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Gergely Orosz Profile picture
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Feb 12 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Something that should terrify Adyen, on a collision course with Stripe:

In 2021, Adyen hired >100 software engineers. Yet, by the end of the year their eng headcount stayed almost the same.

Stripe hired hundreds of engineers in 2021, almost doubling their eng headcount by EOY.
The root cause on the differences? Compensation, on the surface. The mindset of maximising profits and minimising people expenses (Adyen) vs investing in the future (Stripe).

Adyen also pays on a lower tier (bottom of Tier 2), Stripe top of Tier 3: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engin…
To give very specific examples on the compensation differences. Same position, similar skillsets, engineer in Amsterdam, total comp (base salary + equity + target bonus):

Sr engineer: Adyen €125K/yr, Stripe €280K/yr.

Staff eng: Adyen ??, Stripe €400K/yr.
Adyen engineers are now messaging me on how senior offers aren’t supposed to go above €110K TC (€90K base is the top + 20% stock/year).

The ratios are roughly the same and these two companies are more and more direct competitors, hiring even engineers in the same market.
Haha, opened a can of worms with Adyen and people are triggered by quoting higher than actual comp.

“I’m a principal engineer (above senior) and my base is €95K plus 20% stock/yr. Adyen does not hire to this level externally and the raise after promotion is minimal.”
Also, I’m building a site for EU compensation in tech: techpays.eu/countries/neth…

The site has been quiet for 6 months, but I’m getting back to it, with the aim to create a reliable compensation site for all countries in Europe.

Netherlands will go live soon, others to follow.
"How much does Stripe pay in the Netherlands?"

This much: techpays.eu/countries/neth…

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More from @GergelyOrosz

Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 12
Some people think I’m anti-Adyen. I’m not.

I’m pro EU startups/scaleups/publicly traded companies, including Adyen.

It’s a just a tragedy how their leadership does nothing while other businesses to hire away so many of their best engineers… all while recording record profits.
I’ve been privately taking with managers at Adyen who were seeing large attritions on their team. I told them they need to move up aggressively. Shared how much others are paying.

These eng managers believed me, but their leadership instead relies on outdated comp data. 🤷‍♂️
This article has been circulated so much within Adyen at all levels.

They know what the numbers were a year ago to be a top tier company and what market dynamics are (numbers are higher since).

blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engin…
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 12
“Quit your job to make money online” is gaining momentum. But most stories are of people selling you their own courses.

The reality is you need to build a profitable business to make a living if you quit. Right now there are more cheap B2C marketing channels with social media.
We’ll see an explosion of profitable online small businesses built on top of cheap social media as a distribution channel. There’s an opening for this strategy for the next years.

But it’s not easy & the majority will not succeed (unit economics & attention economy economics).
The economics for “tech creators” (those quitting a sw eng job) is tough.

To make $300K/yr (a sr eng comp at a big tech in US) you need ~ 3,000 customers/year if you sell something for $100/year. That’s ~30,000 leads at a 10% conversion, and 3M impressions at a 1% conversion.
Read 5 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 11
Adyen is a company with €500K/year revenue per employee and €314K/year profit per employee.

They have a 63% profit margin, making €630M EBITDA on revenues of €1B.

And they complain of "young companies with deep pockets" paying developers a lot more than they do in NL.
Adyen business is at Netflix, Google, and Mastercard levels of profitability. It's a money-printing machine.

But instead of paying for software engineers like these companies do, they try to hire the same skillset, but at a steep discount and are surprised it's hard to do so.
Sources on Adyen's numbers:

2021 H1: 61% EBIDTA adyen.com/press-and-medi…

2021 H2: 64% EBIDTA cnbc.com/2022/02/09/ady…

We're talking about a company that could triple pay for all its staff of only 2,000 people and still be protitable.

Instead of complaining... follow the market?
Read 6 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 7
Interviewer: "Where do you see your career headed?"

Candidate: "I want to be a software architect."

I: "Why?"

C: "Honestly: I'm getting tired of coding. I'd like to do the planning, others implementing my ideas."

I: "Let me be frank. We don't have this kind of role here."
The above was an actual conversation I had with a candidate.

Wanting to become an architect to fully get away from coding is either:

1. A sign of poor organizations where this is how architects work.

2. A huge disservice for everyone involved.
Don't get me wrong: it's fair for anyone to get tired of coding. Luckily, there are more career paths that can accommodate staying technical, but without coding. Both TPM (Technical Program Manager) and PM (Product Manager) are paths that might be good options in this case.
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 6
This is the third, similar message I receive about a senior engineer having a fantastic interview experience with @Fonoa_HQ (I’m an investor).

I asked them what they’re doing differently.

“Everything. We’re creating the process we wish we had. And we keep iterating on it.”
Their current interview process:
- No Leetcode-style interviews (coding in a vacuum)
- No coding for senior hires: opting for conversations instead
- Managers spend 30-50% of their time on hiring, and making the process better, at this stage.

fonoa.com/careers#open-r…
Fonoa is a reminder that as a startup, your advantage is to not copy Big Tech interview processes.

The same 12, non-personal hoops many people will gladly jump for the opportunity to work for Google: they won’t for a small company.

Yet so many startups imitate Google’s hiring.
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Feb 6
“I’m a dev on a small team and we’re still looking for Product Market Fit. What are the best ways I can add value?”

My advice (thread):

1. Understand what PMF means. How is your team/company measuring it? How will you know if you’re on the right track? This is CRITICAL.
2. Once the goal is clear, throw away conventional build-to-scale engineering approaches. Prioritise getting feedback on something that’s “good enough”. Iteration speed >> engineering quality *at this stage*.
3. Talk to customers. Get involved in customer support. Ask customers why they stopped using your product. Offer to do a cal with them.

Until you have PMF, as an engineer you need to understand your customers more than ever. This is just as important as building.
Read 9 tweets

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