Sushi Hiring Guidelines V2

[Pedrowww]

Summary

This (long) proposal details Sushiswap’s official process for hiring and determining compensation for new full-time employees. Given that SushiSwap is a decentralized, community-based project, it was designed to be as constraint-free as possible. However, having a formalized procedure allows us to ensure things remain fair, effective, and transparent for the entire community.

For reference, here’s the link to the original forum proposal:

Hiring Guideline

Hey all Some of you probably read the proposal to hire Clearwood. There is also a nice proposition done by TimClancy: A hiring model for wider solicitation of talent I would like to officialize the process and add to it. Process 1- 0xMaki or anyone in the core team could discuss the need for an extra member in the team. 2- The core team vote if yes or no, it is required. 3- Official announcement that Sushi is looking for a new role. (like any other company when you search for a new employ…

The following proposal is the result of fruitful conversations and debates with 0xNigiri and other key contributors to the community.

Hiring Process

Steps:

1. The Core Team discusses the need for an extra member and votes to decide if the need is real and relevant.

2. Core Team publishes an official announcement that SushiSwap is looking to fill a new role on the forum, Twitter, Discord, and any other channels that may be relevant for the particular role.

3. Applicants draft proposals on the forum, listing why they consider themselves good fits. An application template will be suggested to ensure consistency in the details provided.

4. The applications are reviewed by the Core Team and the most relevant candidates are interviewed. This step evaluates the candidates’ motivations and expertise, as well as their fit with the project’s vision and personalities.

5. The chosen candidate’s compensation is calculated following the procedure on the following page.

6. If the conditions are approved by both parties, the hiring proposal is submitted to the community vote via Snapshot.

7. If Quorum (5M SUSHIPOWAH) is reached, the new hire is onboarded. To note: SushiSwap has a one-month trial period for all new hires. During this first month, the collaboration can be ended unilaterally. During this period, the candidate will be compensated via a grant equal to one month of their agreed-upon salary (minus SUSHI).

8. Following a successful one-month trial period, the new hire is confirmed and their compensation added to Sablier.

In the event that a malicious actor tries to push an application on Snapshot, the Core team has the right to veto the community vote.

Compensation Policy

SushiSwap is a prominent actor with exciting prospects in a highly innovative space. We intend on providing our talent with attractive compensation packages. But we also have to compensate in a strategic way if we want to thrive in the long term.

SECTION 1: Salary

We decided to introduce a standardized salary structure that will be used as a frame of reference for future hires. Compensation packages will be broken down as follows:

USDC - 0-120K (based on seniority and skill profile)

Every new hire can choose the portion of the salary they want paid in USDC, depending on their desired exposure to risk.

SUSHI:

The second part of the compensation will be calculated on the basis of the SUSHI token price on the day the hiring proposal passes.

To Note: The sum of the SUSHI and USDC components of the salary cannot exceed a total of $300K USD (excluding signing bonus).

Example: with Sushi at $4 USD, a candidate could choose a compensation package of $50K USDC and 62.5K SUSHI, or 120K USDC and 45K SUSHI.

To Note: These salary guidelines will be retroactively applied to SushiSwap’s initial Core Team members (0xMaki, JiroOno, OmakaseBar, Levx) on the anniversary of their recruitment.

SECTION 2: Perks

SIGNING BONUS:

Each new hire will be entitled to a signing bonus of $45K USD (payable in Sushi). This is a way to even things out between the first people to join the Core Team and benefited from advantageous packages (but also took more risks) and newcomers (who get a capped compensation).

To Note: The signing bonus will be unlocked at the end of the one-month trial period.

SUSHISWAP ASSISTANCE:

Working for the project and the subsequent increase in revenue could mean new hires need assistance with their personal finances and legal fees in case of litigation.

Therefore, SushiSwap pledges to:

• Cover up to $5K USD for taxes/accounting-related expenses.

To Note: These costs will be covered under the condition that they are directly and solely tied to SushiSwap activity and are deemed reasonable upon evaluation of the official billing by 0xMaki, ops or any member of the core team. Due diligence will be conducted if there is doubt. Any wrongful claim will be sanctioned by immediate termination without severance.

• Cover up to $15K USD in legal assistance fees.

To Note: These costs will be covered under the condition that they are directly and solely tied to SushiSwap activity and are deemed reasonable upon evaluation of the official billing by 0xMaki, ops or any member of the core team. Due diligence will be conducted if there is doubt. Any wrongful claim will be sanctioned by immediate termination without severance.

