Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix • Hacker News Board

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#151

Post by tom-thistime » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #5

draw_down wrote: post #2

And frogs don't really sit in boiling water. These are called figures of speech for a reason, being literal about them is not admirable nor worthwhile.

I still see it as an important distinction simply because developers also have an interest in not getting hit by a bus. But they are quite happy to leave for Netflix and given turnover rates in tech, are almost guaranteed to leave in a few years.

It would be an important distinction, except that "hit by a bus" always primarily meant being hired away. (For me "always" means "since the mid 1990s".)

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#152

Post by pastacacioepepe » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #139

cptskippy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

"taken advantage of" Uh, no. There's no such thing as perfect information in the marketplace. And besides, money is only one vector for a job. There's many other factors that go into deciding who to work for and where to work. Work-life balance, perks, location, team or mission, family responsibilities, etc. You actually can have win-win relationships. They exist.

> There's no such thing as perfect information in the marketplace

And why not? Are you saying that a market of free and voluntary exchange where every part has access to equal information cannot exist?

An exchange where a part is better informed than the other and thus gains profit, is the exact definition of "taking advantage". Wait, isn't that how all exchanges work in the capitalist's workplace?

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#153

Post by benrbray » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

sjburt wrote: post #129

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

If Google is willing to pay 200k above market rate to hire an employee from a competitor, chances are part of the "value" of that employee is that they will no longer be working for someone else.

Yes, literally speaking, it's "worth it" to Google, or they wouldn't do it. Being so large, Google can throw advertising money on their self-driving car division, no problem. They can take a loss for 5-10 years, no problem. However, it's extremely anti-competitive, which is the problem others are pointing out here.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#154

Post by danudey » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

sjburt wrote: post #129

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

As legality and morality are two different things, so too are market forces and monopolistic behaviour.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#155

Post by ianai » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

sjburt wrote: post #129

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

I agree in this case. Though there’s probably a good economics lesson to be learned here about how to instrument what’s a market move to a new price level and what’s above or below that. Without getting into it-when the employers typically have much much more power than their employees at a broad level (even legalistic levels) then I’m inclined to conclude the worker was being undervalued as opposed to inappropriately hoarded by a competitor.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#156

Post by inetknght » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

sjburt wrote: post #129

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

> If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

Arguably. But, if 10 average people are worth $200k and one exemplary person is worth $500k... and the company pays the 10 average people $100k instead, then the company can hire two exemplary people where it only needed one.

Scale it down to minimum wage and you end up with people who are worth way more than they're paid -- you literally don't have a business without their work -- who are held under by telling and treating them like they're worthless.

That's what predatory behavior disguised as a market looks like.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#157

Post by thomascgalvin » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

benburleson wrote: post #127

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

It really depends on the perspective. If we're considering this a zero-sum situation, we have to conclude that your situation is good for developers in general because it will cause all developer/engineer salaries to rise to meet the (possibly inflated) salaries that the market has deemed required to recruit talent. On the other hand, does it mean that some employers won't have money to hire talent? And will that res…

Short term, yes. Having a company with deep pockets driving up salaries is great for the people working for those salaries. I've definitely benefited from having a bunch of tech companies a short walk down the road.

Long term, however, there's a risk of a monopoly forming, which isn't good for developers or society. FAANG are willing to pay big salaries because they are competing. If they use their power to destroy the competition, that market force goes away.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#158

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

bananaface wrote: post #136

cptskippy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

Oh come on. It's just succinct and communicates what's happening effectively. There's no grand conspiracy to create some underhanded psychological shift in the workforce at large... God, it's so ridiculous. Business slang like this comes from managers bored out of their minds trying to be concise and make corporate interaction marginally interesting. What other word would you recommend? Lured? Hired? They're not as p…

They should call it something neutral like "BigCorp unilaterally downsized my team for me".

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#159

Post by doytch » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

benburleson wrote: post #127

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

It really depends on the perspective. If we're considering this a zero-sum situation, we have to conclude that your situation is good for developers in general because it will cause all developer/engineer salaries to rise to meet the (possibly inflated) salaries that the market has deemed required to recruit talent. On the other hand, does it mean that some employers won't have money to hire talent? And will that res…

It may not be bad for developers, but it would be bad for customers of the companies in the long run. The companies will need to raise prices to cover the increasing costs of their developers.

If the companies sell ads, ads get more expensive. Then the items those ads promote get more expensive, working its way down to the rest of the population again.

Those developers will also see the increasing prices, but the extra cash will hopefully keep them happy for a while.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#160

Post by vkou » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

roland35 wrote: post #134

vkou wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - ownership of the product and process I work at FAMANG, and I feel ownership over my product and process. I set priorities for it, I set how work will get done on it, my team collectively determines what kind of processes we follow, and my manager just sanity checks that things are on-track. > - less red tape and politics Red tape, sure, politics, there's no guarantee of less politics in a smaller company. If anyt…

I don't mean to generalize that Big Tech has awful work life balance or other problems (I am sure it is mostly the opposite!), but rather there are lot of things smaller companies can and should offer to be more appealing.

Yes. If your company is actually very good on those things, it can be a good selling point, especially to someone who has been burnt in the past.

The problem is that when I'm applying for a job, I have no idea if the hiring manager is being honest with me, or if they are just telling me what I want to hear. Any claims of 'no politics' and 'you own the process' should be taken with a lot of salt.