Startups on Bounty Hunt for Engineers

One word: engineering.

It could be the best advice for a young person looking to build a career this decade. Because while the unemployment rate is hovering at 9 percent, the demand for folks with the skills to build the next wave of Web and software products is on an upward trajectory.

There is no need to move to Silicon Valley—where bounties for engineers are common and where big companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple fight over talent—to find tech firms paying top dollar to get engineers through the door.

Smaller firms desperate for talent are upping their ante too.

In some situations, you don’t even have to be an engineer to cash in. You just have to know one. In Seattle, search engine optimization firm SEOmoz is paying $12,000 to anyone who refers a software engineer who winds up working for the company.

Of course, the engineers themselves also get $12,000 to join the company, plus $5,000 to buy tech toys they’ll use on the job.

And SEOmoz, of course, isn’t the only smaller firm paying for tech talent. EnergySavvy, another Seattle startup, is paying $10,000 to anyone who refers a developer or designer who comes to work for the company, Todd Bishop of TechFlash reports.

Bishop writes:

"Every month we're getting more and more money in the bank," said Kate Matsudaira, vice president of engineering at SEOmoz. "We should be spending that money on growth. We need to grow faster. So we're hoping this promotion will help us."

Across the industry, Matsudaira estimates that candidates commanding $75,000 in the past are now realizing $90,000 instead, and those that might have gotten $100,000 before are now getting $130,000.

It’s not just across the industry, either, but across the country.

Dharmesh Shah, CTO and cofounder of HubSpot, Inc., a Boston startup, tells the Boston Business Journal it’s easier to find venture financing than it is to land tech talent.

And he, like his counterparts on the Left Coast, is offering cold, hard cash to remedy the situation.

Shah has put up a $10,000 bounty to attract talent, and, he shared his pitch with the Boston Business Journal, “Come interview at HubSpot. If you really are awesome (enough to make it to the final interview), we’ll give you $500 to have a nice tech dinner with a few local hackepreneurs…. They can then explain to you why life is so much better in the startup world than in the big, dark, boring company you’re in. We can help plan your ‘breakout.’”

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Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com