Over twice market rate for a Toronto DevOps job, how to find the catch? (web.archive.org)
from cwood@awful.systems to buttcoin@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 00:30
https://awful.systems/post/720736

A Toronto-area recuiter has mentioned a suprising amount of money for what appears to be a run of the mill cloud-aware ops job.

Berachain offers generous salaries ($400k) as well as STRONG Token Equity Packages ($300k p.a.) and amazing team culture, with an office based in Toronto

(Obvious answer is that the actual offer is lower, of course.)

I’m figuring the catch is something less obvious than:

Assuming for this post that this was a $400,000 salary with the usual corporate addons, how would somebody go about finding the catch that the salary is the red flag for?

#buttcoin

threaded - newest

self@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 00:52 next collapse

having accidentally interviewed with a couple of awful blockchain companies in the past, the catch may be that the position being described doesn’t exist at all. they can always just claim the position is full or you don’t qualify for it and effectively rugpull you into a much worse position with much lower compensation. or, much less legally (but these sorry fucks are already in the Caymans so who cares), you might receive your employment contract only to find out your entire salary is in worthless tokens they control, and the Token Equity Package is just there to make you think some of your pay will be in actual money. none of this is uncommon in the blockchain industry.

dgerard@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 08:46 collapse

yep, paying in shitcoins is standard

[deleted] on 22 Dec 2023 05:34 next collapse

.

bitofhope@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 15:49 next collapse

How many catches do you need? Best case scenario, it’s some serial grifter high on his own hype and VC money. Would you expect a cayman islands cryptobro company to be above scamming anyone dumb enough to have anything to do with them?

cwood@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 16:08 collapse

I was definitely hoping it would be some kind of fascinating non-obvious catch. I think this thread is teaching me that often it’s just the usual everyday buttcoin catch.

[deleted] on 22 Dec 2023 18:10 collapse

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dgerard@awful.systems on 23 Dec 2023 00:18 collapse

I remind you of how Harry Clynch bluffed his way to a six-figure job with Binance on no evidence, and only dropped out at the point it would have been actual fraud:

disruptionbanking.com/…/how-i-bluffed-my-way-to-a…

an estimable chap

locallynonlinear@awful.systems on 22 Dec 2023 18:33 collapse

All the reasons mentioned are true, and also I think there could be a more insidious one.

Back in the day, walmarts were really good at showing up in small towns, reducing their prices to a massive loss (unsustainable), drive out the small town’s other retail options, then jack prices back up the moment they become dominant and control the market.

I understand Canada isn’t a small town, but the field of DevOps/Infrastructure engineers with relevant skills that would work in an office in Torronto? Leverage your fictional pile of investment from tether to temporarily take losses on labor to squeeze the market, then dump / downgrade the value of labor as soon as conditions are more favorable.

This is in many ways way the major tech companies do all the time: overhire cynically not because the extra hands have meaningful projects, but precisely because they don’t want upstart competitors from any of the talent.

dgerard@awful.systems on 23 Dec 2023 00:15 collapse

so the main thing protecting us from this from crypto bros is that they are not capable of planning that far ahead