A Mega Offer Recently Declined by an Elite Data Scientist

I wanted to write this post because when the larger community talks about Austin's startup scene and the "battle for tech talent", it's these kind of stories that need to be told.

There is a Data Scientist in Austin who is regarded as a "transcendent genius" and from several people, I've been told that he is the smartest person they've ever worked with in their career. They speak of him in such high regard that when you first approach him, it's with such deference and respect that you almost can't get both feet in the door. In doing so, figuratively, you're coming in bended knee and you simply appreciate the fact that he will listen to the opportunity you have come forth with. Thank goodness for email is all I can say because as a recruiting firm, we are really good at messaging. All this said, he is very humble, modest and respectful. A truly nice guy. But make no mistake, he is special.

There is a startup in Austin that is looking for a Principal Machine Learning Data Scientist and to their credit, their technical bar is regarded as one of the highest in Austin. Their CTO can recognize talent like no other and they have a couple of software engineers on the team who are elite in every way possible. The challenge this company faced was finding a Data Scientist who was still very much hands on but also senior enough to function at the Principal level. The software engineering team would be working with this Data Scientist in such a way that they had to respect him/her and every decision they chose regarding all of the company's Machine Learning Data Science responsibilities. As a recruiter, I can't tell you how difficult it is to find someone this strong.

The search started in March of 2015 and is still going on today. In June of 2015, we emailed this elite Data Scientist and for the remainder of this story, let's call him Randall. What's funny is that for the first four months that we started working with Randall, we just called him the "Genius Data Scientist".

Yes, we'll get the genius Data Scientist set up for another call.

Hey Troy, can you ping the genius Data Scientist and see when he can do coffee

Okay great, we'll reach out to the genius data scientist...

Eventually we had to get away from this idolatry because at the end of the day, it's not very good business. But for four months, we just couldn't help it. Everyone we spoke with who knew this Data Scientist the praise was unlike anything we had ever experienced before.

The process was painfully slow. Three months passed from the time we submitted Randall's resume to the first coffee meeting with our client. We would message Randall asking when he could do coffee and he would reply one week later saying he could meet the very next day and by then, we weren't able to get confirmation quickly enough from the CTO. Then, Randall had to go out of the country and on top of that, he was in the final stages of his green card approval. Every week, we would send something out to Randall and just wait 5-6 days for him to reply.

Our contact, the CTO, has an incredible eye for talent and a real discriminating approach when he interviews software engineers. He knows exactly what to look for and even with candidates that he likes, he brings out his concerns and areas of weakness. In his review of tech talent, nothing comes without a few question marks. After his met with Randall for coffee, this is what he had to say,

So, Mark, I met with Randall and, um, let me just say that he's good. I mean, really, really good. I would like to have him come in and meet the engineering team as soon as possible. Can you set this up?

So much upside and hype had been baked into Randall already but knowing that the CTO had this kind of feedback still took us to another level. I had worked with this CTO for 4 years by now and this was the first time he was unanimously positive about a candidate. Despite our excitement over this first step, we had come to realize that Randall was always going to be very difficult to get ahold of it took another 2 months before Randall was able to meet the team onsite at their offices. For this onsite, Randall was going to meet the engineering team and get a 4 hour technical deep dive on his background. Mind you, we are 5 months in. Randall goes in there and crushes it.

So, at this moment, the tables turned and my client started putting on their sales cap. The Founder/CEO of the startup wanted to meet with Randall and even the primary investor of the company wanted to meet him. At this stage, the process went dark again and there was no more activity for another 3 months. In this time, my client continued to interview other candidates because they simply had to keep this search going.

An Interesting Dynamic about Randall's Interview Process -

Randall didn't have to do the Data Science homework assignment. He was so strong that simply his vocabulary, his thought process, his answers in the onsite interview removed any doubt whatsoever about his abilities that my client knew this was their Data Scientist. A lot of my reading audience might not be too privy to homework assignments but like I have written before, along with code tests, they are really showing up everywhere these days.

In fact, specifically for the discipline of Data Science, the assignments are very extensive. I know of three SW firms here in Austin where the first engagement, right off the bat, is a 3-4 hour homework assignment. I'm talking like the initial email is "Hey welcome to **** and here is your homework assignment to get started"....

