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

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

#501

Post by wpietri »

baxtr wrote: post #466
wpietri wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't think it really has to be mandatory, but it certainly should be allowed and encouraged. In the case where people were objecting to being re-shuffled, did they get to pick where they went? Or were they just told? a little agency can help a lot.

In the first year we just told people, which was obviously very stupid in hindsight. In the second year, we had a survey where devs could say what their preference was: (a) team/specific devs (b) topic (c) none That worked pretty well.

Glad to hear it!

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

#502

Post by Ensorceled »

randomdata wrote: post #500
Ensorceled wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you have "divorces" without marriage? And why this strange obsession with arranged relationships?

It is rather straightforward. Some monogamous relationships will establish marriage. Sometimes before the four year mark of the relationship. This means that some relationships that fail in the fourth year will also end up in divorce. The date of marriage does not usually coincide with the date of establishing the relationship, however, and thus marriage data is not useful here. I'm not sure where you find obsession…

Because you said "especially when not arranged" ... I thought you are part of the obsession.

Arranged marriages have a lower divorce rate but a higher separation rate; suggesting cultural prohibitions against divorce and not a higher success rate. It's odd to keep culling those types of relationships out.

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

#503

Post by randomdata »

Ensorceled wrote: post #502
randomdata wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is rather straightforward. Some monogamous relationships will establish marriage. Sometimes before the four year mark of the relationship. This means that some relationships that fail in the fourth year will also end up in divorce. The date of marriage does not usually coincide with the date of establishing the relationship, however, and thus marriage data is not useful here. I'm not sure where you find obsession…

Because you said "especially when not arranged" ... I thought you are part of the obsession. Arranged marriages have a lower divorce rate but a higher separation rate; suggesting cultural prohibitions against divorce and not a higher success rate. It's odd to keep culling those types of relationships out.

I was protecting against silly nitpickers coming back with "Oh, but in my arranged marriage, my relationship began on the day we were married!" But I guess the nitpickers will find something to nitpick about no matter what.

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

#504

Post by Ensorceled »

randomdata wrote: post #503
Ensorceled wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you said "especially when not arranged" ... I thought you are part of the obsession. Arranged marriages have a lower divorce rate but a higher separation rate; suggesting cultural prohibitions against divorce and not a higher success rate. It's odd to keep culling those types of relationships out.

I was protecting against silly nitpickers coming back with "Oh, but in my arranged marriage, my relationship began on the day we were married!" But I guess the nitpickers will find something to nitpick about no matter what.

> But I guess the nitpickers will find something to nitpick about no matter what.

Ok, that was awesome. Guilty as charged.

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

#505

Post by selimthegrim »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #339
MattGaiser wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that his view has cost him millions of dollars. Not job hopping is a multi million dollar error his the part of them and their colleagues.

Eh, but I'm at the end of my career: in hindsight, what would I have done with that extra salary? Bought a new BMW every year, or owned a "premium beige" McMansion with a pool? Or two McMansions? I'm not a status-shower, and the salary increase wouldn't have been enough to be filthy rich (e.g., buy an island). I can't complain though: I ended up about to retire a multimillionaire despite not job-hopping. But I was lu…

Is this from exertion outdoors or office chair, lack of exercise etc.

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

#506

Post by omgwtfbbq »

satellite2 wrote: post #255
omgwtfbbq wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a braindead opinion. Why would anyone work as hard as possible when there are 0 incentives to do so? When at any moment you could be fired without warning in a mass layoff and when even the highest performers only get 5-10% raises per year when jumping ship gives you 20%+ . You want good work then create the incentives for it, currently there are none.

It's a game where you can do the minimum or more and if you do more your boss can pay the minimum or more. If you do the minimumy your boss pays the minimum, it's a zero sum game, if you do more and your boss the minimum, again zero sum because you lost energy and he won more from you but if you both do more then it's a net positive. So the optimal strategy is to do more. Then like the cops in the prisoners game you…

Except the boss has no incentive to pay you more when he could just give minimum raises. In fact he probably has an anti-incentive when he can point to more revenue generated for less labor costs.

