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

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

#291

Post by closeparen » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

kyralis wrote: post #264

closeparen wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the architecture competency in FAANG exists in the context of a 2-3 year average tenure. And this elides a tendency to change teams internally even more frequently than that. It is unlikely that a senior engineer rated "Exceeds" at design and architecture in Silicon Valley has ever learned from or been evaluated on the consequences of their own decisions at more than 4 years out. Median probably one yea…

An average tenure hides a good number of people with longer tenure than that. I'm personally a counterexample to your point, for instance, and I know quite a number of others on other teams at my company (one of the FAANGs). Turnover is definitely not uniform and a 12 month architecture lifespan is not, in my experience, either normal or healthy.

My experience is that architectures usually last 2-3 employee tenures, the point is the original architect usually doesn't see the outcome of their work.

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

#292

Post by quanticle » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #275

akiselev wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an "at will" employment state - which I presume covers the vast majority of US based readers here - the final arbiter of whether someone is doing a "good job" or not is their employer. If they're still paying the employee, they must be doing a good job according to the employer's standards even if by the employee's standard they are doing nothing.

This doesn't quite work because employee productivity assessment is very grey, and there's a lot of goodwill assumed in the equation. It's difficult to measure employee productivity. Sometimes, managers don't care. Sometimes employees make every effort to hide their lack of productivity. Despite that we might think of companies as 'evil' - most of them are not. We're all human, none of us like laying people off or fi…

And truly the vast majority of employers just don't want to layoff or fire if that don't have to.

I've seen far too many corporate moves that were driven by executives looking to goose the stock price to believe that. You can argue that it's the executive's job to goose the stock price, and thus they "have to" lay off people in order to avoid taking as much of a financial hit in a recession or whatever, but that just gets us back to the original position: the company has a minimum amount of loyalty to me, and, in return, I have a minimum amount of loyalty to the company.

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

#293

Post by jjav » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #82

nostrademons wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Exactly, and it is a shame. Stability and building on the shoulders of giants is how progress is made. Not by rewriting everything all the time.

Luckily I don't work on frontend UI stuff. I learned UNIX, kernels, cryptography, TCP/IP, SQL and similar technologies in the late 80s to early 90s. While all of these areas have evolved and progressed, it's been a gradual incremental change year to year. A textbook on any of these topics from 1990 is still recognizably relevant, even where details have changed over the decades.

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

#294

Post by madrox » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

To reply to the title and not the article, tech companies do pay engineers to stay…just probably not you. That’s the point of RSUs, LTI, and other grants that are unlocked through retention. More get released to employees during their tenure based on performance. If you aren’t being paid to stay, chances are that was a systemic consequence of performance. Not always, but usually.

There are pros and cons to losing employees, and quite often it’s Pareto optimal to let people move on to bring in new talent. Engineers are generally paid pretty well, so money is rarely what a departure is about. I’ve seen a lot of engineers go, and only once was money the first reason.

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

#295

Post by alfalfasprout » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:14 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 ignores something very important: tribal knowledge.

Truth is, losing a tenured engineer carries a MUCH larger cost than HR and some managers seem to understand-- these engineers understand the nuances behind why certain decisions were made, what kinds of things tend to work and don't, minutiae of various systems that simply will never get documented, etc. Not to mention the influence they can carry in the org.

You're not wrong that a lot of engineers stagnate after a few years... but it's a big logical jump to put that blame on them rather than the org they're joining.

That said, I like to always call out that there are "developers" and there are "engineers". The majority of software roles call for the former and these tend to be more "replaceable". It's harder to say that for the latter where they are involved in more strategic technical decisions.

