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Do Not Change Your Job

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Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#71

Post by xtracto »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #47

I've increasingly become aware that I'm not at all like many here. I don't really care about my salary, as long as it's enough to live on. I don't live to work - I work to live. I love my job, and give it 110% (and I don't even count in binary when I say that), but at the end of the day, it doesn't define me. It's a means to an end. I believe in the company and what we're building, and as such I'll stay until I retir…

I think it's a matter of culture. I learned since I was a kid that the work culture in the US was crazy competitive. In addition to that later I learned that the Silicon Valley work culture was very strong compared to the average US .

For someone from Mexico (parable of Mexican fisherman and investment banker) it all looked extremely stressing.

After working in Germany and France for a bit, I realized that there are other cultures that value personal well being and work life balance way more than money. In the eyes of ultra-competitive cultures they may look lazy. But it's just that they have different priorities.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#72

Post by dsauerbrun »

boznz wrote: post #16

Strange I used to throw CV's in the rubbish bin if they repeatedly moved jobs every 2 years or under. My rational for that was that they would probably only last 2 years in our company so I preferred someone more stable. Small teams hurt when you keep loosing staff and training is not cheap.

my cv is full of that.

first job out of college- 2 years, left because I didn't want to work on legacy php anymore

second job - got laid off after one year(funnily enough I was hired on to contact 2 months after the lay off)

third - left after 3 years because the company was having payroll issues.

I've been at my current company for 1.5 years. I love it a lot but I'm seeing the market and could likely make 2x what I'm making now so I'm considering entering the job search to at least see what I'm actually worth to negotiate with my boss.

you would probably throw my resume in the trash but I feel like I left for legitimate reasons at all my jobs. do you have any suggestions to avoid being perceived as a job hopper

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#73

Post by cowanon63636 »

There are employers out there who play the long game, and try to retain good talent. Unfortunately, they are a dying breed and in the minority. In today's climate we are only one merge/acquisition (or private equity purchase) away from everything changing.

At my employer, employees typically stay less than 3 years, or basically retire with the company. There is very little attrition after 5 years. The company also provide continuous long term incentives once you reach certain level to retain talent. Annual increases outpace inflation, and there are reasonable promotion opportunities every few years (with corresponding compensation increases.) Good healthcare, Good vacation plan, 40hrs workweek, but mostly middle age people with families.

It's not FAANG money, but maybe 1.2 times national median income before bonus and 1.5 time national median after bonus and long term incentives.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#74

Post by dvdhnt »

boznz wrote: post #16

Strange I used to throw CV's in the rubbish bin if they repeatedly moved jobs every 2 years or under. My rational for that was that they would probably only last 2 years in our company so I preferred someone more stable. Small teams hurt when you keep loosing staff and training is not cheap.

And that's a company's prerogative. But in the US, that mentality can cause you to miss out on great contributors.

For example, if you are building a new e-commerce platform and can hire someone with 1.5 years of experience shipping a successful project at Shopify, you should do that. They will give you more than someone chipping away at a non e-commerce SaaS for a half dozen years.

Point is, context is key. But I can't speak to outside of the US.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#75

Post by tester756 »

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…

>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).

This is literally what happened for me a few days ago

I've started as a student working for minimal wage, but I had some not small experience with C#, but I've still been around beginner level

After 3.5 years I've gained shitton of experience (that was smaller company, so you do everything from software, to deploy, to support, etc) and meanwhile I graduated and been arguing about software on the internet for years

but my compensation was around 130% of minimal wage

I decided to quit and multiplied my salary by around 3.4 - 3.5 times

and meanwhile I told my friend who had like month or two experience with C# from college, that he should apply there, told him to learn about databases/sql and do some C# programming for like a month - so basically we have really newbie with little experience (let alone commercial) and he received like 140-150% of minimal wage

ridiculous, ain't it? but I'm happy with both outcomes :)

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#76

Post by jansen555 »

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…

Revolving doors mean your company secrets and competitive edge getting gifted to others. Treat your employees well and respectful is always best company policy to adopt. Whistleblower and IP thief can bring company down very swiftly.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#77

Post by taway647393 »

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…

I'm a week from signing another offer and leaving Microsoft for that reason. It might be surprising, but it is like the "smaller shops" you described here. The annual increase is only 2-4%, and promotion increase, from any level until a few levels above senior, is only 5% on average. You usually don't get both on the higher side if you get promoted. So if you get promoted from mid to senior (an excellent employee), you expect to get a 7-8% increase at that year. It actually made me very depressed to stay here because of that. The attrition is high (relative to other FAANGMULA) but surprisingly not as high as you would expect. Many stay because they are too lazy to interview, and most of them start to become lazy workers.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#78

Post by 62951413 »

cercatrova wrote: post #3

Unfortunately without switching often, it does not appear that one can maximize their total compensation, simply because companies will often reward new employees more than existing ones.

I'm surprised I see much more emphasize on money and almost nobody mentions working on something less trivial or using interesting technology. The latter could be simply different from what you are bored with by now (e.g. Flink after Spark, Scala after Java, streaming after batch processing). Especially taking into account that in large companies with the best compensation you typically end up in a silo in this respect.

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#79

Post by Ancalagon »

wokwokwok wrote: post #49

Lots of talk about compensation here, but the reality is more complex. The longer you go without moving the more divorced from industry standard practices you are. Worked at google for 10 years and can’t spin up a docker container to save your life? Every organisation has their own internal stacks and the longer you spend using them the more productive you get and the less productive you’ll be without them . So… you…

This is what I’ve noticed too. But what’s strange is the proverbial handcuffs seem to show up around year 2 or 3 for me, I think that’s about how long it takes to get a little too comfortable with your tech stack

Re: Do Not Change Your Job

#80

Post by BizarroLand »

seattle_spring wrote: post #25
peapicker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve stayed at my current job 24 years. I was hired at a Senior level above my experience with better pay than I probably deserved as I was 18 month out of uni. Still, my total increase is 278%. I had a 7 year span in the middle with almost no increase - about 7%. I wonder if those seven years coincide and were during an economic downturn?

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.

My pay from 2012-now has gone from $15/hr to $60/hr. ~400% increase or 40%/year staying at jobs for roughly 3 years.

The biggest jump came in 2017-2018 when I moved to Washington, from $25/hr to $35/hr to $48/hr in 18 months and it increased again in 2020 when I moved to my current job.

Idk if I am extremely lucky or if I don't recognize the value my skills as well as my employers do. All I know if I am not averse to negotiating a little and that I keep my resume up to date and I test the waters from time to time just to see what's out there.

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