crewneck begs to be cut off the shoulder a la Flashdance.

Just watched Michelle Obama present Argo with Best Picture at...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:18:46 -0500

Just watched Michelle Obama present Argo with Best Picture at the Oscars, and I’m convinced 1. America secretly wants a monarchy. 2. This was a thinly-veiled threat to Iran.

In case you needed more reasons to love Anne Hathaway. Watch...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:30:00 -0500

In case you needed more reasons to love Anne Hathaway.

Watch Jennifer Lawrence similarly shut down Hollywood reporters asking stereotypical-young-actress questions after winning the Oscar for Best Actress. (via @courtstarr)

Flattered to be considered among some of my mentors as one of...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:16:00 -0500

Flattered to be considered among some of my mentors as one of Silicon Valley’s Best Recruiters.

Obama’s Inauguration entrance rehearsal at the podium. My...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:56:39 -0500

Obama’s Inauguration entrance rehearsal at the podium. My little brother’s a House staffer so he took me here and on the floor, really cool. at US Capitol Building – View on Path.

Spoke at The White House today! at The White House – View on...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:09:37 -0500

Spoke at The White House today! at The White House – View on Path.

Going back on the grid for 2013. at Lightning Tavern – View on...

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 04:49:24 -0500

Going back on the grid for 2013. at Lightning Tavern – View on Path.

I was back on Bloomberg West this week to discuss the evolution...

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 21:51:00 -0400

I was back on Bloomberg West this week to discuss the evolution of premium employee perks in Silicon Valley.

How to Tell if Your Tech Salary is Fair

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 20:02:00 -0400

Most people have no idea what the market rate or prevailing wage is for their profession and career level, much less where they fall on the pay scale. Below I’ve sourced and linked to ten ways you can determine what other people with your job are paid.

I’ve chosen to assess the example of a Web (UI) Designer that lives in San Francisco and has 2-6 years of experience. I chose a fictional Designer specifically because it’s tricky—there are a lot of different titles (e.g. UI, UX, Product, Interaction, Graphic, Web) and it can be difficult for both the designer and the employer to quantify the value of work produced. Even at a large publicly-traded tech company, Design is often viewed more as art than knowledge work; and, like purchasing any kind of art, its worth is in the eye of the potential beholder. It’s also one profession in the technology industry that has a particularly high wage gap between men and women, with women only earning 76 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts.

I didn’t include “ask a recruiter, they can tell you to-the-penny” but I assume if you’re reading my blog you already know what a great resource recruiters can be, even when you’re not looking for a new job. If you didn’t know that, do it. Chances are if you’re good at your job, recruiters message you on LinkedIn, but you ignore them because you’re not looking to leave your job and don’t want anyone to think you are. Don’t worry about that, if you’re curious, schedule an informational call. Mine them for info. Don’t feel guilty taking up their time when you have no intentions of taking the job, but offer them a lead, referral or post something flattering about them afterwards.

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The old standby.

2. Glassdoor.com Employee self-reported data for Designers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and eBay as of April 2012.

3. Salary.com median range for a Web Designer II in San Francisco. I had to offer a lot of info before it produced this chart, so I wouldn’t recommend investing ten minutes in this one unless you can use it for negotiation purposes immediately.

4. PayScale.com salary range for a UI Designer based on 45 self-reports from employees in San Francisco

5. Tech Company Pay is an H1B data aggregator with LinkedIn mashup. Super fast.

Google UI Designer $102,250, User Interface Designer $85,700, Interaction Designer $80,000
Facebook Product Designer $87,000
LinkedIn Marketing Designer $92,000
Apple Sr User Interface Designer $120,000
Yahoo! Interaction Designer II $80,000, Graphic Designer (Senior Interaction Designer) $92,400

(no data for Square, Zynga, Twitter, PayPal, eBay, etc. Presumably they didn’t extend H1B visas to any Designers)

6. Quora. Quora is a knowledge marketplace, where people will provide answers based on their experiences (often anonymously) or expertise (very publicly).

