Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

sloanreview.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 385 posts

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#91

Post by usrbinbash »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #55
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* employers are able to give 20-30% raise each year(which is pretty hard)* Can’t be that hard if an engineer can just walk out and get that. What do you think the replacement will cost? And with none of the knowledge.

25% raise over 20 years means 86 times increase in salary over a fresher. And no company could pay 5 million dollar or so for an average 20 years of experience. The entire industry hinges on the fact that a person would only change job 5-6 times in 20 years.

They seem to have no problem finding that kind of money for execs and shareholders.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#92

Post by goodpoint »

echelon wrote: post #40
Areading314 wrote: post #34

A huge problem with this industry is the inflexibility to pay current engineers LARGELY increasing comp each year. The thought is that there is a market rate for an engineer and that pay can increase with the market rate, but this is a fallacy. An engineer that has been at a largish company for 1 year is worth 20-30% more than the year they were hired because they have specific knowledge of the tech stack. Yet that e…

Speaking as the Devil's advocate, organizations want headcount to be fungible. If hiring and churn were huge issues for most companies, they would actively combat it. Instead, they've all mostly settled into the practice you see. Engineers typically do a 1-2 year tour of duty, vest, then bounce onto greener pastures. Steady state flux. In some senses, new talent also bring in new ideas and combat skeptical dispositio…

> new talent also bring in new ideas and combat skeptical dispositions and organizational ossification

Ossification happens when most of the employees stay in the same company and even the same team for 20 or 30 years.

The industry is facing the opposite problem, where the average tour of duty is so short that people don't care about planning for the future or designing lasting, low-maintenance software. Endless, unnecessary churn is not cheap.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#93

Post by _Wintermute »

Aeolun wrote: post #67
swift532 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I assume too much, but I think you'd be thinking quite differently if you had to consider buying your first home on the French riviera now, on something like a 60.000-100.000 euro pre-tax salary.

Isn’t that a very reasonable salary to be buying a home on? Especially at the upper end of that range.

Just as a counter-point, I live and work in London. I can't imagine ever being able to buy a home here unless something drastically changes, house prices are close to 10x my annual salary.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#94

Post by pyrale »

foolfoolz wrote: post #7

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I really think your point here makes the case for toxic culture:

> Once it’s regular the culture becomes different, this isn’t a place to stay and grow, it’s a place to be a launchpad for the next place.

Because that is the established culture, salary becomes the only relevant criterion people can consider. The other criterion (attractiveness for the next job) is just a derivative for future salary.

Alternatives to salary incentives could be workers feeling that their work is useful for the society, that they get more of a say in where the company goes than they would elsewhere, that they are not pawns for management games (recent example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29813949), etc.

As it turns out, the only bargain currently available at many large tech companies is your soul for a boatload of money, and people are looking for more.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#95

Post by redanddead »

vecinu wrote: post #14
skrebbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

> I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. I hope I don't come off as abrasive but I don't think you've had enough money if you think this is American or applicable only to a small subset of people. Greed has driven people forever, in different systems of government, from communism, to fascism and capitalism. Leaders have always had (or had access to) a ton of capital to influence and c…

About making money for good... this is something I think about often, especially in my manufacturing businesses. Let me explain:

Say you were to pull in 50M USD in revenue to your co. over 20 years, you own a plastics processing factory for example and you sell plastic products b2b, maybe you are a broker between multiple plastics recycling depots for example, there are many ways for you to cause 500M USD in total damages that cannot be traced back to you (for now) in pollution costs

We should follow your example of charity and apply it more broadly, on a systemic level and establish businesses that are more sustainable

I'm not a scientist, I'm just ranting

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#96

Post by pyrale »

skrebbel wrote: post #10
foolfoolz wrote: post #7

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

> I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it.

The issue that arises when you hear about many large orgs is that they really don't have anything else to offer.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#97

Post by skrebbel »

selfhifive wrote: post #32
skrebbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

A job can be fun and fulfilling and better paying. Most former FAANG employees do seem to like working in up and coming startups better with more control over the company vision.

> A job can be fun and fulfilling and better paying.

I agree, but I was replying to a comment that suggests people quit extremely well paying jobs because they can earn more elsewhere, and not because of culture etc.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#98

Post by throwaway013389 »

skrebbel wrote: post #10
foolfoolz wrote: post #7

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

While working for a FAANG in Europe me and a lot of colleagues have been offered to relocate to the US. With a big salary increase as you can imagine.

Believe me or not, very few people accepted. Surprisingly for me.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#99

Post by caskstrength »

skrebbel wrote: post #10
foolfoolz wrote: post #7

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

> At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

From what I understand most top US software engineers intend to retire earlier using that money. Question to you and other similarly-minded Europeans here: Do you intend to churn web services until you are 67 years old (dutch state pension age starting from 2024)? Are you sure that idea of learning yet-another-JS-framework when you are 60 will sound as appealing to you ("fun and fulfilling job") as it does now?

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#100

Post by notyourday »

Areading314 wrote: post #34

A huge problem with this industry is the inflexibility to pay current engineers LARGELY increasing comp each year. The thought is that there is a market rate for an engineer and that pay can increase with the market rate, but this is a fallacy. An engineer that has been at a largish company for 1 year is worth 20-30% more than the year they were hired because they have specific knowledge of the tech stack. Yet that e…

> A huge problem with this industry is the inflexibility to pay current engineers LARGELY increasing comp each year

This is not an inflexibility. This is the "leadership" deciding that it is not worth it.

Post reply on HN