On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Leslie Carr <lcarr(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: In engineering/product, 9 staff members (*) left in the 2012 calendar year, compared with a dept staff today of about 80. Compensation was not a significant factor in any of these departures, as far as I know. 5 were let go or mutually agreed that it was time to move on, and 4 left for their own reasons. For the folks we let go, the reasons typically were performance-related or fit in the broadest sense (someone can be great but it just turns out their core strengths don't align with what the org needs). Of the 4 who left entirely on their own, the primary reasons cited were: - relocation to a different city/country - wanting to build their own project - a challenging and sometimes unappreciative/negative work environment - a difficult relationship with their manager and/or their colleagues - perceived lack of autonomy/scope, disagreements about direction. The SF Bay Area is a weird place when it comes to tech compensation. Both expectations and realities differ wildly from place to place. I've had amazing engineers come to me with salary expectations that are 40% of what they could make at a major tech company. I've had mediocre devs expect to make 130K before even wanting to entertain the notion of working at Wikimedia. We've generally tried hard, as Matthew notes, to find a good place for WMF in terms of compensation. It's below some companies that are similar to us, notably Mozilla which is structured as a for-profit owned by a non-profit and pays market-level compensation (sans equity). Wikimedia is above most non-profits that do tech work, and there's a fair bit of room to grow compensation-wise for an entry-level hire. It's not what people could make elsewhere, and that's understood by folks who make it through the process. We've generally been open to have serious comp adjustment conversations both at the FY review and mid-year to adjust where it could be a major factor in retaining someone, and have gone significantly over budget in comp increases this year. I expect we will need to do so again next year, as compensation expectations are definitely growing faster than we've been able to maintain our place on the continuum due to the hot competition for talent. But the main thing, to keep people motivated, in my experience is not money. Our job is to take money sufficiently out of the equation so people don't have to worry too much about it. Where that "not worry point" is differs greatly from person to person, and some people we're just not able to hire in the first place. But what matters to people in the long run is whether they're autonomous, whether they can develop their skills and grow, and whether they're doing it in a meaningful context. This video summarizing some of the related research is worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc I think we're exceptional at purpose, we're great at mastery, and we can do better at creating autonomy. (I think there's often more autonomy than people realize, but hierarchy can stifle people's sense of scope and the perceived ability to challenge what's seen as a top-down mandate.) Cheers, Erik (*) I'm not counting in the above contractors who didn't fill a requisition but were hired through an RFP and whose role was always conceived to be temporary. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Le 29/12/2012 17:01, Leslie Carr a écrit : So is this document, which states otherwise, obsolete? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/Wikimedia_Foundation… Some quotes: "annually in July, staff are eligible for a merit increase. " "The Wikimedia Foundation offers a benefits package for all staff, which includes medical, dental, vision and life insurance." "small services are provided such as coffee and soda. Food is occasionally also provided for working lunches or dinners, at the supervisors' discretion. In-office massage is provided monthly at a discounted rate." "once a month a staff lunch is provided. Once a quarter, a staff outing is staged. Once a year, there is a holiday party. " "staff are encouraged to work with their supervisors to plan for their professional development, which might include attending a professional conference, taking a course, or working with a coach. All spending on professional development is approved in advance by the supervisor." "the Wikimedia Foundation intends to launch a wellness program , in which staff will be reimbursed, within a set monthly limit, for expenses related to personal health and wellness. These might include for example the costs of counselling services, massage, yoga classes, or gym memberships." "Possibilities may include for example tuition reimbursements and the creation of a sabbatical program."

On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 5:09 PM, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's accurate. But there's no dentists onsite, no massage center, no chefs, no barista making my latte, etc, etc -- Leslie Carr Wikimedia Foundation AS 14907, 43821 http://as14907.peeringdb.com/

Le 29/12/2012 22:14, Leslie Carr a écrit : You're comparing your standard of living with extreme ways of life, and you reach the conclusion that yours is moderate. However, if you compare with the rest of mankind, you're still getting things that 99% of them don't get. Cheers and happy new year!

Le 02/01/2013 18:42, Oliver Keyes a écrit : I'm proud of people like Leslie who work for less money than other opportunities but for a cause. They stand for their beliefs and their values, I strongly respect that. Yet the money of the donations, which is given for a universal cause, is paying an incredibly tiny subset of humanity with very expensive standards of life. I think that's something pertinent to consider given the topic.

On 2 January 2013 22:50, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes(a)gmail.com> wrote: ramifications. So, the donations are given to a universal cause. This universal cause is free knowledge for all, which is an incredibly worthwhile thing (I wouldn't be here if it wasn't. Well, okay, so I'm a massive pedant. I'd probably still be editing ;p). For us to be able to achieve that cause, we need lots of things: volunteers, to curate the content. Reliable hosting space for that content. People building newer and better features and fixing software bugs to make the process of volunteering as painless as possible. Revenue streams to support all of the above. The last one requires us to be able to attract world-class talent in Engineering, Fundraising and all our other departments and teams, and talented people tend to be clustered around major metropolitan areas like the Bay, which was one of (if not the main) reason, iirc, that the Foundation moved to SF from St Petersburg, FL in the first place. We are ultimately pulled along by reality and human nature, and for the moment, both of those things seem to prefer clustering of talent and the inevitable cost upswing it produces. Now, me, I live in Cardiff, Wales. The cost of living is a lot cheaper than in SF (as I mock my friends about every time I visit). I can survive relatively nicely on what I'm paid, although I benefit from not having dependants or a mortgage or whatnot. But nobody goes to Cardiff to recruit engineers or most other people - they go to London. They don't go to St Petersburg, they go to SF. And so we have to, and we have to rebalance our cost expectations accordingly. Of course, if we're talking *global* costs - a heck of a lot of people are going to fall above the mean. I am, here in Cardiff ;p. A more productive measurement is where we fall in balancing our non-profit status and the market in that section we care about: skilled, brilliant maniacs with the best of intentions. And I'm very proud of the Foundation for finding a middle ground in that market - between the "industry going rate" and a salary situation that would make it untenable for the people they're trying to recruit. At the same time, I'm *incredibly* proud of the people who come to work for us. I'm an editor; being here is, from my point of view, the best possible situation. I've literally turned my hobby into a job :D. But I walked into an environment populated by people who not only feel the same way, but walked away from a heck of a lot of creature comforts to work for an org they could believe in. I don't think we recognise this often enough. -- Oliver Keyes Community Liaison, Product Development Wikimedia Foundation