SECTION 3: Performance Bonus

The idea of having performance bonuses for the team involved has been brought up but I’m personally against it. SushiSwap being a community project, its performance shouldn’t be tied solely to the Core Team contributions. In addition, the compensation packages are fairly generous compared to competing and partner projects.

But in case of outstanding contributions/accomplishments, contributing to advancing the project, the team could put up a proposal for an exceptional grant, while providing documented justification for it. The grant attribution would then be voted.

To Note: These exceptional bonuses shouldn’t be based on indicators like token price, volume, or TVL movement, but rather on tangible actions or/and individual performance.

SECTION 4: Indicative Salary Grid

This section includes different sample salaries SushiSwap could offer. Each compensation package will be objectively based on skills, experience, and expertise.

• Senior Dev: 120K USDC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 300K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

• Junior Dev: 80K USDC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 200K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

• Senior Ops: 120K UDSC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 300K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

• Junior Ops: 80K UDSC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 200K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

• Senior Designer: 90K UDSC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 200K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

• Junior Designer: 65K UDSC fixed salary + vested sushi: The whole package won’t exceed 150K USD at the time of signing (excluding signing bonus).

To Note: This salary structure could be subject to change as the project grows. The community would of course be notified if/when this is the case.

Termination Policy

Letting someone go is a painful, stressful experience that can put a strain on a project’s morale.

That’s why we’d like to introduce transparent termination procedures so there are no surprises in the event of poor or malicious performance.

• Any termination decision will be discussed and voted on by the Core Team.

• Gross misconduct and dishonest behavior will result in immediate termination without any form of severance.

• Standard terminations will be subject to a severance package based on the individual’s fixed salary. The standard severance package is 1.5 months of USDC salary (excluding SUSHI).

• Severance packages will be approved by Core Team and Multisig before being sent.

• In the event of a high-profile termination, a post-mortem could be shared with the community, shedding light on the context and justification for the decision.

Volunteers

Volunteers are an instrumental resource for the project. Their interest and renewed commitment contribute to driving the project forward. As demonstrated by our last recruitment batch, they also represent the main hiring pool for SushiSwap.

That’s why volunteers who bring valuable -and consistent- contributions should be incentivized and compensated fairly, as a way to acknowledge them, and hopefully retain them until positions open up in the Core Team.

That’s the reason why I recommend a 3000 SUSHI monthly grant per key volunteer. To be eligible, they should be able to justify a high level of (pro)activity on the project.

Conclusion

Thanks for taking the time to review this proposal. I’m welcoming every comment/question/objection.

But before anything, please let us know how you feel about those guidelines.

How do you feel about those guidelines?

• Sounds fair and good. Let’s do it!
• I have some reservations.
• Never in a million years.

[Clearwood]

First of all, I would like to thank you both for your work on this project, I believe it is an important and necessary step that helps to structure the business activity of SushiSwap.
I have a few thoughts:

I believe that legal costs related directly to SushiSwap should be covered without any upper limit if regulators decide to prosecute core contributors individually or similar legal difficulties are faced. Due diligence should be conducted but unfortunately, legal fees and court costs might be significantly higher. This risk is almost impossible to handle for a single person and therefore should be covered completely by the project.

If a company structure is not used, it might not be possible to easily separate tax advisory costs in relation to the work done for SushiSwap and other income, for example, capital gains. Therefore I would suggest to slightly modify the appropriate notes. If a breach of trust is reached there should be consequences.

I think it is very important to also reward contributors outside the core team as they make SushiSwap what it is. I was unsure whether the 3000 SUSHI proposed is meant to be distributed amongst all volunteers or per volunteer. Maybe a self-reporting of time spent working for SUSHI in combination with an assessment of the work delivered by the core team could be used to determine individual payouts. As the SUSHI price is volatile, it might be advantageous to also denominate this portion of spending in USDC.

If the project drives increased capital gains for its holders I do believe that performance bonuses are justified which should be shared with contributors outside the core team. A bonus target being reached would entail token holders to have made a significant profit and further align contributors to the profitability of the project. How these should be formed, could be discussed in a separate proposal.

At last, there might be significant volatility around the price of the token over the course of a contract period which could lead to later contributors joining at a lower SUSHI price and therefore a higher salary than those that joined before.
Therefore a possible negative difference between the entry price of an employee at the end of the contract should be adjusted for.

[zafalijadev]

@Pedrowww

3000 SUSHI monthly grant per key volunteer

3000 SUSHI = $15000 at current market price
in my opinion that’s too much for a volunteer

[0xNigiri]

I think that we are talking about a specific type of person here. Some people can’t be full-time but help a lot with the protocol. I don’t expect these grants to be given often.

