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

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

#101

Post by brightball » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:01 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'm going to make a suggestion for the cause of your observation.

I think many people come into a job for a specific project(s) during which there is a ramp up period of understanding the requirements, limitations, team, how the company works, getting to know people (6-8 months).

Then after working on that project, delivering it, iterating on it, tuning it, working through potential production support issues and some scaling items...in many cases the vast majority of the work is done (2-3 years).

At that point, a few things happen because this developer is ready for a new project or new challenge, as are most of the people who were involved with that project.

Their options are:

- Find a new project at the company and restart the learning period as they transition in a potentially lateral move. If this happens, it's unlikely the company is going to give them a sudden compensation boost when in the eyes of management they're continuing to do their existing job.

- Seek training related to some advanced problem that they solved to become the company's expert on the subject, in which case the company will likely pay for the training but not a subsequent boost in compensation (because in their eyes...they just paid for the training)

- See how well they have marketed themselves to find out if the company has recognized their talent to promote them into a higher level position with an equivalent pay bump or potentially managing a team. The only problems is that you can only promote so many people, so this person will be the exception and not the rule.

- Update their resume with the newly acquired skills and have somebody else pay them market rates to start a new project at a different company, using their current job as leverage to get a significant bump in compensation. Meanwhile, you'll be paying new market rates to hire the replacement.

It's no secret why people often just jump jobs. You've finished one project and you're going to transition to a new one anyway, getting a fresh start can be a good choice. Additionally, no matter how much people like their situation in one job they will end up building up frustrations with certain people and/or management over time. As long as those people are still around, it will increase their likelyhood of leaving.

But ultimately, you're looking at the likely timing of concluding one project and then exploring options for what's next. IMO, that coincides with your timeline.

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

#102

Post by cproctor » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

What if a company actively encouraged its employees to interview at competitors, and to welcome, even expect, external offers as part of discussions around professional growth, roles, and compensation? They could call it "peer review."

The company would offload the work of finding market rates onto its competitors while potentially gaining insights into competitors' operational logic. And as a machiavellian bonus, this arrangement might depress its own employees' market rates because other companies might be hesitant to extend offers to candidates they suspect are not serious.

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

#103

Post by ppeetteerr » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

Many engineers are on their way out when they announce their departure. If they said: "hey, I'm thinking about joining this other company for a better compensation", that would be a topic of discussion. Most engineers instead tell me: "hey, I signed a contract with this other company. This is my last day".

The other point is that money is not the only motivator (esp. in our industry). People just like change, either more responsibility, or less responsibility, maybe more autonomy or more direction, maybe different leadership, etc.

Last, signing bonuses are quite large...

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

#104

Post by jollybean » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

errantspark wrote: post #87

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…

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 opportunitie…

"my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try?"

Because it's a form of systematic corruption, maybe the biggest kind of corruption in the White Collar world.

The objective is to 'do a good job' , not the minimum, in every endeavour.

Doing the 'bare minimum' to keep a job is actually generally far under-performing, as most companies won't generally let people go.

It's how entire industries stagnate and sink.

When internal participants spend most of their time fighting over the surpluses, it's over.

This applies to companies as whole as well of course, i.e. the $1B government contracts that should only be $500M etc. etc..

Do a good job. If there's a better fit elsewhere, that's fine too.

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

#105

Post by Eridrus » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

mattydoincode wrote: post #55

p0nce wrote: post #19

> they gain domain knowledge that is specific to that company, and that stuff is incredibly valuable. The wild thing is that it’s only valuable to that one company! From the engineer point of view, this is a bad deal as the knowledge they get is precisely not transferrable to another company. So staying is a risk (these skills won't even exist elsewhere) and there is a lost opportunity for the employee. They could be…

Author here! My intention with "domain knowledge" point is mostly about all the non-coding stuff. Things like how your company functions, who to talk to about different issues, deep product knowledge and understanding the customers. I actually think transferrable skills grow as well, usually more on the technical side but also on the soft skills side in a generic way. I think the non-transferrable stuff is somewhat u…

I'm looking forward to seeing the follow up post on what sorts of ranges this philosophy turns into. Most companies that I have seen post their bands massively underpay people.

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

#106

Post by vbtemp » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

My all-time highest HN comment was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23563997

Basically, why do I get such big raises when I switch companies, but getting a nontrivial raise when at a company is like pulling teeth?

How come every company I work for is willing to give me a huge raise and reward me for my achievements at other companies, and not do the same for achievements at that company?

The discussion that followed was illustrative. But I just came to accept it as a fact of life. I wish I could find a place to invest myself in long term, but that has yet to be found...

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

#107

Post by paxys » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #73

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/…

Valuable tech employees at FAANG absolutely make seven figures.

That's a stretch. A staff/senior staff engineer (or equivalent) at FAANG will top out at mid-six figures annually, maybe more than that if there was a lot of stock appreciation since it was granted.

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

#108

Post by beiller » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #104

errantspark wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opportunitie…

"my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try?" Because it's a form of systematic corruption, maybe the biggest kind of corruption in the White Collar world. The objective is to 'do a good job' , not the minimum, in every endeavour. Doing the 'bare minimum' to keep a job is actually generally far under-performing, as most companies won't generally let people go. It's h…

You have errors in you measurement, mostly in assuming employees only add a positive ROI when in fact their value can go negative. Thus doing the bare minimum is worth more than you think as long as the employee stays in the positive ROI (which I assume is the measure of bare minimum).

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

#109

Post by wwweston » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #86

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 T…

Yes, but this won't work because there's just not enough different things for an engineer to master. ;)

More seriously, your observation is brilliant (and almost makes me wish I hadn't just accepted a new role). Because the software field contains such a breadth of things to know and breadth of potential applications, it's hard to get very far without having the kind of mind that is motivated by some level of intrinsic interest, and that can be a currency in its own right.

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

#110

Post by commandlinefan » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:13 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…

> the vast majority of people just stagnate, get complacent

Even if you're right - 100% of the time, about 100% of people - the value of having the one guy who remembers why it was done this way and how it was fixed last time it broke available to look at it when it needs looked at is priceless.