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Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

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Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#101

Post by m0zg »

chadash wrote: post #76
nscalf wrote: post #5

I'm a software engineer with ~3 years of experience. I also want professional growth. Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it. levels.fyi sort of convinced me that being a good engineer is a life changing event for more than 1 genera…

> "Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it." And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior…

A nice side effect of this is, if you're making multiple six figures, your chances of being asked to work on bullshit projects that don't matter is much lower, and you can basically pick and choose what to do, and _tell your boss_ what to do as well. Money is not just compensation, it's also a powerful signaling mechanism. People just assume that if your time costs a lot, you must be super good. This is _mostly_ true, but not always. Some people get paid a lot for no apparent reason at all. The inverse, however, is often not true (yet the pricing signal is interpreted exactly as you'd expect): there are lots and lots of great people who are severely underpaid. Some are victims of circumstance, some just consider pursuing top dollar to be "beneath their dignity", majority (anecdotally, I don't have data) are just too lazy to do anything about it and change jobs once every 2 years as they should.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#102

Post by john_moscow »

opportune wrote: post #49

I have seen employers grossly misunderstand "professional growth" to mean paying for tons of random seminars telling you the basics of being a professional like taking care of your appearance, carrying yourself, setting goals, etc. I don't think they understood that growth == promotions and income advancement. I would have much rather taken home an extra $5k, or get a promotion two months earlier, than waste time sit…

Because the cost per employee of a useless self help seminar would be way below $5K and the HR might even get a kickback.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#103

Post by markkanof »

elindbe2 wrote: post #8

I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).

Absolutely. I used to work for a small consulting company where most of the work was building fairly boring line of business systems for big corporations. It seemed like we charged way below what other similar consultancies where charging, so I asked why we didn't charge more. The response was not that we couldn't charge more, but that at $X the clients just wanted use to work endless 8 hour days, but at $2X clients would only bring us in for more critical projects but would not want to pay for our time doing routine maintenance, filling out corporate paperwork, support requests, etc. To me it sure sounded like we should have been charging $2X, having to work less, and being treated as a valuable resource. But I guess some people prefer the (implied all though not real) security of consulting contracts without an end date.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#104

Post by bcyn »

logifail wrote: post #86
chadash wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it." And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior…

> when someone pays you more, they respect you more The counter-example to that could be that once you're senior enough, you are never 100% on vacation. If enough goes wrong, you will get called back to work.

That has nothing to do with seniority, it's 100% about how you draw personal boundaries between work hours and personal hours. You can make it clear that you will be completely unplugged during vacation.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#105

Post by noodle »

glutamate wrote: post #94

Apparently no one is motivated by social or environmental impact

I think many people are, but it's not something that can be put first in your decision making process unless you are already successful.

If you're financially unstable, paying down student debt, etc., it becomes much harder to justify picking a lower-paying job that is more personally motivating if you have other options on the table.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#106

Post by chernov »

RNeff wrote: post #6

Offer a quiet, private office. Two or more monitors. Free snacks and free lunches. Modern software stack (whatever that is). Or full-time remote.

As a full-time remote worker myself, I absolutely double that. It is so much more effective and better in almost [1] every way.

[1] The socialization might suffer a bit, but you are able to fix that as you wish instead of having only one option (which is office).

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#107

Post by ptero »

Growth is good, but it means different things to different people. Someone might want more money, another opportunities to attend and present at conferences, third a path to management, fourth a path to "technical expert at large", etc. etc.

And mistakes can backfire: offer a management path to a person who wants more technology and he may think "ouch, bureaucracy and PowerPoint ahead". I think a general (and genuine) statement of support for technical leadership, management and whatever other paths a company offers would go further than a generic "support growth" mantra. My 2c.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#108

Post by watwut »

logifail wrote: post #86
chadash wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it." And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior…

> when someone pays you more, they respect you more The counter-example to that could be that once you're senior enough, you are never 100% on vacation. If enough goes wrong, you will get called back to work.

That is more of mark of desorganized workplace then something inherent to senior role.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#109

Post by markkanof »

elindbe2 wrote: post #21
ngngngng wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely, I just asked in my open office space what "opportunities for professional growth" means and everyones said raise or promotion.

It seems like tricky wording used by businesses to pay people less. Tell people in your job description that you offer "opportunities for career growth" and they hear "opportunities to get rich". Then when they're actually working there you just change the meaning to some kind of title inflation or meaningless training or additional responsibilities for the same pay.

I think "opportunities for career growth" is very similar to how graphic designers or musicians are always pitched that they should do work for someone for low/no pay because it will get them "more exposure". There is the possibility that the growth opportunity will end up being a good investment with regard to future financial returns, but I think the most likely case is that it will just end up with the person doing the work losing out on money.
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