Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#61

Post by alex-nt » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #49

munchbunny wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not fully convinced that this is just about the devs. 2-3 years is also about how long it takes for a nascent project to transition into a mature one, and when that happens the culture and energy of the team tends to shift. The same dev that thrives in one setting might end up out of place in the other.

I think in tech 2-3 years is also about how long it takes for one's mental model of how the world works to become stale and outdated, usually coinciding with other projects (that had been too nascent to use) maturing. I remember that in my peak webdev years in 2008, you built webapps by designing the HTML, converting it to templates, filling in data with Django or Rails, and then adding judicious interactivity with J…

Depends on what you work on. If you are not on pure tech (a minority of people are), as you get closer to the business you will get insights on how things work, how you can change them, make them better etc. Only part of our job is technical, and without the business knowledge you can't push the world in which you work further. There will be pushback from the "old guard" always, everywhere, as there will be push for the "new thing" always, everywhere. Neither is healthy, and both should be evaluated with a cool head.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#62

Post by 015a » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #24

Kranar wrote: post #11

To chime in with my own anecdotal opinion that is likely to anger some people... in my experience most developers do their best work after about 6-8 months of starting a job at a new company, and that comes to an end after about 24-36 months of working at the same company. After that the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent, the job stops being interesting to them and they move on. After observing th…

This is ridiculous. I would prefer being at my current job, leverage my tribal experience to build things (and I have specific things on my mind) better and faster. If I pitch this to my CTO, he will agree that using my knowledge to build things better and faster aligns with business goals. Only middle management rationalizes theories such as you proposed. Middle management sometimes just forgets what is the goal of…

Agreed; someone who says "engineers produce their best work 2-3 years into a role" is a manager who has created an environment where an engineer's best work is produced 2-3 years into a role. This isn't a recognition of some universal truth; its an observation of the environment they had a hand in accidentally engineering.

It is similarly easy to envision an environment engineered to encourage engineers to produce their best work 3 months into a role; Give new engineers one really exciting, well defined, small greenfield project, after that move them into a legacy maintenance role, never give bonuses, raises, etc. I know I'd get burned out pretty quick; my best work would be very early on.

It is harder to envision a systemic change to encourage engineers to always have produced their best work yesterday. I'm not suggesting its easy; by far, the easiest and most common course of action is exactly the environment the parent commentator engineered, where engineers peak a couple years in. But, don't be fooled; the engineering division absolutely suffers in this environment, and it is possible to do better.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#63

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

munchbunny wrote: post #22

Kranar wrote: post #11

To chime in with my own anecdotal opinion that is likely to anger some people... in my experience most developers do their best work after about 6-8 months of starting a job at a new company, and that comes to an end after about 24-36 months of working at the same company. After that the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent, the job stops being interesting to them and they move on. After observing th…

I'm not fully convinced that this is just about the devs. 2-3 years is also about how long it takes for a nascent project to transition into a mature one, and when that happens the culture and energy of the team tends to shift. The same dev that thrives in one setting might end up out of place in the other.

My personality is that, in the product lifecycle, I prefer the prototype to initial release phases. Initial conception has too much uncertainty - everything is possible but nothing is decided - and maintenance is boring.

I actually had a personality test where this was one of the things it measured. In my case, I think it did so accurately.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#64

Post by fizx » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #24

Kranar wrote: post #11

To chime in with my own anecdotal opinion that is likely to anger some people... in my experience most developers do their best work after about 6-8 months of starting a job at a new company, and that comes to an end after about 24-36 months of working at the same company. After that the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent, the job stops being interesting to them and they move on. After observing th…

This is ridiculous. I would prefer being at my current job, leverage my tribal experience to build things (and I have specific things on my mind) better and faster. If I pitch this to my CTO, he will agree that using my knowledge to build things better and faster aligns with business goals. Only middle management rationalizes theories such as you proposed. Middle management sometimes just forgets what is the goal of…

Hi, Person currently in middle management here. While we'd love to pay our good people more, at a moderately sized company and up, we operate under an unbelievable number of constraints, from HR, finance, etc.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#65

