A delightful guide to how we do things at Mamo - Salary

Let’s talk about salary

We're trying something different here at Mamo. Not on an international scale, but certainly for the region. We take best practices from our own experiences and alchemize them into something unique and special here in the Middle East. Behind the employer, Mamo is a startup. And behind the startup, a company of people trying their best. Who are committed to realizing a shared vision at modest salaries that support their lifestyles.

Market rates

At Mamo, we like to think about salary as just one of many components making up "total compensation." Although it has historically been justifiable to negotiate market rates, we find that in an uncertain, remote-first world, it is difficult to resist the inevitable change that is coming. People working remotely in low market rate economies can no longer be compensated as such. At Mamo, our philosophy, much like our products, are more human-centric and fairer. Instead, we want our employees to be able to save X% of their total earnings regardless of where they are in the world. And here's how.

Let's take a hypothetical example:

• An engineer in the UAE should save 40% of their take-home salary each month.
• An engineer in Russia should also save 40% of their take-home salary each month.
• However, a 40% saving in the UAE is not necessarily the same as a 40% saving in Russia. This is mainly due to the variance in the cost of living between the two countries.
  

Sure, if the engineer from Russia moves to the UAE, their earnings will likely increase. But their 40% savings rate should remain the same.

The effect of this is, by design, all Mamo employees are equitably compensated. As such, they save and grow financially at the same rate as each other.

How to think about salary when joining a startup, especially Mamo

At Mamo, we consider salary, equity, bonus, performance, pension plan (and more) in your total compensation package. To put it simply, we believe salary alone limits compensation growth and, as such, it limits rewarding our employees consistently over time as the business grows. Because we believe the company's growth should directly impact the personal financial growth of each employee. More importantly, we take our time to listen and understand, before making decisions about compensation packages. 

Frugality by design

Like many new things in life, there is a process of nature and nurture. The nature of our startup is that we are new, which means being thoughtful with our runway and costs. This type of thoughtfulness today is an investment we make for a greater good, and with it greater returns later down the road. This intention is championed by our employees through hard work, and rewarded by tangible gratitude and appreciation (in the form of equity in the company, which we'll discuss in a separate post).

Being stingy (and mean) is when you have money but are reluctant to part with it, and sharing for such is not caring. On the other hand, being frugal is when you have money but are careful and thoughtful, and where sharing for such is caring. Frugality ensures money is not wasted and that any success is shared openly and transparently. This is how we like to do things at Mamo. We may not be the highest payer of salary, but we are definitely not stingy for a startup.

Working at Mamo

So why would you work for a company like Mamo, when you could be earning double or more? If money is the only thing that matters to you, you probably would not be reading this. However, if being part of a journey where challenges are plenty, of a stellar team that genuinely cares about you, and a company that shares success with its team, then read on.

For hundreds of years, we have been taught to think about success in a very transactional way. In short, this amounts to salary and job title. Whereby, the higher the salary, the more grandiose the title (and more inflated the ego). It's not very sophisticated. At Mamo, the way we like to measure success is a more substantial way. Here is how you may think about success with us.

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If this resonates, please visit our Jobs page and come on board to help us make finance simpler and friendlier!