[zafalijadev]

btw I think we’re underestimating the legal side of things…
this might be off topic but as we keep growing bigger we might need a lawyer or something like that

Let’s say we decide to fire someone on the core team because something horrible happens.
What makes you think he/she will accept the severance package and won’t press charges against Maki or someone else, just to cash out?
money brings out the worst in people

[Clearwood]

For it to be in line with the rest of the proposal I believe compensation to contributors outside the core team should not be a fixed SUSHI amount but adjusted to the current price. It would be awesome to have those rewarded swiftly and appropriately, through grants and bonuses.
As the currently proposed number of 3000 SUSHI would be a remuneration that already exceeds some core positions at current prices, I believe in such a case someone should apply for a part-time position if they do not have the time to fill a full-time position.
There is a difference in opportunity cost when focusing solely on Sushi and ending other opportunities that I believe has to be taken into account.

[zafalijadev]

Yeah I was going to write the same thing.
Of course if you end up being paid 3000 SUSHIs per month you’re part of the team, you’re not a volunteer anymore.
with that being said, an USDC and SUSHI monthly max cap for volunteers makes sense because it would be more in line with others

[Pedrowww]

It can seem high at current prices, I agree. But it’s important to keep in mind that some volunteers have been contributing to the project since its inception, regardless of price action, working hand in hand with core team, participating in team calls, helping with the strategy, image, products,etc. As stated in the proposal, this compensation should be conditioned by a high-level of involvement and consistency. Maybe the term volunteer is a bit misleading for the profiles described above, we’re closer to proper freelancers/consultants.

[0xNigiri]

Making the volunteer grants variable like the core team will be complex but can be done.
As for the legal cost @zafalijadev if there is a contract and the contract explains clearly the system, legal stuff should be alright. We could maybe create a fund for legal in the treasury but I think you guys are putting a lot of emphasis on that. It is important to think about it but it can be managed. Lawsuit cost a lot of money on both sides and can often be managed before the court.
Don’t forget that this is crypto and that SUSHI is a community project.

[LufyCZ]

I’d, for example, love to join the team. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as I’m still going to high school and just can’t pledge to spend a set amount of hours monthly.

Personally, I think that I spend at least 2 hours a day dealing with Sushi related stuff, be it moderating the Discord, programming or other things.

Considering that for example @JiroOno and @OmakaseBar get 100k USDC + 200k Sushi (nothing against that, just using it as a point of reference), I’d be getting less than a fifth of that, which is very fair IMO.

I haven’t gotten into all of this because of the money, I found that it’s a cool project to gain experience on. However, getting left behind is a very demotivating feeling.

I don’t think it should be changed to USDC, which would, in my opinion, defeat the point of paying in Sushi. Though if Sushi goes to $10 and beyond the amount can definitely be revisited and recalculated.

[0xNigiri]

@Clearwood You have : A signing bonus of 20k Sushi and you don’t agree with 3000 SUSHI to people that also work hard for the project? At the actual price, you will be doing 400k a year so I think that giving 3000 SUSHI to key volunteers is good.

[Clearwood]

I do think that long-time contributors like
LufyCZ or Pedroww would be totally deserving of such a renumeration or alternatively getting a large grant retroactively. However, if someone starts contributing on such a basis for the project now, they should not earn more than a full-time junior developer.
Additionally, I think they are much more than volunteers but more like part-time team members and maybe it would make sense to display that status outwards

[0xNigiri]

Like @Pedrowww said, this is for KEY volunteers.
So now you can switch back to yes.

Funny how things change when you are on the other side of the equation

[SushiMiya]

Thanks Pedrowww for the detailed proposal. Looks great👍! My only feedback is also regarding the “volunteers” section. From the work functionalities explained in the paragraph, it seems it actually represent more like “part-time” or “key contributors” who work less than core team but have been working with the team for long and contributed much more than a community volunteer. We have several people on Sushi team who fall into this bucket. I would suggest to add an additional section for “ Part time key contributors” with similar salary package structure as to full time job but less amount (based on work hours, performance and etc.) . It will help differentiate this group of people from volunteers. I do not think “volunteer” should be included in this hiring proposal as normally volunteer is not a formal “hiring” position to an organization. However they should be rewarded for their work (based on their performance as well). It will make more sense to reward them directly using budget from Sushi’s monthly community/marketing grant ( which already approved by a previous snapshot voting). Above is some of my initial thoughts. Hope it helps a bit. Thank you again for creating the proposal- our first formal hiring proposal

[BoringCrypto]

Some thoughts:

Since we’re a distributed team, we don’t have the typical management layers that you would find in traditional organizations. This means anyone working for Sushi needs to first and foremost be a self-starter (something many claim to be, but few actually are). Therefore hiring based on qualifications may not work as intended as we may end up hiring someone super competent who then just asks: Ok, what do you want me to do? I think we should at least acknowledge the alternate way of hiring someone who has already proven their effectiveness by actually delivering for Sushi without being asked to do so.

