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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#71

Post by afavour »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.

It might be better if you didn't over hire. I can't speak for MSFT. But a lot of tech companies definitely hired to banana town. Cutting would be better than freezing salaries.

> Cutting would be better than freezing salaries.

Surely that depends on whether you're one of those getting cut or not.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#72

Post by mirekrusin »

csa wrote: post #42
pydry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

It doesn’t take illegal back channel coordination to play follow the leader. All it takes is one major company to pull the trigger, then the rest will follow. The hiring market during covid was wonky in a way that favored applicants, and a lot of folks who got hired were under-qualified, overpaid, or both. This is just a natural reversion to a more balanced state across the industry.

It created playground for people secretly working multiple jobs for sure.

Before it was unheard of.

Now had to let go some for doing it, cancelled numerous applications and interviews once investigation revealed their scam (applying through fake names, creating multiple deceiving profiles with fake activity etc).

It's frankly starts to be quite difficult to hire honest full-time remote programmers now.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#73

Post by tombert »

diversionfactor wrote: post #66
tombert wrote: post #29

You know, nearly anyone qualified to work at Microsoft (at least as an engineer) is qualified to work for some yuppie Wall Street job paying obscene salaries and bonuses; I think this is going to have the selection bias effect of the people remaining are people who cannot find work elsewhere. If their goal is indirectly lay people off, I really think that they have not thought this through.

Having friends and former colleagues who work in the "yuppie Wall Street job", it doesn't pay the obscene salaries you think it does, even at the major hedge funds and investment banks, even in NYC and Chicago. The number of super-high NFT development jobs is vanishingly tiny. Most jobs at trading and investing firms for developers pay the same or even less than elsewhere. Sure, if you're a Calypso or Endur or Murex…

Fair enough, I was thinking about companies like Jane Street, paying starting wages of about $200,000/year for engineers [1], and I've seen a few other trading places offering similar wages. When I was at Apple, my base pay was $175,000 when I left, with about $60,000/year of stock. I've never worked for Microsoft but I assume that the pay is comparable to Apple

Entirely possible that the quantity of trading jobs available isn't nearly as high as something like MS though.

[1] https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/position/4274288...

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#74

Post by [deleted] »

pianoben wrote: post #30
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment woups not have been here like 3 years ago. It was an amazing journey to watch HN denisens adjust their opinions as they went from creme de la creme and 'anyone can create a unicorn tonorrow' to, you know, being basically like a plumber but for JSON.

The secret is, we've always been plumbers . It's not a terrible comparison in some ways - plumbers are highly-skilled, scarce, and command high prices for their services. Nobody mistakes them for Capital, especially not plumbers themselves. Engineers seem to have gotten the wrong idea about themselves lately.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#75

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

jandrese wrote: post #14
GalenErso wrote: post #5

Reposting a comment from Reddit[1]: Microsoft has been bleeding talent for the last 5-6 years due to low compensation. It's why the SLT authorized a "correction" in pay last year that saw many people get a significant pay bump. Lots of new college hires have even stated that Microsoft's offer was the lowest offer they received. Levels.fyi tells basically the same story as well if you compare Microsoft to many other t…

Every time a company is one day telling the employees that they need to take a pay cut to keep the company "competitive" (and this pay freeze is actually a pay cut), and the next day they're doing a stock buyback and the C-Suite is giving themselves enormous performance bonuses they need to worry about unionization.

Dividends should be a sign that a company has excess cash and can't find a good place to invest it. Paying a dividend while asking workers to take a pay freeze signals they don't believe the workers are returning enough value to justify paying them more.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#76

Post by mirekrusin »

pianoben wrote: post #30
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment woups not have been here like 3 years ago. It was an amazing journey to watch HN denisens adjust their opinions as they went from creme de la creme and 'anyone can create a unicorn tonorrow' to, you know, being basically like a plumber but for JSON.

The secret is, we've always been plumbers . It's not a terrible comparison in some ways - plumbers are highly-skilled, scarce, and command high prices for their services. Nobody mistakes them for Capital, especially not plumbers themselves. Engineers seem to have gotten the wrong idea about themselves lately.

The difference is that GPT won’t steal plumber’s job.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#77

Post by newtom »

skrebbel wrote: post #33
Apreche wrote: post #8

Correct headline: Microsoft cuts salaries for 2023. Even in a good economy inflation and cost of living increases are a thing.

I never understood the idea that salaries should be expected to always be corrected for inflation, and that not doing so is somehow secretly a "salary cut". Salaries are driven by supply and demand, and individual companies (maybe not Microsoft though) can generally only afford to raise them by a given amount. If that amount is less than inflation then that's that, right? Most companies (again, maybe not Microsoft th…

This may help explain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_wages

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#78

Post by kranke155 »

WalterBright wrote: post #51
nforgerit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I like this comment so much. This is exactly how I felt and saw ourselves whilst sitting in hipster startup offices getting way too much money compared to the rest of society. That said, tech people in general publicly don't get enough respect or disrespect for their work.

> getting way too much money compared to the rest of society A good engineer can make a great deal of money for the company, far more than a plumber ever could. I.e. an engineer has leverage .

Depends on the number of engineers available to do the work.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#79

Post by sidfthec »

mc32 wrote: post #40
galoisscobi wrote: post #15

Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.

Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.

> Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff?

Hint: Neither is needed for most of these big tech companies.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#80

Post by agumonkey »

WalterBright wrote: post #51
nforgerit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I like this comment so much. This is exactly how I felt and saw ourselves whilst sitting in hipster startup offices getting way too much money compared to the rest of society. That said, tech people in general publicly don't get enough respect or disrespect for their work.

> getting way too much money compared to the rest of society A good engineer can make a great deal of money for the company, far more than a plumber ever could. I.e. an engineer has leverage .

It's always been a sensitive topic. Reminds me of the 5000 dollars punch fix story.
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