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

Post by baxtr » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:17 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…

Post by wombatpm » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

Thiez wrote: post #250

mcast wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's untrue, a manager can put their employee into a performance improvement program (without even needing to inform them) which would block them from any internal transfers.

How does a pip effect improved performance when the employee isn't even aware they're in one? Is trying to switch teams the only way to discover that, or are there other indirect ways?

Post by brailsafe » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:22 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…

Post by jason0597 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

frankbreetz wrote: post #254

jason0597 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things in life are like the laws of physics. You will simply never make more money than your manager, no matter how many economic productivity arguments you can make.

This is not one of those things: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-common-for-a-software-engineer-t...

Post by xtracto » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

nell wrote: post #72

Many flaws with the argument, here is one: It is hard if not impossible to attribute an individual employee's performance to company growth. Many variables can impact company growth - so even if engineering does their job,product many not and vice versa. Even if everyone does their job exceedingly well, a sub optimal strategy could kill the company. Or the market could shift. How do you account when company stops gro…