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Do Not Change Your Job

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Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#51

Post by ram_rar »

The title is very misleading until I read the last line

> If you haven’t stayed in a fast-moving company for more than four years, there is a great experience you’re missing.

There is some amount of chance and experience involved in choosing a job in a company that is fast moving and gives you right amount of challenge to push oneself.

The unfortunate reality is that companies value outside talent a lot more than in house talent. So unless one does not switch jobs every 2+ yrs or so, you're significantly underpaid. This year inflation alone counts for ~ 7%. So, unless your compensation is not increased by that amount, you're taking a pay cut. IMO, the people who stay longer in a company are the ones who are not able to clear interviews. Obviously there are exceptions to it.

I am all for folks who want to engage themselves in new challenges. It takes effort to get good at breaking down complex problems and reason through first principles. If you stay in a team for too long, you'll eventually lose the ability to do so and rely on institutional knowledge to execute. Eventually, one stops innovating in such an environment.

I see some comments in the HN scorning at folks who move jobs every 2 yrs. I personally dont feel its a fair to blame employees, if the company cannot pay market salaries. I have no obligation to work for same salary when you bring an outside hire for 2x my salary.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#52

Post by ZephyrBlu »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #27
MattGaiser wrote: post #4

I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation. In Canada, you become a veteran at 18 months it seems.

> I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation There are 2 types of companies: One type will frequently re-evaluate compensation and prioritize employee retention. Compensation follows or exceeds market rate. The other type will lock in compensation at hire time and try to skate by…

> But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing

How many modern tech companies "know what they're doing" when it comes to retention though?

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#53

Post by throwaway90040 »

Question for everyone who regularly changes jobs and has a high income: what are your total hours like? I don't make $200k+ but I only work 4 days a week and have non-US (so, good) levels of annual leave.

Please include time outside work spent studying for your next job.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#54

Post by omoikane »

People with longer tenures are different because they are motivated by something other than compensation. Perhaps it's the desire to build bigger things that will take more than a few years to complete, or maybe the sense of ownership in making the long tail of product refinements as opposed to leaving behind products that are "mostly done".

I suspect it's mostly personality differences that lead to the difference in motivation and thus longer tenures, and not so much the reverse where longer tenures causes different personalities.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#55

Post by seattle_spring »

chii wrote: post #45
seattle_spring wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's less than 5% compounded annually. I'm not sure if your underlying message was agreeing with OP or not, but 278% over 24 years is atrocious compared to how insane the market has been this last decade. Hell, inflation alone has been 73% between 1998 and now.

you cannot compare the market gains with job raises - the market gains have a risk element that job raises do not. a 5% risk free return is not bad. I would actually say that if your job did not change over those decades, it might not make sense to get paid more than just matching inflation!

By "the market" I meant "the market for software engineering jobs."

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#56

Post by unixhero »

Cwizard wrote: post #32
unixhero wrote: post #23

I changed my job twice and my comp increase was 400%.

Are you in the US?

Euro. Realized that everyone was ripping me off. I went solo consultant at the right time in my career trajectory. Cut out all the middlemen. Pivoted from analytics to cyber security. I decided money was more important than anything else.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#58

Post by Apocryphon »

chii wrote: post #42
zuhayeer wrote: post #36

In my opinion, employers need to do more to significantly reward existing employees they want to retain. Right now, I can see how frustrating it could be for tenured employees when new hires come in with (quite a bit) higher comp packages than them, while they get a measly pay bump in accordance with inflation (sometimes even less). Routinely see 100% increases in total compensation for switching jobs. But I’ve never…

i agree, but let me play the devil's advocate and argue that revolving doors might also play out well for the business. The biggest fear (or risk?) a business owner might have is to be held hostage by a employee whose function/knowledge/skill is essential for business continuity. This gives the employee undue leverage, which lowers the profits, and allows said employee to extract close to 100% of the value they produ…

And thus the fault is on overly cautious management for not presenting adequate retention incentives.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#59

Post by Apocryphon »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #52
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation There are 2 types of companies: One type will frequently re-evaluate compensation and prioritize employee retention. Compensation follows or exceeds market rate. The other type will lock in compensation at hire time and try to skate by…

> But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing How many modern tech companies "know what they're doing" when it comes to retention though?

Not even FAANG, it would seem.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#60

Post by Apocryphon »

seattle_spring wrote: post #31
MattGaiser wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are already sitting near the top. For us more average people, jumps are 10-20% a year.

Mid-200k is not anywhere close to near the top. That's a low L4 package at mid-sized companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Stripe, etc.

To be fair, those companies are not mid in terms of compensation. They’re probably the ones after the very top FANG and some HFT/fintech firms.
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