It's just a negotiation tactic.
Most HR people are playing a game that most applicants aren't prepared for and/or interested in. The offer, the dancing around, even the bit about looking for "top people". It's all just trying to dress up the game to their advantage [1].
[1] Your ability to negotiate effectively is helped/hampered by your knowledge of their field of candidates. Ergo, they inevitably say 'top people', to skew your perception of your competitors to their advantage.
How is it bad faith? They are called HR, Human Resources, to any company who employs such a department you are indistinguishable from coal. The goal is to get the coal at the lowest price, if you have to buy it sodas and tell it what a wonderful employee it is to get it to accept low salaries then so be it.
What usually wakes HR up is a detailed spreadsheet of the value you add to the business and that you will be going elsewhere unless you are properly compensated, as well as when they bring other people into it saying "Ok, lets get them in here and get their salary up too" or "fire them if you need extra money, your lack of money to pay me is not my problem, this is a business, I am not your bank, if you need a loan call them."
Grow a pair and walk out on the spot, if you can't then save so next time you can. Thats how you negotiate by putting the business in a position where it is fucked if they don't do what you want, just like a business plays its min wage employees. Letting people put themselves into stupid positions is a two way street.
Human Resources, to any company who employs such a department you are indistinguishable from coal.
It's bad faith to contend that a programmer is nothing more than an inert substance. I'm not talking about emotions or morale or anything woo-woo like that, just that programmers do more than coal. You can't burn a person and get code as a result.
HR workers who follow your logic do a disservice to themselves and the company, because when a programmer is performing under expectations, HR is not going to say, "well, they're a piece of coal, what do you expect?"
No, programmers are only coal at the beginning, and then the script flips after they're hired. That's textbook bad faith, and "walking out on the spot" always involves having wasted time at least going through the interview process. Charming.
The function of HR in a business is to keep employee costs down.
I imagine that a lot of HR do think this, but I think it's an oversimplification of their duty that compromises the interests of the company. I wouldn't go so far as to say that HR's overall mission is fiduciary.
They are called HR, Human Resources, to any company who employs such a department you are indistinguishable from coal
Not disputing that but seriously: what sort of people call other people "resources"? Did they think that's who they were going to grow up to be, when they were kids?
They even know it's wrong because they don't call themselves "spreadsheet resources", they're "HR professionals".
Fresh hardware? Are you kidding? If you make a decent salary you can buy your own hardware whenever you feel like it. A $2K MacBook Pro is a drop in the bucket compared to paying a 6 digit salary.
Fresh hardware is a test. It should be a drop in the bucket and a no-brainer but its very often not. When it goes bad, its a huge red flag. If you get even the slightest bit of "well we can't really approve something like that without this or that managers sign-off and then the 30 day procurement process from an approved vendor..." head for the door.
I've seen companies burn 100 hours of $150/hour employee labor in order to save $50 on a mouse. You don't want to work there.
I worked for a very large enterprise software company for a while. They gave everyone their stock computers with stock keyboards and mice (the basic ones that came with the HP systems). I spent about a month trying to get them to buy me a new keyboard which I felt was necessary for ergonomics and because I had (informally) demonstrated a higher typing speed on it.
Eventually I just bought one for myself. It was $50. Managers made all sorts of excuses, then IT said they wouldn't buy non-standard hardware, and there were particularly a lot of excuses in the vein of, "but then we'd have to buy keyboards for everyone." That they wouldn't consider buying their $100k/yr employees a $50 keyboard every few years was just another symptom of their dysfunctional environment.
Hardware, and other expenses such as conference trips, is indeed a very small expense compared to salaries. It's a cheap way of showing employees that you care.
Just as a recent example, it took an email to my manager and 10 minutes later a keyboard for $150 was approved. Say it lasts for 5 years - the feeling of appreciation by easily getting what I need approved and bought is worth so much more, compared to what $150 spread out over 5 years of salary would buy them (disregarding that the raise would also cost a more considering taxes and such).
I'd be interested to know going in what a startup's policy on conferences would be.
While I expect most trips to be ultimately grounded in business development (and with good reason), is the company purely focused on talking up a product, or will they accommodate my technical/social interests as well?
Giving a pitch can be fun, as long as I have Plenty of time to chat with other programmers, attend panels, learn something, etc.
In Australia at least, if you pay for hardware, software or education which you use directly for work purposes or for self-education directly related to your current occupation, it is tax-deductible.
That's what I do. I work at most 2 months a year. But draw salary for the rest of the year. The company doesn't mind too. They are happy to keep me on board as insurance against sinking projects.
Try for something like Google's 20% time? You work for four days a week on what they say, then work the other day on whatever you want. Or three and two. It works out well for everyone if they want you to do interesting things, and if they don't you still get to do what you think is most important or fun some of the time.
"We want top people."
"We want to pay average."