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Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

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Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#491

Post by foobarian »

claudiulodro wrote: post #387
reedjosh wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't change the equation. Go buy a house that will increase by >5%/year, but then don't pay it off any sooner than you have to. Make the minimum payments, and invest in something that will return a stable 5%+ with your remaining income. Just because the house itself increases in value, doesn't mean you should pay down the ~3% interest rate loan any faster than you have to. And really, once you've built enough…

I'm not sure exactly how it affects the calculations, but if the house is paid off, you can use the money that would have gone towards mortgage payments towards investments though. So instead of $1000/mo towards mortgage and $1000/mo towards investments, you could do $2000/mo towards investments. It's probably a smaller total return than your method, but it's way less leveraged.

Do the exercise on a spreadsheet. One row per year to make things simple.

Make 3 columns, "mortgage paid," "investment", "no-mortgage". Pretend the house is $100k. With the mortgage you get to keep that money and invest it, so first row in "investment:" should be $100k. Put $0 in the "no-mortgage" column, put $-421 * 12 in the "mortgage paid" column. I got that number from a mortgage calculator, assuming $100k loan and 3% interest over 30 years.

Then in row 2, "mortgage paid" cell should be previous cell - $421 * 12. You will keep paying this for 30 years.

"investment cell" should be previous cell * 1.05. We assume the investment return is 5% over long term.

The no-mortgage column stays 0. You spent the $100k to pay for the house, so it's gone right off the bat.

Repeat this for 30 rows (years). Then at the end look at the difference between investment vs. mortgage paid columns.

And then get back to me and tell me if you still think that is a "smaller total return" :-)

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#492

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

strgcmc wrote: post #339
steveBK123 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many roles / too many hats is far too common and why I find it hard to stay anywhere more than 4-5 years. As a senior IC in a super-flat & growing org.. I'm almost like a customer successs engineer, product manager, scrum master, senior developer and tech lead all rolled into one. Management administrivia I accumulate administrative things my manager doesn't want to do & pushes down I do unofficially own a part o…

TBH, reading this as a manager, I have to admit I feel like asking my engineers to take on SOME of these beyond-just-the-code duties... is a good thing? Obviously there are a bunch of caveats, and nuances to whether you want an IC engineer to be 100% coding and 0% talking to customers or doing admin (this seems bad), or is it 90% vs 10% (maybe okay), or 80/20 (sweet spot?), 50/50 (concerning), 20/80 (bad again), etc.…

Ask them.

Some engineers just want to do engineering. Nothing else. But more often engineers will be happy getting involved with the customers in some way, or working to improve some process they don't like, or some even love doing documentation.

Best thing is to bring up options and ask if any of them sound appealing. Letting people choose their work generally gets you stronger buy-in to what they're doing.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#493

Post by hackinthebochs »

maxsilver wrote: post #435
steveBK123 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many roles / too many hats is far too common and why I find it hard to stay anywhere more than 4-5 years. As a senior IC in a super-flat & growing org.. I'm almost like a customer successs engineer, product manager, scrum master, senior developer and tech lead all rolled into one. Management administrivia I accumulate administrative things my manager doesn't want to do & pushes down I do unofficially own a part o…

> I'm almost like a customer successs engineer, product manager, scrum master, senior developer and tech lead all rolled into one. This is also me. Except I really like it. But I'm not sure what to do about it, it can reflect super poorly on a resume for some reason. "Oh, your applying to be a Senior Engineer? Look at all this product management and developer manager experience on your resume, you must not really be…

Make multiple resumes and leave off details that aren't relevant (or are counter-productive) to the job you're applying for.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#494

Post by lotsofpulp »

joe_the_user wrote: post #483
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

My old boss Eric Carlsen used to say, nobody left because of money. They may get more money if they change jobs. But they start looking because they're unhappy. So when somebody asked for more money, he'd start by asking what was bothering them.

My old boss ... used to say, nobody left because of money. Maybe your old boss never worked for minimum wage.

