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

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

#181

Post by t-writescode » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

smueller1234 wrote: post #157

paxys wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nitpick: From the PoV of the (public tech) employers, they typically look at compensation not including appreciation of the restricted stock. It's typically "base + bonus + new stock grant value" or sometimes "base + bonus + value of the restricted stock that vests this year, but using the value at GRANT time, not at VEST time". More specifically as an employee, I think any incremental value from holding the stock is…

Thank you. I’ve gotten a bit tired of hearing people talk about their absurd compensation as though it’s their yearly earning and that everyone should get it, only to ignore the part about it vesting quarterly starting 1 year after reception, over 4 years.

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

#182

Post by tikhonj » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:16 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…

The problem is that "doing a good job" is rarely the objective at most organizations! People naturally want to do a good job; it's just more interesting and satisfying. But then we have layers of management and process and culture that push back on that in favor of control: follow directions, don't rock the boat, don't take any risks, always look like you're busy...

In a world like that, the people who just "do a good job" are characterized by some level of stubbornness coupled with an ability to navigate this kind of environment. Should that really be the key skill that matters? Is not being sufficiently stubborn "a form of systematic corruption"? That seems like a fundamentally uncharitable perspective that also provides no real solution. When that's how you see the situation, what can you do about it?

My experience has been that changing environment and process to actively trust people and, crucially, clearly signal that trust improves things far more than blaming people. If you expect people to phone it in, they probably will; if you can establish real trust instead, they'll go out of their way to make something work.

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

#183

Post by NationalPark » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:18 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 not convinced this isn't explained entirely by compensation. There are perhaps a dozen large tech companies at which an only moderately remarkable engineer can make $500k a year right now. That number has gotten bigger every year for the last decade at least, and the much larger pool of "every other software company" is increasingly falling behind. You should follow up with your exits a few years down the line and see where they end up long term. I bet a few of them will have retired - how often do your engineers retire at 35?

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

#184

Post by magicalhippo » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #116

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 have the opposite observation. The first few years are needed just to learn a domain. Productivity doesn’t begin to take off until after a few years. If no one had worked 10 or 20 years in my team we’d struggle to get anywhere. The impact of new hires can still be great when it comes from bringing fresh ideas and perspective (e.g processes, tech knowledge) and that obviously fades as everyone with a long tenure at…

Same here. Took me over a year before I got somewhat confident with the domain, and after two years before I became fully productive. My boss takes this into account and doesn't hire people he's confident will move on in less than 3 years.

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

#185

Post by SubuSS » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #107

modeless wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is definitely a class of staff/seniors making seven figures in FAANG - this may be because of stock growth, 'special' bonus stock awards from extreme performance or retention, matching offers etc.

But yes - these won't be the public / known numbers. These folks have no incentive to make it public and affect their own future numbers.

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

#186

Post by quanticle » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

cheriot wrote: post #170

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…

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).

And that ends up being self-defeating over the long term, because oftentimes the developer will quit the company entirely if their requests for internal transfers are stymied for too long.

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

#187

Post by Nursie » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #177

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…

>...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. Yikes! That's my current situation in a nutshell. My biggest concern is that I don't want to risk jumping ship and landing at a toxic company/team, or landing in a bad work culture. Don't get me wrong, I've got a nice vision about what I want to do where I am, but I c…

If you land somewhere toxic, you can always move again.

In my experience there’s almost always something toxic about a workplace, it’s finding one you can live with for a few months or years that’s the trick.

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

#188

Post by DoingIsLearning » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

bookofsand wrote: post #52

paul_f wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineers especially can take on side projects to supplement their income. Maybe a bit less focus on the day job to reflect the below market pay. Keeps things in balance.

The vast majority of companies ask for a 'we own everything you breathe' agreement as a prerequisite for employment. The vast majority of employed software engineers don't have the luxury to work on side projects, unless they relinquish the IP to their employer for no additional compenstation, which renders monetization moot.

It depends on your country/jurisdiction.

Most countries I worked in, anything done after hours, not using company resources, and not in the competition space of the employer is simply allowed. No company would be able to enforce that.

In fact (I have had that happen) if the contract tries to over reach, in particular regarding IP, then that clause could just be made void in court.

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

#189

Post by ctvo » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

Agreed with everything in this post.

Engineering compensation at big tech is too rigid to award high performers adequately. Some folks double the impact of others in the same role / level, and make 20% more, at most.

Leaving and joining a competitor moves you to market rate. You fall behind each year at the job / role in this market.

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

#190

Post by bobsomers » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

trjordan wrote: post #80

The biggest simplification that I disagree with in this post is that impact rises monotonically. It's true that long-tenured engineers (if they're good) can do amazing things. Things that other engineers don't have the implicit knowledge or political capital to do. The problem is that once that project is over, it's not guaranteed that the next project will be as impactful. So ... do you pay them for their impact? An…

> It's true that long-tenured engineers (if they're good) can do amazing things. Things that other engineers don't have the implicit knowledge or political capital to do. The problem is that once that project is over, it's not guaranteed that the next project will be as impactful.

You hinted at this by mentioning political capital, but in my experience as engineers gain experience at the company their impact largely grows in ways that aren't obviously visible. It's not like they are churning out work or managing teams that have ever increasing product impact, it's that their job responsibilities expand to include things like:

  - Convincing potential hires they should join the company.
  - Speaking frankly to leaders when newer employees don't feel comfortable doing it.
  - Seeing large cross-cutting issues that require time and experience at the company to identify.
  - Mentoring newer employees so they get up to speed and become productive quickly.
  - Arbiters of information and documentation that tends to never get written down. "Person X can help you learn about Y, Team Z is responsible for that, etc."

These kinds of activities are critical to highly efficient companies, but rarely ever acknowledged as impact. At least I've rarely ever seen these kinds of things show up in regular performance reviews, and yet it's painfully obvious when these activities are missing.