very insightful
Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
171–180 of 270 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#1726. People hear about a Great Resignation in the media, that includes a big pay raise. They want in on the action, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. FOMO.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#173It's real but it's temporary. The pandemic had enabled a lot of tech workers to save money (not commuting, eating out, going on vacations, moving out of the bay area) and so many are taking time off to relax. They'll all be back when the money runs out.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some managers don't understand it and dismiss inflation
The worst part is that some workers are being completely left behind and the divide grows greater. Tech jobs have kept up and exploded over inflation rates while retail and gig economy jobs are now paying unliveable rates. IMO there _needs_ to be a complete recalculation of costs of living for the current year and an adjustment of minimum wages to reflect this.
The thing that I think would be the biggest help in equalizing skill, inflation, value, cost of living, etc is information. We need to break out of this bubble that has kept all of us in the dark about pricing. For physical products as well as our salaries.
We need to fight against giants that are using spam and sheer numbers to confuse pricing in the market. That applies to job boards, spam Chinese resellers, Amazon product listings, confusing Google ad prices and website listings, recruiters and heck even estate agents that thrive on information asymmetry in the market. There is huge value being lost/captured there for no reason other than a lack or restriction of information.
Sorry I'm rambling a bit.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another introvert here, working fully remotely since before COVID. I couldn't imagine working on a product I wasn't passionate about and genuinely wanted to succeed. Most of my motivation is based around doing interesting and socially valuable work. This doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but knowing I'm helping put out some good in the world is a large factor in choosing and staying with a company. The team is also…
>To me it's mostly for the better, since everyone is focused on the product and not on some pointless team building events, company gossip or drama. It's very interesting to see how people look at relationship building with others. Many introverts on HN and Reddit see it as a mostly negative thing and equivalent people interaction and relationship building to drama, gossip, and forced friendliness.
I think there is a difference between team building through shared struggle (like new soldiers going through boot camp) and what hr comes up with as “team building activities” in the office after they went on Pinterest and searched for “team building ice breakers for meetings”.
At my workplace they came up with employee appreciation day. They make a slightly better lunch and they clap for you when you walk into the cafeteria. I much rather be allowed to leave 30 min earlier.
While I understand the pipeline where those ideas come from (management appoints one poor soul to quickly come up with something that looks fun on paper, is cheap, quick and doesn’t allow for any possibility of rule breaking), they don’t really help me bond with anyone.
What does help me bond is being part of a team with a great leader that makes everyone want to push in the same direction and makes us a unit. For that you need solid hiring that takes into consideration what team the to-be-hired person is going to be working with at a social level
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, being stuck inside with COVID made me stay at a job longer than I would have, because I'm stuck inside, might as well make money. Taking a sabbatical during covid lockdowns feels pretty sucky and even more isolating.
I think the american paradigm of "going out on your own" at 18 and not starting a family until you have had a career is what fuels this psychological damage. Immigrant types with big families seemed to not have this problem and are ok with whatever allows them full wfh. Myself, I never once lamented the lack of physical interaction in the office; it was a burden precisely because my full religious/family support grou…
Not everyone has the luxury of a supportive family or a religious group that’s willing to risk its members by ignoring quarantine.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#177I think there's no fulfilling narrative, just boring risk-aversion and economics at play.
First, your theory 3 leads to the 'increase' in resignations. Last year any job you could hold was a port in a storm. This year people resumed shopping around for the best job.
As for the pay raises, I think it's because tech faired better during the pandemic than other industries. In general, the pandemic was a wealth-consolidating event and tech fared well.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#1783) is true. It took some time for some companies to catch up with their hiring processes, so it was harder to change jobs for a while.
4) is true. Now companies have to compete a lot more for our labor.
5) is true. It also leads to a corollary: our workload has gone up since our services are in greater demand.
There's also the point that inflation is on the rise, despite what the fed says. We can see that housing prices are up 50% since the start of the pandemic in many areas. We can see that everything we buy has gone up by 20%. You have to pay a 75% surcharge to get a new graphics card. The inflation in these major sectors makes it feel like our salaries and yearly increases are smaller. Additionally, as the market has gotten more competitive (for labor), industry wages have gone up.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#179I 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.
I fully endorse the outsourcing of labor. The mess foreign companies leave after they complete a contract leaves American workers with years of work to do.
But seriously, even outsourcing to American companies becomes labor-intensive and frustrating. Everyone overpromises, underdelivers, and you spend as much time managing external entities as it would take to do the work yourselves. It is useful and necessary because of the shortage / intractability of senior engineering talent, but it's always better to hire that senior talent than outsource imo.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#180I suspect the following is a big factor.
Quantitative easing has found its way in property and crypto asset price rises, in addition to inflated startup funding.
The latter is finally trickling into higher wage competition. People then move jobs as way to hop salary.