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Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

forbes.com

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Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#371

Post by shados »

jurassic wrote: post #65

Maybe I'm more conservative than others here, but anything less than 2 years tenure at a company seems suspicious to me. The people I've known who bounced after ~18 months or less were often the ones I would've wanted to quit anyway, who weren't cutting the mustard and weren't on track for promotion. For them, talking a big game at interview time every two years probably is income-maximizing because the longer they s…

In the big tech hubs, 2 years is pretty much the norm, for a variety of reasons (what's talked about in this article, but also just the sheer amount of opportunities).

It's not a great thing, but thats simply the reality. It's not too uncommon to see a company open an office outside of SF/SV/NYC/Boston/Whatever with the primary goal being to attract employees that will stay longer.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#372

Post by metaphorm »

sidlls wrote: post #34

There is a plateau as one reaches senior positions. As I went from "no" experience to my current position my job switches (every ~2 years) always were for 10%-25% (in one case, 100%, but that was Midwest to Bay Area so other factors are at play). I never got more than 5% merit increases otherwise. Most of my friends who have been at the same place for >10 years in engineering (not software) are just now reaching pari…

I respectfully disagree that you can tell whether or not a person is "capable of stretching himself" or not based on length of stay at a job.

There is an overwhelming amount of outside factors that can dominate those decisions much more than your own personal ambitions. The most important of those would be the needs of your family.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#373

Post by muh_gradle »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #351
LostCharacter wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an employee is coming to you with those offers instead of just leaving for the other job, shouldn't that indicate to you that they WANT to stay, but they also want to keep their career moving forward and earn more money? Why is that unreasonable? You're sending people out the door that want to continue working for your company just because they're telling you they have better opportunities and giving you a chance…

For the reasons stated, I would not give in. This is a slippery slope. Raising the pay of one employee out of band will usually lead to group behavior, meaning others do the same for the same reasons. I was also mostly budget constrained in the past and could not raise budget to significantly (say 20%) pay raise several employees. If the employee for whatever reasons earns say 10% below average of the other employees…

A lot of employees would gladly choose to stay at their current company if the pay raise was fair. It's not easy for people to uproot their lives every 2 years. But there has to be an actual incentive (financial) to staying at a company long term.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#374

Post by kelukelugames »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #322
elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

Might work somewhere else. I always felt blackmailed in a situation like this and wished the employee all the best with his new job. [Edit] To clarify the blackmail note: It's better to talk in the weekly 1:1 about salary expectations, changing markets or during people development focus, than to pull up a competing offer out of your hat while not talking about your dissatisfaction with pay during weekly 1:1s. 1. If t…

Management feels blackmailed? Hmmmm, I wonder how employees feel when management knows they can get away with paying them less...Especially when 5 & 6 sound like problems for management to fix.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#375

Post by calafrax »

drchickensalad wrote: post #240
calafrax wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is horrible just like the Forbes article. This situation is only happening because of bubble cash and a lot of inexperienced leadership with too much money on their hands. Once the bubble pops you will see all of these people with a resumes full of 6-12 month stints and outrageous salary expectations working at Starbucks (if they are lucky) and everyone who puts in years for reasonable salaries still em…

To play devil's advocate, what makes them unemployable in that scenario? Is it just that employers are so picky as to commonly choose people who stay at a company longer over all other factors? Also saying they have to work at Starbucks implies they can't get ANY software job, which I'm not sure I see the reason for.

Not unemployable but less likely to be employed.

Long term employment is very important to increasing productivity as a software engineer. The first 6 months is just learning existing systems, so from 6 months to 12 months doubling productivity is normal.

As you work longer you build more infrastructure that supports future productivity gains so from 12 months to 24 months you should be able to double your productivity again.

After 24 months your productivity is so much higher than newer employees that you can continually invest time in developing tools and infrastructure to enhance your productivity so your productivity continues to grow.

When there is a recession there will be unemployment for software engineers so a certain percentage will not be able to find work.