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

#507

Post by WYepQ4dNnG »

otikik wrote: post #469
WYepQ4dNnG wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, that's exactly how it works for me. I join a company, work hard the first year to get a promotion and do the fun stuff, after that, I relax and stick around to vest most of the stocks and leave around the 2nd/3rd year. I have seen so called "architects" at big co that had been there for decades bringing absolutely no value to the table. And always asked myself why would the the company retain, promote…

Do you have kids?

I do. I know it is impossible to getting prep for interviews when having kids. What I do is to leave my current job, give myself a month to prep, interview get a new job. So far it has worked fine with me.

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

#508

Post by jollybean »

salt-thrower wrote: post #358
throwawaysleep wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they aren’t flat. I worked hard the first two quarters. Got a 5/6. Did very little this quarter and also got a 5/6. So I’m basically just vegetating until I quit.

This is what all the cool-aid drinkers are missing in this thread. You can feel like you worked your ass off, or you can feel like you've been coasting, and still get the same performance review. I've seen genuinely valuable engineers get middling performance reviews because they didn't commit as many lines of code to Github that quarter as the other guy on their team. That's an extreme example, but even in a "good"…

It's not just about performance reviews.

Imagine a world in which it's very difficult to assess performance, because that's often the reality.

How does this system flourish if everyone is doing the minimum / least?

It doesn't. It fails.

'Do A Good Job'.

That the performance reviews say are a secondary factor.

If you all stop doing good work, it will fall apart quickly and you will all be poor.

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

#509

Post by jollybean »

notapenny wrote: post #261
jollybean wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I personally want to do a good job, but some companies make that hard to employees, albeit sometimes inadvertently. Whether it's by tying people up in politics, having them do busywork, or just failing to reward them. To give an example, at one of my previous jobs, for several years in a row I was noted by my managers as being a high performer and someone who would be ready for leadership. Despite this, I got an aver…

You may want to take some time to reflect on the issue you articulated in your second paragraph.

So you 'did a good job' and the company maybe indicated there was a future for you, but they couldn't fulfill it. That's not hugely nice.

But can you fathom for a minute that it seems your peers were doing 'An Even Better Job' and perhaps better suited for advancement? At least in the eyes of the company?

Put on your 'Management Hat' for a moment and understand that maybe it's unfortunate you thought there was an opportunity where there was not, but that those kinds of indications are fleeting anyhow.

Someone thought they were going to Lead the League in Scoring until it turns out they didn't.

At very least, despite the companies misrepresentation, a lack of professional maturity for young devs. to assume that 'hope' is a guarantee of anything. When you're a manager, you're a manager, before that, it's all talk.

This scenario isn't even a 2 out of 10 in terms of the mistreatment or misappropriation of employees - it's just a mostly normal thing that happens in noisy channels.

Maybe they were thinking of advancing you - someone else came along. That's life.

I'm glad you seem to want to 'Do A Good Job' regardless, but it should be noted that you're not comped for future prospects of advancement. So in this situation just 'Doing A Good Job' would be an expectation of the job. Not some thing you do on the condition of some future event.

If you are mistreated, obviously, that's not good, and it's the company leadership 'Not Doing a Good Job' but I don't see a strong indication of anything other than normal operations here.

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

#510

Post by jollybean »

handrous wrote: post #115
jollybean wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I have a really hard time distinguishing between the idea that companies are entitled to some maximum of an employee's work-quality and effort and the notion that an employee is entitled to compensation amounting to most or all of the marginal value they add to a company through their labor, not just what they can convince the company to give them. Like, I don't get how one can argue for the former and reject the lat…

This is a good point.

First - side point - I didn't indicate that people should be outputting 'maximum work quality effort'. Just 'Doing A Good Job'.

Second - more salient - yes, comp is a big factor, I understand that, but it's a little bit of a marginal issue among professionals.

For workers who can reasonably negotiate a salary beyond the prevailing labour wage, it should be assumed they have market value commensurate on some level with their value.

Corporations are not some vast powerful entities that absorb all the surpluses for their shareholders. It's risky for them.

I would argue that White Collar professionals are in fact absorbing most of the surpluses.

Google could lay off 1/2 it's staff and still make just as much money.

Your point becomes much more relevant when the power asymmetry is stark, when employees have no differentiable skills or power like Amazon employees.

For them, yes, it's a different discussion around regulations, unions etc. and only when those basics are satisfied would it be fair to implore workers to consistently 'Do A Good Job'. But for processionals, it should be a matter of very basic integrity.

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