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

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

#81

Post by vsareto » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

b3morales wrote: post #70

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…

I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. Maybe picking projects will if the company has enough variety.

The best cure for stagnation I've found is to take long breaks and get into something else.

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

#82

Post by closeparen » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:28 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in tech 2-3 years is also about how long it takes for one's mental model of how the world works to become stale and outdated, usually coinciding with other projects (that had been too nascent to use) maturing.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…

I think it's specifically a disease of the frontend community to believe that nothing you knew about programming 3 years ago is relevant anymore.

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

#83

Post by lmilcin » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:28 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…

> (...) 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.

Or, another explanation, you are mistaking cause and effect.

Maybe the people figure out they could be earning so much more somewhere else but they are unlikely to get the kind of raise at their current place, so they get disillusioned and demotivated?

And then they change the job getting the significant raise, further reinforcing the behavior. Now they join another company fully expecting the same thing to happen in 2 years.

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

#84

Post by shagie » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

mattydoincode wrote: post #57

mensetmanusman wrote: post #17

The flaw with this argument is the assumption that the value add of a given skillset is approximately equivalent in different environments. We see this for example on a larger scale in OLED tech, where a key OLED engineer in South Korea might be worth $250k to the Korean Economy but worth $2.5M to the Chinese economy, which is why poaching was halted by classifying the job as a national security interest. The profit/…

Author here! I'm not arguing that software engineers should necessarily be paid in proportion to the end economic result of their employment. Although that's an interesting point for another article perhaps! Rather simply that companies tend to undervalue domain specific knowledge and forget how costly and time consuming it is to hire and retrain new team members. This should be taken into account when considering co…

Consider the question of "could you get into a bidding war with Apple or Netflix for a tenured developer?" Is there a point where another company can pay more than the economic product of the developer at the original company?

Yes, hiring and training is expensive... and the loss of domain knowledge is costly too.

There are a lot of places that aren't making that much money to be able to get to "market rate".

I'd also like to put forth that the idea of a market rate for developers across all industries is one of the things making it hard to find developers. There are more than a few new grads out there that are discounting any job that pays less than $100k/y because they believe that the market rate is that and anything less is being underpaid regardless of industry, company maturity, or locale.

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

#85

Post by CoastalCoder » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

hiram112 wrote: post #29

Maybe in FAANG world, salaries really do increase linearly like the graphs from the blog showed, but in the F500 corporate and contracting world, the slope starts leveling out after 10 years of experience. A decent and ambitious dev can definitely gain 30% salary increases after their first few jumps, but once you're at the "senior" level, it's just not happening. In the first 5-6 years of my career, I jumped about 4…

I live in coastal New England, and I faced a similar situation until ~6 years ago, when I started working for all-remote companies.

I've been fortunate to find all-remote employers who pay average non-FAANG silicon valley salaries, regardless of where in the U.S. you live. The result is I'm paid a little (+20%?) higher than I would at a non-fintech company in Boston or NYC.

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

#86

Post by wpietri » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:33 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…

I would look at inverting the causality there. If your data is accurate, I think it's better to say, "Most companies create developer jobs that get boring for people after 24-36 months."

I was chatting with a Trader Joe's cashier Sunday. It turns out they change jobs every hour. That was a surprise to me; when I long ago worked in a grocery store, I was assigned to one position for 8 hours for every shift. Why does Trader Joe's do it? To keep things interesting: "She tells Money that the change in jobs during shifts helps to keep things interesting for employees. 'It's perfect because it breaks down your shift. You don't get tired doing one repetitive thing,' she told them." https://www.mashed.com/175743/workers-reveal-what-its-really...

If Trader Joe's can do it hour by hour, I think tech companies can do it at least every year or so.

I'm hiring right now and one of the major draws for the good people I'm talking to is the chance to do something interesting. If that's why their coming, it's unsurprising that I'll have to keep giving them that over time. For us, and for most places I've worked, I think that's doable.

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

#87

Post by errantspark » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

b3morales wrote: post #70

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…

Pretty much. Honestly if I can get a 20% pay raise by switching jobs, my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try? If I wanted to try I would go work somewhere else.

There's just a complete mismatch in how much the company I work for values the experience and skill I gain over time and how much everyone else values it. Over time recruiters come to me with opportunities to make more money, they try to convince me to leave. It's such an obvious disparity I can't help but stop caring about the job I'm doing when it's only real utility to me is that I don't have to put in any effort to keep having it.

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

#88

Post by asdff » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

There is also the near infinite pipeline of desperate undergrads taking the first decent enough offer that lands in their lap. Wring them dry for a few years and when they leave after realizing what they are actually worth, there are 10 more 22 year old applicants ready to take their place. I'd probably bet that most tech companies outside the most glamorous operate like this. It's just cheaper and that's all most companies care about quarter to quarter, not a deep mature efficient back end or anything that experience and expensive talent brings you.

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

#89

Post by b3morales » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #81

b3morales wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. Maybe picking projects will if the company has enough variety. The best cure for stagnation I've found is to take long breaks and get into something else.

Sure, and I don't really know either; my point was just that the parent is begging the question. :)

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

#90

Post by foobiekr » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #66

fizx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speaking from experience, most large tech companies view engineers as area under the curve, as fungible hours. Speaking out about attrition usually doesn’t have any impact at all above the Director level.