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

ukoki wrote: post #3

> The hard truth that many companies struggle to wrap their heads around is that they should be paying their long-tenured engineers above market rate. From an ethical point of view, maybe. From a rational point of view, maybe not. Jobs are "sticky" — it's a pain to apply for jobs, arrange interviews, deal with the possibility of getting rejected. And if you do get an offer and accept you will be leaving colleagues th…

I've found a different kind of stickiness. I've been in enough circumstances that I now value sane management and co-workers who I like. I'm not in a hurry to leave a situation like that, because I know that it can be rare. I don't need to maximize my money; I can get decent money while minimizing my misery.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#66

Post by nine_zeros » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

fizx wrote: post #64

nine_zeros wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous. I would prefer being at my current job, leverage my tribal experience to build things (and I have specific things on my mind) better and faster. If I pitch this to my CTO, he will agree that using my knowledge to build things better and faster aligns with business goals. Only middle management rationalizes theories such as you proposed. Middle management sometimes just forgets what is the goal of…

Hi, Person currently in middle management here. While we'd love to pay our good people more, at a moderately sized company and up, we operate under an unbelievable number of constraints, from HR, finance, etc.

You might have constraints but you can still raise your voice EACH time attrition happens because of constraints. Only then will the system change and make lives easier for everyone.

If not, you are forever going to be stuck in the cycle of hiring and attrition.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#67

Post by handrous » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #53

frankbreetz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Another problem is that an employee cannot earn more than his boss, and non-tech managers salaries cap at a certain point. This is only a problem in some places and is made up problem by management. Why can't someone make more then there boss, besides ego?

It's a problem that reliably recurs everywhere because organisations are made up of people and people are unwilling to be managers over other people who make more money than them. They quit. You need managers and if you want to keep them they need to make more than their direct reports.

Another way this is done is with reinforcement of social hierarchy outside of comp. This is where you get blatant infantilization of developers and in my experience wildly untrue stereotypes (repeated uncritically as true all over most organizations) about "normal" developers being incompetent at design, UX, requirements gathering, communication generally, understanding business trade-offs and concerns, et c. Nearly all non-junior devs I've known have been at least decent at most or all of those things, actually.

[EDIT] Oh, it's also why devs are compensated like professionals (they haven't been able to figure out how to stop that, yet) but work at open tables crammed together, under management's direct eye, like they're packing cocaine in Colombia or something.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#68

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

frankbreetz wrote: post #6

heisgone wrote: post #2

You have to see this from the point of view of a middle-manager whose main concern is his own career and salary. First, it's much easier to manage junior than seniors, more so when you are not an engineer yourself. Also, it's more likely you get a better salary when managing a large team of junior than a small team of senior. Even better, you can become a manager of managers if there is a bunch of juniors to manage.…

>>Another problem is that an employee cannot earn more than his boss, and non-tech managers salaries cap at a certain point. This is only a problem in some places and is made up problem by management. Why can't someone make more then there boss, besides ego?

> Why can't someone make more then there boss, besides ego?

I mean, maybe, but I've never seen anyone even propose a solution to ego so that's still a hard blocker.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#69

Post by suifbwish » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #11

To chime in with my own anecdotal opinion that is likely to anger some people... in my experience most developers do their best work after about 6-8 months of starting a job at a new company, and that comes to an end after about 24-36 months of working at the same company. After that the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent, the job stops being interesting to them and they move on. After observing th…

This isn’t surprising. 3 years is about the length of time it takes most humans to become bored with monogamous relationships. There is a very high rate of breakups and divorces in non arranged relationships by the 4th year.

Re: Why don't tech companies pay their engineers to stay?

#70

Post by b3morales » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #11

To chime in with my own anecdotal opinion that is likely to anger some people... in my experience most developers do their best work after about 6-8 months of starting a job at a new company, and that comes to an end after about 24-36 months of working at the same company. After that the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent, the job stops being interesting to them and they move on. After observing th…

You're not really making an independent measurement here. You see developers "stagnating" and moving on; how do you know that's not caused by lack of pay increases and other things you're doing (letting people pick new projects, for example, to keep them interested)? Maybe if you did "go out of your way to retain employees" you'd have employees who end up making your business even more successful during their longer tenure.