7. H1B Employer Submitted Data. When a US company of any size sponsors an H1B via, they must disclose the pay rate of that employee and the prevailing wage. They must also post these publicly both in the office and online, it’s just (conveniently for them) hard to find. h1bwage.com, salaryquest.com, etc. are other examples

8. AIGA (Professional Association for Designers) This is an extensive research tool to determine market salaries for all different types of designers. A designer told me about this site after I’d started composing this list, I honestly hadn’t thought to Google “designer salaries,” yet there it is, designersalary.com. A cursory Googling reveals that there are lots of other compensation resources like this for other industries.

9. SalaryShare.me allows you to anonymously compare salaries with a small group of your peers. You have to get others involved, but if you joined your company as a new grad or part of a class and were told you couldn’t negotiate because everyone is paid the same, this is a fun way to find out if that’s true.

10. AngelList Talent and other job listings that specify salary and equity. I found the super broad ranges irritating (e.g. .01-99.9% equity, obviously they can’t give the latter) but most seem legit, if not too generous on cash. If you’re thinking of joining an early startup, this is especially helpful for getting a sense of equity vs. salary compensation.

Below are the salary and stock option ranges for a UI or Product Designer at the Silicon Valley or San Francisco startups MindSnacks, Bloodhound, Storenvy, Chart.io, PlayerPro, YourMechanic, StartupDigest, ChartBoost, Pintics, Postmates and (so meta) AngelList.

"Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers..."

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:23:00 -0400

“Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.”

- Clayton Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life? Harvard Business Review, July 2010.

James Vincent McMorrow - Higher Love (Steve Winwood Cover)

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 01:36:00 -0400

James Vincent McMorrow - Higher Love (Steve Winwood Cover)

"If geeks are the new rockstars, then former Foursquare head of talent Morgan Missen is with the..."

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 04:22:00 -0400

“If geeks are the new rockstars, then former Foursquare head of talent Morgan Missen is with the band.”

- Talent agencies are not just for models and actresses hoping to make it big in the entertainment business. The newest hotspot for talent is in engineering.

Missen will be opening her own talent agency, called Main, that will focus on serving the software engineering community. Hiring top engineering talent has gone beyond challenging to almost impossible for many ambitious startups. The small talent pool combined with competition from a growing number of startups is causing companies to change their talent acquisition strategies, from offering perks like in-office massages, to outright stealing employees from other top technology companies.

Missen’s talent agency fills a hole in a niche market that has needed a service like this for a long time. Many startups are still founded over a handshake and a beer. The informal culture of technology startups can sometimes leave potential business relationships ambiguous. The startup industry does need an independent agency that can professionally advocate for young or inexperienced developers. Main will work with talent that is navigating the ins and outs of multiple job offers. The agency will help engineers decide who to work for, how to evaluate offers, and how to negotiate benefits.

With an impeccable track record, which includes talent acquisition at International Programming & Systems,Google, Twitter, and Foursquare, Missen already has a rolodex (a digital one of course) that extends to some of the top talent working in digital technology today. Main is expected to launch within the year.

- Forget Hollywood: New Talent Agency To Set Up Shop In Silicon Valley. Techli

I was back on Bloomberg this week to discusses the recent...

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 19:16:00 -0400

I was back on Bloomberg this week to discusses the recent increase in executives leaving Facebook as the stock slumps.

- Morgan Missen on Bloomberg TV’s “Bloomberg West”

Startup vs. Big Tech Company Salaries: Then and Now

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 15:33:00 -0400

For engineers at Google and other big tech companies, there’s a reverse sticker-shock when receiving a salary offer from a startup. Startups not only don’t give bonuses (profit-sharing first requires profits, after all) but they don’t have enough capital to match their salary, no matter how badly they want or need them.

When a startup talks to an engineer that makes or has an offer for $200,000+ at Google, the first conversation should be philosophical. No numbers involved.

To the engineer - if you’ve worked and been successful at a big company for awhile, you’ve likely adopted the mentality of their compensation and incentive model. You exceed performance targets, often by competing internally against your peers, in exchange for an incremental pay increase or recognition in the form of an award, new title or team. This is not natural, and is nonexistent at a startup. The majority of your compensation is in the form of stock options, which you, along with your team, must compete externally to make worth as much as possible. You create value and are compensated proportionally. You’re no longer making incremental improvements to something engineers built five or ten years ago. That’s why those engineers got so much equity and are now rich. Important to note though, that those engineers also only made about half your salary.