In the case of my client, here is how their process worked. First there was a coffee meeting that was followed by an onsite to meet the engineering team. Then came the Homework assignment and upon completion, the engineers reviewed the solution and set a followup meeting to discuss their questions and concerns.

When Randall's green card issue got in the way and the process went silent, we had another candidate interview for the role. He was very strong as a Data Scientist and very gifted, brilliant in fact. He shined in the coffee meeting, really impressed on the onsite and spent 14 hours on the homework assignment. It represented all the free time for one of his weekends. He submitted the solution and my client's feedback, while positive, did express some concerns about his answers and thus, as the next step, they requested another homework assignment. This prompted the candidate to request a consulting agreement that not only included a modest hourly rate to do the work but also a non-disclosure agreement trusting that his answers and solutions would not be used by the company for any means of profit. This turn of events then drew in the Legal Counsel to review the consulting agreement so everything was properly worded and nothing was misrepresented. It would be an understatement to say we were getting quite granular in the process.

Ultimately, we worked through all the details and an offer was made to this candidate. My client didn't mess round on the offer. Despite being a first round funded startup with note even 4mm in the bank, they came with 140k base and some equity. The equity wasn't much because the salary was so high for an early stage startup but still, the package was solid. At one point, he had verbally accepted but in this long process, one of the FAANG stocks came along and nabbed him with a package that was 50k more than what my client offered. Everyone was really deflated with this ending but amid all of this, the one reflection I continued to have revolved around the homework assignment. Quite simply, Randall was given a pass. He spoke and presented his knowledge and experience in such a way that the company knew a homework assignment wasn't needed. It follows a largely known principle in the Software Engineering profession,

The more of a technical subject matter expert you are, the less hurdles you have to jump over in an interview process. Minimal or no code tests, only one onsite, more Q&A for you rather than one sided technical grilling...

This probably relates to every profession but still, it is always special to see this dynamic play out in real life

Anyways, back to the story. When this candidate declined the offer, we were back at Square One in the process and we were looking right at Randall. He was still interested and a new development had come in to play in the form of green card. No visa issues. With that, we reached out to Randall and surprisingly, he got back to us pretty quickly. He came back in to meet with the team and everything was still just great. The time had come to make an offer and my client didn't want to mess around.

I wasn't sure what my client wanted to do. Randall worked at a Fortune 500, publicly traded company and he was well compensated. I groaned under my breath when he told me his base salary was 200k and I relayed this on to my client and rather than complain about it, they made the really bold move of stepping up to this figure.

At this point, let me stop the story about talk about "Big Money" in Austin. Okay, yes, so there are big money commercial real estate developers in Austin who make millions. They are the early stage veterans at Homeaway and Solarwinds who have killed it and there are dollar consultants that make 200/hour. But in this context, I'm talking about a full-time employee making a base salary of 200k, has full benefits and is being pursued by a first round funded startup with less than 4mm in the bank. It's the story of the price tag that an elite Data Scientist can fetch here in Austin.  My client came back to me with the following:

190k base salary

1% equity

They told me outright that they had reached the ceiling on the salary but definitely had some wiggle room on the equity. I thought it was an amazing offer and I shared it with Randall. He wanted to think about it and then get back to me but clearly, you could feel some surprise in his voice regarding how an early stage startup with less than 20 employees could make this kind of offer. While most candidates get back to us the next day, we heard from Randall after a week and his feedback was the following,

So, I spoke with my wife and she does not want us to take a cut in pay. We do have some pretty large expenses in our household and it's really difficult to take any kind of cut on the base salary. Is there any way we can adjust this to 200k?

That hard ceiling on the 190k base salary? Well, my client immediately came back and modified the offer to 200k. Furthermore, they also let me know that they still had some wiggle room on the stock and were willing to go higher on that. We never pinned down the exact amount but in my conversations, they were implying they could go to 1.5%. And folks, let me just tell you know that here in Austin, when a 20 person startup makes an offer of this magnitude, it's called a Mega Offer. And this was carefully laid out in front of Randall.