The only people I know who say that are small business owners trying to give their management employees a pep talk, but not giving them the budget to hire good people.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#495

Post by fedorareis »

car wrote: post #356
daenz wrote: post #54

I'll be departing my job at the end of the month. I had too many roles, affecting too many pieces of engineering, and my title didn't reflect my work. I needed to go down to a 4 day work week and have my title reflect my roles, but my manager attempted to call my bluff and essentially said it's not going to happen. I hinted about what my decision would have to be if these accomodations couldn't be made, but he didn't…

"People don't leave companies, they leave managers."

That saying really isn’t true. I know plenty of people that liked their manager but still left companies. There are plenty of reasons people leave companies that have nothing to do with their manager.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#496

Post by ser0 »

maxsilver wrote: post #435
steveBK123 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many roles / too many hats is far too common and why I find it hard to stay anywhere more than 4-5 years. As a senior IC in a super-flat & growing org.. I'm almost like a customer successs engineer, product manager, scrum master, senior developer and tech lead all rolled into one. Management administrivia I accumulate administrative things my manager doesn't want to do & pushes down I do unofficially own a part o…

> I'm almost like a customer successs engineer, product manager, scrum master, senior developer and tech lead all rolled into one. This is also me. Except I really like it. But I'm not sure what to do about it, it can reflect super poorly on a resume for some reason. "Oh, your applying to be a Senior Engineer? Look at all this product management and developer manager experience on your resume, you must not really be…

I have similarly varied background and I have not had candidate employers put it through that lens.

If anything I find people tend to look upon varied experience as proof that you can add value on multiple fronts and across functions within the organisation, which should make you a slightly less common cog in the machine.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#497

Post by r0s »

sangnoir wrote: post #318
phkahler wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why would you pay off your house when you can keep the cash in an investment... I asked someone that in my mid 20's. He said "It's nice knowing I can support my family working at McDonalds if I have to." That stuck with me. Something fundamental changes in your life when you become debt-free.

> Something fundamental changes in your life when you become debt-free. Being able to pay off a debt at anytime is equally freeing, for me at least. Paying off a loan with an interest rate significantly below inflation is not a great use of money[1] (and an opportunity loss). Putting that lumpsum into bonds ( any bond with interest higher than the loan) is better, or even investing in stocks with a stop-loss. If I lo…

The opportunity loss is what I don't get. Without the debt you can take on new debt that could be say a rental property or business loan.

How is a bunch of money tied up in debt, and an equal amount invested to hedge that not a huge opportunity sink?

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#498

Post by lotsofpulp »

tspike wrote: post #280
sokoloff wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the timespan comparable to a mortgage? Broad-based equity funds. The worst ever 20-year return for S&P 500 was +6.4% per year for the 240 month period ending in May 1979. https://www.thebalance.com/rolling-index-returns-4061795

*assuming conditions over the next 150 years mirror those during the sudden rise of a single global superpower with control over the world's reserve currency and a continent full of unexploited natural resources at its disposal

For that contingency, you are going to want to be forming lots of political allies with lots of guns.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#499

Post by lotsofpulp »

xxpor wrote: post #428
matheweis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investment can reliably get > 5% APR with low risk?

Not exactly what you're looking for, but in the US I series bonds are currently paying >7%. The biggest downside is you have to hold them for a year. The other issue is you're limited to buying $10k in a calendar year.

Currently paying. It is a variable interest rate, and it would behoove you to assume that if a treasury is paying 7%, then real inflation is much more. Hence the SP500 returning 30%.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#500

Post by manuelabeledo »

cagey wrote: post #328

Rather than quit or retire, I lingered in hopes of being laid off (letting my high pay level, ageism and existing "we don't need Senior Engineers; we have really smart management to do the thinking ahead etc. for the junior engineers" attitudes run their natural course). I "achieved" being laid off 4 months ago at age 58 and collected a nice (9 months' pay) severance package as a precursor to (this month) finally dec…

> "we don't need Senior Engineers; we have really smart management to do the thinking ahead etc. for the junior engineers"

Wow, this bit makes so much sense. In my experience, most managers tend to add more layers, almost as a goal, but pay little attention to the seniority in such layers.

For example, one of the managers I work with, restructured the organization in a way that would essentially put him at a VP level, given the company guidelines; but most of the team leads had less than a couple years of experience in their roles. Senior engineers with any experience and weight in the company were a rarity.

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