Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 270 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#141

Post by sva_ »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #101

I still remember the days when people were posting on Slashdot that software engineering has no future in the US because it's all moving to India. As we know, that turned out not to be the case. Tech companies have been willing to pay literally 10x for engineers to work from their US headquarters. Now folks are again claiming that the era of remote work is upon us. Maybe that's true. But be careful what you wish for.

The companies here in the EU of which I heard that they allow remote work pretty much limited their employees to stay within the EU while working. Is this different in the US?

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#142

Post by nodejs_rulez_1 »

yarcob wrote: post #137
yadaeno wrote: post #29

Pre-Covid much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team. Even as an introvert I enjoy interacting with coworkers, and being intune with the needs of the group and generally helping other people succeed. When we transitioned to full remote, all of this was stripped away and I was left to focus purely on a product that on its own I was not passionate about (think ad-like product). I…

> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of. I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important. So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job…

I think the OPs point was that the past employer effectively leveraged the social aspect to underpay. Now that there is a hobby outside of work, the latter is suddenly not a center of life anymore. The pay raise is the ironic reality of employers catching up with the real cost of labour.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#143

Post by ErrantX »

I think it's as simple as; more companies are offering fully remote roles, which means wages are higher (at least in the UK where it's centering to London wages, 20% higher than elsewhere). People are more open to these roles because the pandemic has shown them remote can be OK as a compromise.

So; higher wages, more choice. Even if you don't like remote working that much it's part of the choice.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#144

Post by bakuninsbart »

d4mi3n wrote: post #9

I think there a variety of factors at play in the tech sector driving hiring trends: 1. There are, in fact, tech companies that still demand employees come into a physical office. There comes a tipping point in a laborer's market (tech being one of them) where this becomes sufficient reason to leave when there are plenty of reasonable alternatives that don't require employees be physically present. 2. Mental health i…

> 2. Mental health is often overlooked in these discussions. The pandemic has been a huge source of stress, uncertainty, and general chaos. Many people (myself included) lost their usual outlets of stress (going out, meeting with friends, catching up with family, etc). From personal experience, this lead me to having a spat of time where I was burned out and had to lay off working at all for several months before joining a new organization. From what I hear, I'm far from the only one who's gone through such an experience.

Yeah, this is super evident in my circle of friends and colleagues. One senior-dev friend started an apprenticeship as a carpenter, another one opened a store for booze. Some others got serious about following their passion projects. Everyone seems to have a little crack or two.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#145

Post by pfranz »

yarcob wrote: post #137
yadaeno wrote: post #29

Pre-Covid much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team. Even as an introvert I enjoy interacting with coworkers, and being intune with the needs of the group and generally helping other people succeed. When we transitioned to full remote, all of this was stripped away and I was left to focus purely on a product that on its own I was not passionate about (think ad-like product). I…

> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of. I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important. So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job…

Years ago, I remember someone talking about working in film. Ideally, you work on three movies a year; one for the pay, one for the script, and one for the people you work with. I've tried to keep this in mind when looking for full-time work and I think it lines up with what you're saying.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#146

Post by _nalply »

Let me add something about a tangent subject: What about tech workers with a disability? I hope you find this interesting, even if this answers your question only indirectly.

People with disabilities experience the pandemic the same as everybody else. Of course. However they don't have the same opportunities.

yadaeno wrote that he took some time off and when he returned he got a raise [0].

This would be riskier for me.

Sometimes people tell me to have positive thoughts. I will find a good position if I only try hard enough.

I understand that because people don't like to think about depressing things.

However indulge me and conduct a thought experiment. Try to estimate the percentage of tech workers with disabilities and their average salary.

What do you think: Is the percentage the same as elsewhere? Is the salary the same, higher or lower? Why?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28974320

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#147

Post by nodejs_rulez_1 »

ldoughty wrote: post #134

1) remote work opened doors that were not possible before. We lost a junior employee to a company paying Texas tech hub wages in an area where most don't make 6 figures before 10 years experience or management. They probably feel they got the employee cheap to. 2) my partner and I are hoping to have a kid, the pandemic really highlighted the child care issues in our country. We basically decided if when we have a kid…

> We lost a junior employee to a company paying

Competition - simply beautiful!

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#148

Post by marvin »

totalZero wrote: post #129
optimiz3 wrote: post #86

Equities have done great during covid. If you were invested in tech which many in FANGM were via ESPPs and RSUs, wealth likely significantly increased. If your net worth hits a couple M, you make 200k/year just on interest. For a salary to make any difference to a person living a middle class life, they are going to need to pay you in the upper 6 to low 7 figures. That prices you out of the market so may as well stay…

How exactly are you earning 10% interest?

No one does that reliably. It's 5-7% after inflation on average, where a five-year average is expected to get you within 2 percentage units or so of that number.

Commonly large deviations over shorter timeframes and rare deviations over longer timeframes. The last 15 years have been one such deviation, maybe GP figures that's the normal now.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#149

Post by BoxOfRain »

KaiserPro wrote: post #139
sam0x17 wrote: post #63

It's completely to do with work from home. Everyone is fed up after what they had to deal with in 2020, and tech workers (almost 100% of them) got to work from home, many for the first time ever. After everything they've been through in 2020, it makes zero sense to willingly go back to work in an office where you put yourself at risk and have to deal with all those horrible things you had to deal with before 2020. So…

I think that the number of people that want to go remote, are not the same as the number of people that we think want to go remote. From my immediate team(20), there are two people who will go full remote. The _vast_ majority want something blended or flexible. Then there are some people ~3 who want to be in the office full time. Granted this is for the UK. I suspect that there is bias in news for remote only, becaus…

I've had a similar experience in the UK, in my previous job I was the only one who wanted to remain full-time remote this year. Management wanted everyone back in the office full-time so I ended up resigning and moving to a different company for a decent raise, but as far as I'm aware the majority of people there wanted either full-time office or hybrid working.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

#150

Post by gambiting »

nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #142
yarcob wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of. I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important. So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job…

I think the OPs point was that the past employer effectively leveraged the social aspect to underpay. Now that there is a hobby outside of work, the latter is suddenly not a center of life anymore. The pay raise is the ironic reality of employers catching up with the real cost of labour.

That assumes that these social aspects are valued at zero. Money isn't everything in a job. Your compensation consists of the money, yes, but also everything else in the job. Good social aspect at work takes effort to build and maintain, so maybe, actually, those employers weren't underpaying at all. Again, money isn't everything.
Post reply on HN