200k base salary

Principal Data Scientist title

1.5% equity

The next two weeks were fascinating. Randall came back asking about health benefits and vacation and after 9-1/2 months, in my many "Reply to All" emails, I came right out to Randall and asked him what his intentions were because at this stage, we were now running the risk of being professionally impolite about stringing along a client that had been very good to him. He replied to me with the following words,

Yes, it is my intention to accept this offer. I will probably do it on Monday.

Being that it was Thursday, while none of us were popping champagne, we were cautiously optimistic. However, Monday came and went and no sign of Randall. In fact, another week went by before we heard from him and his concern this time was that after another conversation with his wife, he was now worried about the industry my client was in and just how excited he would be in working in this space. Did my client have any collateral they could share about market and revenue growth and the chance for a potential acquisition?

My client started sending over articles and research papers about the industry and the 3-5-7 year growth forecasts. It was real, concrete material for Randall to review. After a week or so, we got an email from him that asked,

Do you have some more collateral, more papers for me?

That's all it said.  At this stage, I thought some about Randall. He had been job searching for close to a year now and not only with my client but every company he was talking to, no closure was ever reached. He was talking to a couple of FAANG companies and when I asked him how those were going, he told me that he simply had not found the time to email their travel coordinators for the California onsite interviews. From an interviewing standpoint, it seemed like nothing ever was closed out with Randall.

There are a lot of articles written about the entitlement of the millennial generation. Smart, gifted young professionals who expect the world at a very young age and there are software companies out there who actually try to give it to them. Hackathons, movie nights, Bring your Dog to Work Day (which is a great benefit I have to say). Every single benefit in the world simply to get them to show up at their job. How big of a problem it is in the IT world, I really don't know but make no mistake, it's something that Generation X and those before them seem to comment about quite a bit. As a recruiter, I have to say that Millennials have shown quite well in their careers and those who are a spoiled end up suffering like anyone else who is spoiled. But generally speaking, people love to write about the entitled Millennial generation.

Randall wasn't in this group. He's older than me actually. However, I couldn't help but think that his gift for Data Science, his ability to solve the hardest problems in the world had created scenarios where he was carried around by companies and recruiters like myself. In the 10 months we worked with him and in our infrequent talks with him, it was clear to me that he basically had everything served up on a platter to him. And the result was that he simply could not make up his mind. Right now, both my client and myself, were catering to his every need and it revolved around the industry my client worked in and whether Randall felt he would be happy enough there to give notice.

After finally delivering every piece of industry news we could, Randall went dark again for about a week. We were sitting around and every other day, we would send out a note asking how he was doing and I'd leave the occasional voicemail. We were now close to 3-4 weeks beyond the deadline for making a decision and when I asked my client about pulling the offer, they came back and said that if he needed more time then we should give it to him.

Having come this far, we simply could not pull the offer. It was yet another privilege that elite software engineers and data scientists get in their career. We had come to know Randall quite well and we knew we would hear from him. So, if he needs another week, let's give it to him. If he needs more collateral, here you go. One more week of vacation? No problem...

Early on a Monday the next week, I saw his number flash up on my cell phone and I promptly took the call. Randall let me know he was declining the offer. After speaking more with his wife, they concluded that while he loved the people and was happy with the role and money, he simply could not see himself getting 100% excited about the space, the problem my client was trying to solve. And it took these final 2-1/2 weeks to fully realize this. He thanked me for all the time and he also told me that he was going to call my client directly. He said that in his history as an engineer, he felt that most recruiters were "noise" and he was impressed that we found something so compelling that it took him this deep into the process. He said he would always take our call in the future if we had something interesting. I thanked him for his time and none of us were really sad. My client was tough as nails and simply said that it was time to move on and find some new candidates. To them, it was worth it. It's always a special moment when a company goes after the best possible candidate they've ever spoken with. And to make an offer that is unmatched anywhere else in town. You give it your all and that means giving it your best shot. We did everything we could and we just couldn't get this Data Scientist.

So, we all just rallied around and got back on the search, trying to find another Randall.

Thanks,

Mark Cunningham

www.thebiddingnetwork.com

https://markcunningham91.blogspot.com

@mhcrecruit

[email protected]