The one-salary experiment, ten years in • Hacker News Board

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#61

Post by tensor » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:27 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #11

They can say all of the feel good stuff they want. I always have the same question - are there outside investors? If there are, by definition the entire purpose of the company is an exit strategy. Statistically, that exit strategy is to be acquired. As an employee without equity you should have no loyalty to the company above getting a check every two weeks and doing your best work during those two weeks. The owners…

Investors rightly want to get returns on their investment. That doesn't mean that the goal of the company is an "exit strategy." It means that the company needs to work towards a way to pay the investors the return agreed upon. Getting acquired is one way to get the investors their returns, but it could also be an IPO or another larger investment.

On loyalty, this really comes down to treating people how you want to be treated. If you always go to the wall playing hardball with a company, generally they will do the same to you.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#62

Post by cortesoft » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

tfehring wrote: post #60

I wonder how much of the perfect retention for non-developers is because of "gold-plated handcuffs"? It would obviously be nice to make X% of the market rate for your position for X >> 100, but it would not be nice to have to take a (1 - 100/X)% pay cut if you want to leave the company for whatever reason. Lots of people can't afford to take a substantial pay cut because they align their recurring expenses, particula…

Yeah, I have definitely noticed this... when I was younger, I felt a ton of freedom, knowing I could get another good job easily if the one I was in went south. As my career advanced and I kept making more money, I started to realize that there were fewer and fewer jobs available that could pay my salary.

It is a weird feeling.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#63

Post by rtpg » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

sa46 wrote: post #29

ng12 wrote: post #8

People have written books on this stuff. There's an entire field of research on this subject and I think tech people discount it for being "too MBA". One of the most important findings is that pay generally will never motivate employees, but it will reduce their incentive to leave. Generally most job factors affect one of two separate but related scales: motivation to stay and reluctance to leave. Entirely non-surpri…

> Entirely non-surprising that devs are the ones who left because by hard capping their pay you are reducing their reluctance to go work somewhere else with higher pay. The surprising part is that their dev retention (article notes small sample size) of ~3 years matches Google at 3.1 years and surpasses Uber, Dropbox, Tesla, Facebook and Airbnb. [1] That suggests that the culture created by the one-salary experiment…

I guess it depends on how much of the culture is generated by that point. It could be that the culture could be good _despite_ this, or some other angle.

I imagine that this policy is a consequence of some good internal culture

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#64

Post by steven2012 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to leave. I'm currently at a well-known company, and I'm uncharacteristically happy because my WLB is the best it's been in my career.

However, I'm getting a bit bored and I also know I could make at least $50,000 a year more if I leave. Hell, even the new engineers joining my company at the same level are making more than I am.

But the culture and pay at my company is just good enough such that staying isn't a horrible decision. And I don't want to start studying dynamic programming again for my interviews (I've never used it except in interview environments, so I keep forgetting and losing the ability to quickly answer questions).

So yes, I could make a nice amount more (plus large sign on bonus) but WLB is good enough to keep me, at least for another year. I pick up my kids every day at school and I love it, it's worth the money for now.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#65

Post by Consultant32452 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:48 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #15

Consultant32452 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I want is the ability to get compensated for benefits I decline, particularly the company health plan. I've never been able to negotiate this successfully.

Do you really care if you get paid $190K + $10K because you didn't take the medical plan vs just getting paid $200K whether or not you take the plan?

Often times $10k is the difference between me accepting job A vs job B. So it would be better for the potential employer to offer that flexibility.

I also have an "icky" moral feeling about being tied to my employer via something like healthcare. So all other things being equal I would choose the company that offers this option over one that doesn't.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#66

Post by iliketosleep » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 1:04 AM UTC

sa46 wrote: post #29

ng12 wrote: post #8

People have written books on this stuff. There's an entire field of research on this subject and I think tech people discount it for being "too MBA". One of the most important findings is that pay generally will never motivate employees, but it will reduce their incentive to leave. Generally most job factors affect one of two separate but related scales: motivation to stay and reluctance to leave. Entirely non-surpri…

> Entirely non-surprising that devs are the ones who left because by hard capping their pay you are reducing their reluctance to go work somewhere else with higher pay. The surprising part is that their dev retention (article notes small sample size) of ~3 years matches Google at 3.1 years and surpasses Uber, Dropbox, Tesla, Facebook and Airbnb. [1] That suggests that the culture created by the one-salary experiment…

If their base salary is decent, then it might not be surprising at all. Determining whether an individual stays in a particular job involves multiple weighted variables. To give an example, once an individual has a base level of financial security, salary could easily become less important than time spent with loved ones. But there are some people who will give the maximum weighting to money no matter what, and companies which optimize for this variable will always need to outcompete all other companies on salary to retain employees. In this case, it's no surprise that their retention rates are relatively low. Looking at the article that you referenced, I notice that the companies with the highest retention rates aren't the ones with reputations as having the highest salaries.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#67

Post by sitharus » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #6

I love iwantmyname's service. Super easy to use and been using it for years. One question I have is, does everyone have equal equity in the company there? And if not, does this not count as additional comp besides salary? Also, it would seem to me that this becomes less sustainable the larger your team gets.

Looking at the Companies Register the answer is no, employees do not get equity. That's likely due to how equity-based compensation is treated in New Zealand tax law. It gets complicated so it'd be unusual for a small company to do it.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#68

Post by bmdavi3 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 1:25 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #64

Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to leave. I'm currently at a well-known company, and I'm uncharacteristically happy because my WLB is the best it's been in my career. However, I'm getting a bit bored and I also know I could make at least $50,000 a year more if I leave. Hell, even the new engineers joining my company at the same level are making more than I am. But the culture and pay at my company is jus…

What if you went to your manager, or whoever you feel is the right person, asked if you could speak one on one, and said...

"I really love working at this company. The work is interesting, I love the people, the culture, . But I also know I could be making X if I went elsewhere. I love the work I'm doing, and I want to keep doing it here, but I also don't want to be leaving money on the table. What can we do?"

This phrasing, pretty much verbatim, has worked really well for me in the past.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#69

Post by xiaodai » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 1:26 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #64

Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to leave. I'm currently at a well-known company, and I'm uncharacteristically happy because my WLB is the best it's been in my career. However, I'm getting a bit bored and I also know I could make at least $50,000 a year more if I leave. Hell, even the new engineers joining my company at the same level are making more than I am. But the culture and pay at my company is jus…

Why don't you just ask for a raise if new people are making more than you?

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#70

Post by readingnews » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #64

Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to leave. I'm currently at a well-known company, and I'm uncharacteristically happy because my WLB is the best it's been in my career. However, I'm getting a bit bored and I also know I could make at least $50,000 a year more if I leave. Hell, even the new engineers joining my company at the same level are making more than I am. But the culture and pay at my company is jus…

Saying things like "I could make 50k more at blah" seems to be taken so lightly these days. I would party/panic/freak out like I won the lotto if you told me I could make 50k more somewhere else. 50k... do you have any idea what that does to your future earnings? Your 401k/retirement? Hell, even if you live the same as now, sticking 25K in the bank every year is worth a whole heaping spoonful of whatever hell they could possibly throw at you in the new position... but it seems almost daily I read about someone or hear about someone who says "eh, Ill pass on that 20/50/75/100k increase in salary, I'm not into "money"..."

I suppose all of those people already have their million in the bank for retirement... or are independently wealthy. Where do all of those people come from?