The best way I’ve been able to explain the difference between big tech company and startup salaries (forgetting equity for a moment) is to look at the big company salaries over time, especially back when they were considered startups. You can do this through anecdotes or assertions, but H1B visa application data is the only legally binding employer reported data that is publicly available. Each year top tech companies apply for one or thousands of visas for new employees, depending on how many they’re hiring. Sometimes these aren’t approved, but the employer is required to disclose both the salary offered to the candidate and the salary range for the position.

Below are historical H1B visa salary ranges for prominent tech companies:

Google was founded in September 1998 and went public in November 2004. It has an estimated 30,000 employees
The starting salary for new grad software engineers is $78,000, which hasn’t increased significantly in several years
In addition to $GOOG restricted stock units known as GSUs, Google gives employees a bonus with an individual and company performance multiplier.
I didn’t add this in this graph because it wasn’t approved, but there was a single application filed for the title Software Engineer — with a $346,000 salary.

Facebook was founded in February 2004 and went public in May 2012. It has an estimated 3,000 employees
Facebook’s starting salary for new grad software engineers is $85,000. Though this is common knowledge, a good way to determine new grad salaries for other companies is watching applications for lower salary H1Bs appearing in batched in the spring and autumn.
Facebook gives employees a performance bonus and $FB restricted stock units. It stopped giving stock options to new employees around 2008.
Point of interest: here’s what Facebook’s first H1B certification data looks like, naming Mark Zuckerberg as the contact person.

LinkedIn was founded in May 2003 and went public in July 2011. It has an estimated 1,000 employees
It didn’t appear to have batch applications for new grad visas like Google and Facebook, though they tend to compete for the same talent
LinkedIn ramped up both hiring through visa applications and salaries between 2007 and 2008

Zynga was founded in July 2007 and went public in December 2011.
Though like most gaming companies, Zynga’s software engineer salaries skew lower on average, employees are given generous quarterly bonuses, compared to annual bonuses given by many of their talent competitors.
Now that Facebook is public, it will be interesting to see how these salary ranges change at Zynga. As a platform company,Zynga’s stock performance is tied to Facebook’s, which as of writing isn’t as high as I’m certain Zynga had hoped.

So how do these compare to what engineers make at pre-IPO startups or younger tech companies? Compare the salaries given to H1B recipient Software Engineers at the following companies:

Twitter, founded March 2006, estimated 900 employees, $8B valuation at Series E
Square, founded February 2009, estimated 330 employees, $1.6B valuation at Series C
Quora, founded June 2009, estimated 40 employees, $400M valuation at Series B
Foursquare, founded March 2009, estimated 120 employees, $600M valuation at Series C
Palantir, founded 2004, estimated 700 employees, $2.5B valuation at Series F
Groupon, founded November 2008, estimated 10,000 employees, $12B post IPO valution
Cloudera, founded October 2008, estimated 200 employees, Series D

Note that none of these are definitive or comprehensive salary ranges for Software Engineers or any position, but unlike engineer self-reporting or word of mouth, it’s legally binding. Data compiled from multiple sources of publicly available but difficult to find employer reported salaries. Thanks Alex for the Excel chart template.

Did not expect that quitting my job would get me on the homepage...

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:30:00 -0400

Did not expect that quitting my job would get me on the homepage of Business Insider! Very happy to announce my vision for Main.

“This week, Missen announced her resignation from Foursquare to try her hand at her own startup.

Missen’s new company, Main, stays true to her recruiting roots. Main, named after the function at the beginning of code, will be a resource for engineers and tech companies.

Missen will be advising engineers and other tech talent about their careers and helping companies like her former employers obtain great people.

“I love, love, love building startups, but I can help so many more people if I am on my own,” says Missen. “Main will be a new way to look at talent in tech.”’

- Business Insider, What’s Next For Morgan Missen, The Ace Recruiter Who Was Recruited By Google, Facebook, Twitter And Foursquare