These job hoppers are the lowest skilled since they have never learned how to develop their productivity over the long term and they will be demanding the highest salaries based on their past experience so they are the least likely to be employed.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#376

Post by MarcusP »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #351
LostCharacter wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an employee is coming to you with those offers instead of just leaving for the other job, shouldn't that indicate to you that they WANT to stay, but they also want to keep their career moving forward and earn more money? Why is that unreasonable? You're sending people out the door that want to continue working for your company just because they're telling you they have better opportunities and giving you a chance…

For the reasons stated, I would not give in. This is a slippery slope. Raising the pay of one employee out of band will usually lead to group behavior, meaning others do the same for the same reasons. I was also mostly budget constrained in the past and could not raise budget to significantly (say 20%) pay raise several employees. If the employee for whatever reasons earns say 10% below average of the other employees…

This only works if the employees can get competing offers which are 20% raises though. Surely if your employees are worth 20% more on the open market then they shouldn't stay anyway?

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#377

Post by dsp1234 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #349
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might work somewhere else. I always felt blackmailed in a situation like this and wished the employee all the best with his new job. [Edit] To clarify the blackmail note: It's better to talk in the weekly 1:1 about salary expectations, changing markets or during people development focus, than to pull up a competing offer out of your hat while not talking about your dissatisfaction with pay during weekly 1:1s. 1. If t…

Blackmailed by what? The market? Some of those points are excuses for doing nothing. #2 especially - what, they'll find a better and better job every six months? Not likely. If somebody can show you how they'd be paid better somewhere else, deal with it. Denial gets you nowhere. #3 is exactly what the above remark addresses. If I can show my boss I'd be treated properly elsewhere, the boss sure better get on board an…

The BATNA for the employee is one of those other offers.

The BATNA for the employer is training a new person who isn't going to make every 6-12 months a fight.

Suggesting that it's fine for the employee to exercise their BATNA, but that it's not OK for the employer to exercise theirs seems a bit odd.

what, they'll find a better and better job every six months?

From the commenter above, make your employer fight for you every 6-12 months.. A lot of people hate stack ranking ("making your employee fight for their job every 6-12 months"), so why do people think that companies will want to be in the reverse position.

how they'd be paid better somewhere else, deal with it. Denial gets you nowhere.

The above poster said, "wished the employee all the best with his new job.", which is dealing with it, and not denying it. It's a win/win for everyone. The employee gets a new position with presumably higher pay, and the employer gets a chance to hire someone who isn't going to make them "fight for you every 6-12 months".

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#378

Post by mv4 »

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

As an employer, I've never countered when given a "choice" like that.

If they do make a counteroffer and you stay, you can be sure they are now looking for a replacement.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#379

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

magnetic wrote: post #365
coldtea wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. If the employee is only motivated by money, he will be gone rather sooner than later as there is always a higher offer around. What else would they be motivated by? It's not their hobby. This doesn't mean they are also not into programming and coding challenges -- but those are constants that they can find in another employer too. if they like the programming, it's not that they can't find a programming job else…

> What else would they be motivated by? The actual work (what is being done), the mission of the company (are you helping kids send pictures that disappear after 10 seconds or are you working on finding a cure to hearing loss?), the team, the location (do I have to spend 2h commuting?), the opportunities to learn, the opportunities to grow, etc. We each value different things, but if money is your only consideration,…

If they value those things, then they should be happy to compensate employees that have shown those traits at above market value. Then you retain the talent, and you likely do not run into compensation issues moving forward. Generally you see stagnation in pay, or the company expects you're willing to make well below market rate because it's a product you care about. At the end of the day I care about survival and feeding my family.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#380

Post by sidlls »

smm2000 wrote: post #304
inferiorhuman wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base + signing pay for me over the past ten years: Job 2: +14.29% Job 3: -18.75% / 23.08% / 25.00% (Motionloft... let's just say Mills and Garrison were full of shit and it took a while for me to get what had been promised initially) Job 4: 25.00% Job 5: 8.00% Job 6: 31.11% Job 7: 2.64% (back to employer #5, so about 35% over that) I know everyone likes to look at total comp, but especially if you're looking at small…

Are you in Bay Area/Seattle/NY? 200k total is not much for somebody with 10 years experience. Picking right employer and sticking with it could have netted you better pay.

The issue is that "the right employer" where what you describe is possible is also almost certainly highly competitive for junior roles and gets worse the higher up the tech ladder one climbs.

The actual data indicate that for the vast majority of developers "sticking with it" puts them behind the salary curve. In this industry especially that's bad because of the effects of ageism.

What you describe is possible, but represents a minority of career tracks, especially in this industry.

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