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

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

#161

Post by touisteur » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

itronitron wrote: post #111

wpietri wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would really appreciate that as a developer, I have definite gaps in my skillset that I haven't needed (been paid) to fill. But everyone would have to get out of the mindset that developer Joe 'knows everything' about X. The perfect match would be pairing a developer that can explain some technology to a 12 year old with a developer that has the equivalent knowledge of a 12 year old (for that technology.) That woul…

I used to manage a team of mixed very-experimented / very-juniors and I'd make sure every senior worked on stuff I knew were not in their comfort zone, and assign tasks in their expertise domain to juniors. They'd act as consultants, while checking other parts of the codebase/docs (as noobs) for incoherencies, sand-in-gears, and improving them. Over time, the experts kept things getting better, up to their common standards, and the juniors would level up far more quickly than other parts of the org.

To keep things interesting/challenging for the experts I'd have them also reach across domains (to system eng, safety, quality assurance, bids, R&D) and sometimes even overreach (blur the boundaries) while protecting them from corporate-strife. Software is far more interesting in the context of the product, the customers, actors on every critical team. I'd also have them try new techs, or find some innovation/maturity budget for 'pet peeve hunts' and we'd often end up with new tools, large-scale improvements in code, perf, readability, robustness, observability, or testing. I'm going off topic here but I'm sad that 'Slack', the book, isn't more widely read.

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

#162

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:58 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…

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by thrwyoilarticle » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

ppeetteerr wrote: post #103

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…

Unless the outcome of that conversation is a systematic review of how reward works for all employees & a counter-offer with no risk that breaking the kayfabe about the company mission harmed my future aspirations within the company, the conversation is too risky to have. The problem will be back in a year.

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

#164

Post by ren_engineer » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 6:59 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.

the entire point is that companies spend far more money having to replace current employees because they don't give raises.

Recruiting and onboarding a new engineer takes months and the lost productivity is at least 100K when you factor in engineering hours spent interviewing, recruiter fees, months for new dev to learn code base, etc.

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

#165

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #154

I don't really understand this article, or the current trend of job hopping. I'm from the generation where you have one job, maybe two, and that's it: I've had 7, but I really only ever wanted one good job. For some perspective: when I left Intel circa 2010, I was a Senior Staff Engineer fighting to get promoted to Principal Engineer (followed by Senoir Principal, then Fellow, then Senior Fellow, hahaha). FYI I loved…

I thought Intel was stiffing ML people too, maybe Gelsinger kicked some butts in management.

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

#166

Post by abc_lisper » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #45

sparker72678 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I feel like at a lot of companies (especially smaller companies), this is the reality. Exactly. There are many small companies that will be far more impacted be one of their 2 developers leaving than they would be by the owner being hit by a bus, but they'll still balk at raising salaries.

Well market dynamics over the long term should take care of companies that short sighted. They will be outcompeted by others that are better at building organizational capacity.

Yeah, that long term is not useful for the engineer whose skills should be valued right. He will be older by that time

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

#167

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:03 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…

Absolutely this. Where I work, changing teams isn’t frowned upon. I was in one role for a few years, then moved to another. I know the systems that are used most widely, the data, the business, I know a particular side of the business inside and out, and I already have important relationships and lines of communication.

And now things are interesting again.

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

#168

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

Cederfjard wrote: post #129

shados wrote: post #47

Many companies do pay for people to stay, but its debatable if its worth it. The last company I worked for gave me significant golden handcuffs. Probably 30-40% more than I could get elsewhere. They had a "cost of replacement player" policy, where they count the cost of hiring, sourcing, training over the years, etc, and come up with a number thats almost always way above market rate for people who have been around a…

> The uncomfortable truth is that there's very significant demographic differences when it comes to folks who use the "I got an offer elsewhere, pay me more and Ill stay". What differences are those? I tend to think that it’s a bad idea anyway. Once you’ve done it, your employer will know that you’ve already thought about leaving, so much so that you’ve already completed an interview process and have gotten an offer.…

Male vs female most likely

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

#169

Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

ukoki wrote: post #12

mauving wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] Jobs are "sticky" [...] My experience has been the opposite, in that sticky jobs are jobs held by people who aren't in demand. There's a balancing act for employers ("brilliant but flighty" is less desirable than "good but sticky") so it's certainly possible to argue that jobs being sticky for less-than-brilliant people is a good thing... but in my experience, jobs aren't sticky because of inertia for brillia…

You might be right. As a counter-argument I can only offer my anecdata of being a contractor who has met quite a few people deep in the bowels of large enterprises who I would class as brilliant, but who are coming up on five, ten and sometimes fifteen year anniversaries. Perhaps they do have good reasons for staying, but whatever they are those reasons are they are out of reach of my make-as-much-money-as-fast-as-yo…

I think you'll find a fair number of people who like their work, are comfortable where they are, and feel like they make enough money. And don't really care that they could maybe make more somewhere else.

I also expect that the moving around every 2 years meme is pretty influenced by Silicon Valley. It certainly isn't the norm I've seen.

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

#170

Post by cheriot » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:03 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…

This. Most companies pay lip service to internal mobility, but I still see managers trying to talk people out of it (presumably so they don't have to hire and ramp up a replacement).