Summary of Proposal
Being hired by the DAO myself, I saw a clear need for a set, agreed-upon form of guidelines that we can use to efficiently hire new people into the DAO. Currently, there represents a large opportunity to utilise capital even on a small scale relative to the % of treasury holdings, where we can hire and retain talent for and on behalf of the DAO, to make an outsized impact.
Some of the potential hires that I suggest can be found here, in my report: https://forum.ssv.network/t/ssv-research-report-a-deep-dive-into-the-dao-it-s-community-and-surrounding-ecosystem-and-the-marketing-employed/503/5
This hiring guideline should act as a ‘starting point’, not a finish, of what our hiring guidelines could look like. They’re purposely lean and leaving some details slightly vague, as we do not have a full task force nor delegate system in place to autonomously manage hiring.
Proposal Details (Core Hiring Guidelines)
1) Permissioned application process
Unlike ‘permissionless value’ applications, whereby any applicant can apply for any role they see fit, I suggest we employ a permissioned-only hiring process during the DAO’s early days. That means that applicants will only be able to apply for contributor roles that the DAO advertises.
This is due to currently being without a planned budget, as well as there being very clear needs for certain roles already. We will likely have a much higher impact on treasury value if we specifically pick the skills we need to hire for, and the projects we want to run, for now.
The grant program (To follow) and others of its nature should allow for applicants of the more ad-hoc projects and ideas.
2) Proposal based application
All applicants for roles, should propose in the topic section (Hiring) based on a standardised template, in the same vein as the one that we recently created for standard proposals: https://forum.ssv.network/t/about-the-proposals-and-how-to/25
Thereby creating a standard and fair format for the DAO to see all eager applicants, judging the first round based upon a written application.
The ideal application will take less than 30 minutes to complete but will give us a large enough overview to pre-screen for screening.
3) Screening
For every proposal, the Dmarketing team will request an interview with the candidate to check:
- Culture fit
- Skills check
- Commitment
- And other hiring-related filters
In order to give an informed opinion on the proposal and applicant itself.
The digest of that interview can be used to signal on discourse and snapshot who we believe the strongest candidates for the given role are, and which ones will do best, with us, in the longer term.
I suggest we keep a centralised form of screening for now, in order to focus on efficiency and team needs.
4) Quorum, voting, and multiple applicants
All proposals that pass the temperature check on the forum, with:
- At least 10 votes
- 70%+ in favour
Will then be passed to snapshot either by the candidate or on behalf of the candidate, for a snapshot vote.
In the case of multiple applicants, as long as they pass the temperature check, they will be sent to an individual snapshot vote.
The minimum quorum (for now), is very hard to judge. Therefore I’d look to ask you what you think the min number of SSV should be. I currently believe somewhere in the range of 50-200k votes could be suitable, based on previous vote numbers.
If multiple applicants are to successfully reach this, the Dmarketing team will use their discretion to pick the candidate they find most suitable.
5) Probation period
All candidates that pass the temperature check, snapshot vote, and then get hired, will be given a 3 month probation period that will be paid via ‘grants’ on a monthly basis, in a manual fashion.
This period is given in order to assess the viability of the candidate in their given position, along with their core values to SSV’s network and its DAO.
At any point in time, the position can be terminated unilaterally, upon which the applicant will receive a grant pro-rata for their time given to the DAO.
Upon 3 months post-start, the Dmarketing team will review the expectations of the candidate and will decide on whether to retain them further.
If the candidate is not retained, they will be paid for their work via a grant, and the DAO will be notified by ratification to the original employment proposal.
If the candidate does pass the probation period, they become a contributor and will be moved to autonomous payments.
6) Salary indications and structure
For every role, the DAO will offer an ‘indicative salary’, a budget it has predetermined to be of fair market rate. The candidate contributors can use these to fairly assess whether this opportunity makes sense for them to apply, and whether it’s still meaningful to do so.
Rather than standardising salary, I suggest we base our compensation on intrinsic motivation (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/intrinsic-motivation), understanding that the compensation level required to be financially ‘happy’ is drastically different for each and every person. That geo-dependent costs of living, taxes and luxurious goods can also skew by a large margin. This would give us a more individualistic approach to every DAO member, whether they have a family and need a higher % of stables, or are just starting their working life and still living on noodles.
To execute this, the candidate should list their desired requirements:
- Compensation
- % of SSV & % of USDC
- Commitment level (Full Time/Part Time)
- Other budget: attending conferences, education, etc…
Understandably it may seem somewhat daunting to have this all public, however, please may I remind you that every member of the DAO will have their compensation on-chain, as well as in our open treasury documents. Therefore, no matter what, it will be public, unless you mask it all through a centralised core team, which isn’t the most transparent situation we should be striving for.
Further, it also allows the DAO to view the candidates with a more direct understanding of the opportunity cost of one candidate over another.
Payment
I would suggest that we use DAO tooling such as Sablier (https://app.sablier.finance/), in order to use less time resource on HR, and to create a better UX for DAO members.
Termination
I would suggest 1 or 2 options for termination:
-
A termination must be instigated via proposal, either by the contributor, the Dmarketing team or an SSV DAO member. Stating the miss in the lack of expectations.
-
A decision that can be made by the Dmarketing team.
- We should have both termination options
- Only termination option 1
- Only termination option 2
- Neither fit
For each termination, I would also suggest giving an option to the contributor, to allow the DAO to buy back the contributor’s salaried SSV based on the market price, done P2P with us.
This should be indicated by the contributor at most 7 days after the snapshot vote on the terminal proposal.
Eg…
Sasha works for 6 months, and has received 1200 SSV in total.
Upon contract termination, they ask to sell 35% of their SSV to cover risk uncertainty in their life, and want to change it to stables.
Instead of sell pressure on SSV and slippage for Sasha, we can directly exchange 390 SSV for the Binance price at any given time in the 7-day period.Sasha decides to go ahead with the transaction, sending the 35% to the DAO treasury on the DAO’s multisig holders notice.
The DAO then sends back the corresponding amount of SSV based on the exact timestamp the transaction was made.
From my experience, selling of a projects tokens shortly after working with them is only on rare occasions, usually due to a highly negative experience such as a firing. Therefore, in order to save the dignity of both parties, this type of mechanism allows for the contributor to be ‘clean of the project’ and for the DAO to protect against large dumps, removal in liquidity provision, and so on.
- For buybacks
- Against buybacks
Non-technical ELI5 of proposal
This proposal aims to:
- Facilitate new contributors to the DAO
- Expand the effectiveness of the DAO team
- Further decentralise our organisational structure
Motivation for Proposing
To improve the DAO’s processes
Reasons supporting the proposal
- Higher impact from the DAO
- Friendlier/easier onboarding process for new contributors
- Clear ways to arbitrate common disputes
Reasons against the proposal
- Slightly premature
- Could be better placed as ‘task forces’
- Needs a clear understanding of budget before large decisions
Poll
- I’m for implementing the Hiring Guidelines
- I’m against implementing the Hiring Guidelines
- Abstain
Voting is now open: