I guess my points were a little too obtuse. People with even a handful of these skills get paid a lot more than you’re offering (e.g. school teachers have curriculum design and teaching experience, and generally make much more than $36k/yr). Clearly, stating the salary is “upfront” about the salary, but that wasn’t my complaint. My complaint was that it appears that by offering a well below market salary you’re looking for a fellow traveler/true believer/movement participant who is so highly dedicated to the cause that they are willing to sacrifice a good chunk of their potential earnings to advance SIAI’s goals. If that’s the case, then you should state it directly. If it’s not the case, then another possibility that comes to mind is that you’re hoping to exploit the passion of a young person who feels strongly about the cause but doesn’t realize what they’re worth on the open market.
My concern is that by not stating anything about this obviously (to me) below market salary, you’re leaving your motivations open to serious question. I think it better to lay out some sort of reasoning behind it than to leave it ambiguous.
I don’t know what others think (besides myself and thomblake, clearly), but I think it’s between 3 and 4x under market for a person with those skills in the Bay Area. It’s between 2 and 3x under market in a place like Austin, TX, depending on experience.
People with experience doing the things listed above make high 5 and low 6-figure salaries plus benefits (medical, 401k with some matching, etc.) in industry jobs, or they are university or secondary school teachers who have reasonable salaries, health care, and other benefits like tenure not available to industry workers.