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

#296

Post by DoctorDabadedoo » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

bla3 wrote: post #210

alex-nt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it takes about 6m in a medium to big organizations to figure out what to do and with whom you have to speek to get stuff done. And for 2 years everything is rosy. Then you speak with you colleagues that changed jobs and find out that their income is 30% to 40% higher. That will, of course, put a downer on your day/week/quarter/year. You have 2 options, speak with your current company about compensation or leave.…

> I was offered a measly 5% after being dragged in 4 meetings about how great I am. The way you do this is interview elsewhere, get an offer for 40% more, and _then_ tell your manager that you have an offer for 40% more and that you'd really like to stay but they'd really have to do something about compensation. You'll get more than 5% then (but likely less than 40%). It's annoying that you have to invest the time fo…

I have trouble with this for two reasons:

- If am a resource critical enough for the company to match an external offer and keep me because of the work I do and not because I'm threatening to leave, why don't they act on it diligently and offer benefits accordinly (relevant pay raises, shares and etc.)?

- The moment the company becomes aware that I'm considering to leave for some place else, I'm a potential replacement, if a good candidate or a layoff comes along.

If I'm interviewing some place else, when I put my notice, I've made up my mind, I won't stay around long term.

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

#297

Post by quanticle » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #219

ren_engineer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in a world of at-will employment, why would anybody go the extra mile for an employer? Trust and loyalty are 2 way streets, the social contract has been broken by corporations

I work, they pay me. As long as they hold up their end, I’ll hold up mine. What’s the alternative, against their will employment? That sounds like it would suck all around.

The alternative is having formal employment contracts. I work for the employer for a fixed term. If I choose to leave before that term is up, I have to pay a penalty to the employer. If the employer chooses to fire me they have to pay me a penalty. The exact amount conditions of the penalty are specified in the buy-out clause of the contract.

This is universally how people with actual leverage (i.e. high performing athletes, Fortune 500 C-level execs, etc) get paid.

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

#298

Post by projectazorian » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

bla3 wrote: post #210

alex-nt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it takes about 6m in a medium to big organizations to figure out what to do and with whom you have to speek to get stuff done. And for 2 years everything is rosy. Then you speak with you colleagues that changed jobs and find out that their income is 30% to 40% higher. That will, of course, put a downer on your day/week/quarter/year. You have 2 options, speak with your current company about compensation or leave.…

> I was offered a measly 5% after being dragged in 4 meetings about how great I am. The way you do this is interview elsewhere, get an offer for 40% more, and _then_ tell your manager that you have an offer for 40% more and that you'd really like to stay but they'd really have to do something about compensation. You'll get more than 5% then (but likely less than 40%). It's annoying that you have to invest the time fo…

Worth noting that this tactic is risky, especially at smaller companies. A lot of managers might get you the raise to avoid immediate disruption, while assuming you're out the door in a few months and acting accordingly. You might suddenly find yourself frozen out of desirable projects.

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

#299

Post by jimsimmons » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #212

returningfory2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really understand this article, or the current trend of job hopping. The answer is in your comment: your friend who started recently at Intel is getting more than double the salary of the long-timers. What's not to understand?

Good point. I would say the confusion is due to my outdated expectations.

I like your view. The thing is people are constantly resume building these days. And that resume is never done. You get a good job? Wouldn’t it be great if you got your name on a couple of cool things in your new place? After that returns start diminishing and people are quick to leverage and move on.

I came to CA hoping to find mad coders lost in thought of their projects. All I see are career athletes

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

#300

Post by licebmi__at__ » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

CosmicShadow wrote: post #23

I was working on a startup that could tell an employer if their employees were looking for a new job so they had a chance to try and retain them instead of paying the huge cost of having to hire, train, put strain on the team, etc. I talked mostly to startups between 10 and 400 people, but the problem I heard from most leaders was "if they are thinking about leaving, fuck em, they are dead to me already". I tried to…

>I talked mostly to startups between 10 and 400 people, but the problem I heard from most leaders was "if they are thinking about leaving, fuck em, they are dead to me already". I tried to reason with them, but it was fought as if held like religious belief. I mean if it's your baby they are unhappy with, I guess you can get defensive and maybe you are still in a scrappy mindset, but it was a bit frustrating for me as my idea was not hitting very well :/

I've seen HR on several places referring employee changing companies as "treason", not only casually but on internal communication. So with that framing, and the expectancy of employee loyalty, I wouldn't expect retention to be a high priority.