One month probation seems short.

I think that different salaries for different roles will just create more trouble than it’s worth. I’d love to see a universal salary regardless of role. A salary that is high enough to take the issue of money off the table, so people can just focus on their work. For instance, $120K USDC (providing an adequate base salary for pretty much anyone) + 40k SUSHI (to provide more rewards if Sushi does better). I’m personally happy to change to this structure if the entire team does.

To incentivize people who joined early (the OGs) and exceptional performance, options could be granted like it would be in a company or startup, vesting and with a cliff.

It would also be good to mention that “full-time” probably means about 70-80 hours per week and on-call nearly 24/7. This is not a 9 to 5 kind of job, at least not at this stage of the project. There are however some team members who cannot commit this much, but still are key contributors, such as Pedrowww, Lufy, Miya, etc. It may make sense to have them join the core team as part-time members and reward them accordingly (pro-rata). This is also an important signal to them as to how much we appreciate their contributions as well as to the community as to their status within the team.

I’d remove any section on specific grants or volunteer payments from this guideline. That can be a separate discussion/guideline. Current dedicated long term volunteers would fall under part-time team members as discussed above. Let’s sort out hiring first.

Anyway, that’s my 0.02 SUSHI… back to building.

[CryptoLamer]

I may be missing something, but I do not see community having a word in this hiring process. I am sure that most of us have trust in the core team and admire their work, but just to keep the spirit of the project ( Sushi being a community run ) shouldn’t their be a step where the community should approve the need of a new team member? What I mean is to add a community voting between steps 1 and 2.

[zafalijadev]

yeah I got your point.
I’m not against part-time hiring, I’m against hiring people and calling them volunteers.

[Pedrowww]

Hey Miya (and everyone commenting on the volunteer section of this proposal).

I absolutely get your point and I 100% agree. It’s true that the term “Volunteers” wasn’t the most relevant pick. I was indeed referring to key contributors like yourself. It’s true that the level of commitment to the project is closer to a part-time (and sometimes full-time) job. I find the idea of having part-time core team members interesting, especially for trades like ops, marketing, business-dev, coms, design, etc…

We could decide to compensate them accordingly (50% of full-time package + signing bonus).

For actual volunteers, it makes more sense to send grants on a case-by-case basis, depending on the actual contribution to the project. You are right on that point, it’s more an operations matter and shouldn’t be part of this proposal.

[Pedrowww]

I think involving the community that early in the hiring process would create unnecessary friction. The community is not always aware of all the work put behind the scenes (we are striving to make that more transparent), and therefore, might not always have the right information level to judge if a hire is absolutely critical or not.

[Pedrowww]

@BoringCrypto

This means anyone working for Sushi needs to first and foremost be a self-starter (something many claim to be, but few actually are).

Absolutely agree. That’s a given and the main criteria would be the work put into the project (the stuff that shows). But I think that asking for credentials is still an excellent way to judge someone’s abilities (especially when it comes to design, marketing, dev).

@BoringCrypto

One month probation seems short.

If we are talking about self-starters, one month is enough to show your true colors. Also, DeFi moves super fast and our policy should reflect that.

@BoringCrypto

I’d love to see a universal salary regardless of role.

Ha! That was my original idea. I like it as it would level the playing field and nip money-related tensions (the worst kind) in the bud. If the whole existing team consents to it, we could start fresh on the basis of a universal salary (amount TBD). That would be a very symbolic, yet powerful move.

@BoringCrypto

To incentivize people who joined early (the OGs) and exceptional performance, options could be granted like it would be in a company or startup, vesting and with a cliff.

Interesting idea but down the line I think.

@BoringCrypto

It may make sense to have them join the core team as part-time members and reward them accordingly (pro-rata).

Agreed, as addressed in one of my comments above.

@BoringCrypto

I’d remove any section on specific grants or volunteer payments from this guideline. That can be a separate discussion/guideline.

Agreed, as addressed in one of my comments above.