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

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

#481
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

> In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. This has got to be some of the worst career advice I've ever heard. I made this mistake once, at my first software job. My employer's response was to say "NO" and then proceed to make my life hell in an attempt to make me quit. With a wife, kids, and a mortga…

> You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation.

Would you give this advice in reverse too? Ignoring lawsuits for a minute, as a manager - should you always tell your employees that they are doing fine, even if they aren't, right up until the moment you fire them for poor performance?

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

#482

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…

What you are describing has typically been called "the shakedown" by management at companies for which I have worked when the employee shows up with competing offers. When the employee shows up and resigns, it's called a "dive and catch." These are perceived very differently by the people involved even though the basics are the same except for the trappings.

What I find interesting about the article is that an average time-in-place below about two years and absent a few longer stints basically takes a normal-ish resume and turns those short gigs into red flags

The really short work time thing shows lots of potential issues. Employee has never "shipped" and lived with the consequences. Employee flees after making a mess, either personal or professional. Employee has a problem with chasing the new shiny. Employee makes terrible decisions about fit and chooses gigs that aren't a fit for bad, ephemeral, etc. reasons and then when those cease to apply (financial stress alleviated, no longer a dog friendly office, etc.) employee bails. Another variant of poor fit is maybe employee tends toward emotion (desperation - I NEED A JOB NOW) and takes something they never would have taken otherwise. Maybe employee picks fights with other employees. Employee doesn't know how to bond ... the list goes on. Even simple pattern matching: The people everyone has known who are frequent short-time-in-place hoppers tend to be flakes so maybe employee is just a flake.

Someone below has a pretty good comment - "You get about 30 years to make as much money as possible and that's it." At least in technology, that is very true; less so in medicine or dentistry for example, and naturally capital doesn't really benefit from employees understanding that. It's so much more obvious to me 20Y in how true that is.

One thing I think is interesting: the average genXer that I know has never, ever thought strategically about their career and has spent the last 15-20y assuming things would follow a sort of generic life sequence; the sort of "a career is something that happens along the way" mindset. In contrast, while I personally may not like the stereotypical millennial aspirational trappings, at least some of them are viewing career as something they should be piloting instead of being along for the ride; not just waiting for a layoff or firing. At least they give the appearance of being better about it. But then again, so much of their appearances are curated fictions so who can tell.

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

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> To me if I can get a better offer (ie over 10% salary increase) that's just a signal that the current employer is trying to take advantage of me. It's more likely ignorance of your specific market price than malice. First, the employer isn't even going to know your outside market price if you don't get an offer in the first place. For you to prove that you're worth the 10% salary increase, you would have to be vet…

The point is, when someone has offers from other companies for 10% increase (which imo is pretty low usually it is 20% or more), the employee finally realizes their value. In these situations often the employee is getting raises that do not even cover inflation. So the employee now sees their market value and would like to continue working for the company, but they have realized they could take on risk for a 20-50% r…

I'm not disputing the realization of value, I'm only disputing the characterization that the employer "trying to take advantage of me", because it's unlikely to be true.

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

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> #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 and start doing those things. If you feel you are treated better elsewhere, as a manager I'd help you transition to that elsewhere. If that is what you really want and think is best for you, I would make it as easy for you as possible. If you think money is most important to your…

> I would make it as easy for you as possible. I'm pretty sure you're an exception.

I've been in technical management for the last 20years, and it took some years to not take it personal.

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

#485
post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the constant call to go in with guns blazing doesn't seem helpful to me. Getting independent information of your value isn't "guns blazing."

Getting independent information consists of going on GlassCeiling or Dice to look at industry salary surveys, googling, etc.... maybe even talking with some recruiters about going rates. Going out and getting a job offer is a step beyond that.

OK, then the boss isn't able to get any specific reports on my performance, they can only ask me directly how well I'm performing or look at standards of performance. Going out and tracking my individual performance takes too much work and shows they don't trust me. Seems fair.

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

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if your company has to make cutbacks [...] you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. If the company's going down the pan, what does it matter if I'm made redundant in the first tranche or the last? I'm going to need a new job anyway, just in the latter case I've put in a few extra months where there was no money to give me a raise no matter how well I performed.

First batch might get better terms than waiting till the company goes bust owing you pay

Are you making the argument for being a shitty employee allaround?

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

#487
post #80

I think it's important to understand that there's a significant amount of selection bias possible here. In general, folks who switch jobs every two years are the folks who are not getting offered big raises by their current companies. The ones who are getting offered big raises may still choose to leave due to other reasons, but they often will choose to stay instead. And they won't be making a big fuss about it onli…

> Another point worth focusing on here is that raises are really determined by the business value that you're producing I mean, notionally, yeah. But that's putting the employer up a pedestal of competency that may not be justified. Less poetically: it's forgetting just how hard it can be to measure that value, and the role of optics and "managing up"; there's also the consideration for excellence on never-released p…

The more correct way to say it is that you should be paid based on what value you expect to bring to the company in the future. Value you have brought to them in the past is a good indicator but there are others.

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

#488

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.

Are "average" developers really making much more than 200k/year in base/signing in those cities?

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

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish it was as easy to get this outside of the Bay Area. I don't really want to move to the Bay Area (nor does my girlfriend) but I've been stuck making just over half of your current total comp out near Chicago after almost 10 years of experience in various tech stacks. I know in theory it should be possible out here although Glass Door salary averages for the region are about what I'm making currently, so…

What is your rent? How much does it cost when you go out to eat? I don't know much about Chicago, but a quick look online suggests that almost all of the difference would be eaten up by cost of living differences.

Maybe true. But if you save 20% of your income for retirement at either job, and would go retire in Florida or some constant place after you are done working, you'll have a lot more money to retire to if you work in a high COL area with high pay.

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet they always get paid much less than 3-month or 6-month contractors I'd be careful comparing the salaries of fixed employees to contractors. The math works significantly different for contractors: They need to spend time on job acquisition, billing, ... etc. They don't get any of the benefits that an employee gets - PTO, potentially health insurance, retirement plan, whatever, ... They're also the first to let g…

Not really, there are plenty of 12-months and indefinite rolling contracts. I've met a few engineers who made $800 USD per day for several years and many (including myself) who earned at least $650 per day doing rolling contracts... You can stay as long as you want - The main problem is boredom that kicks in after 3 to 6 months. I don't usually have any gap between jobs. On two occasions, companies offered me to work…

> companies offered me to work for them for two weeks

Damn. I haven't yet found something like this, most companies want a six-month minimum. I would love to take a two-week contract in Australia, just so I can delete "visit Australia" from my bucket list :)

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