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

Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 597 posts

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#151

Post by letsdothisagain »

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.

I mean, this is just MS copying everyone else. There is no "real" recession. It's basically a loosely coordinated capital strike to counteract post-pandemic wage growth. Jay will keep raising rates until those wages stop climbing, and companies are taking the hint.

If anything MS is smarter for waiting for all of their competitors to cut first. As others pointed out, they have tons of cash and really don't have to cut at all, so they get a leg up on their competitors by waiting.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#153

Post by DiggyJohnson »

sidfthec wrote: post #79
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.

> Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? Hint: Neither is needed for most of these big tech companies.

Surely though if it’s in the companies interest to not keep certain staff on the payroll now (I.e.), that’s because they believe reducing headcount will make them a healthier company.

A healthier company has more longevity, and a company with more longevity will hire more people in the long term than an inefficient or bloated company. I feel like your perspective does not take time horizons into account.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#154

Post by DiggyJohnson »

jhp123 wrote: post #86
csa wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If all large tech employers play follow the leader then it's not natural reversion, it's a textbook example of tacit oligopoly coordination.

Or the pattern is due to a common cause between the high tech firms, and we know what that common cause is: they overhired 2020-2022.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#155

Post by tombert »

jselysianeagle wrote: post #139
tombert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to sound too much like a libertarian, and I'm not against unions, but isn't this something that can be more or less corrected by a lot of engineers finding work elsewhere? It's not like Microsoft has anywhere near a monopoly on the software engineering space anymore, and most of the engineers there can probably adjust to remote work without too much of an issue. Then we get the cycle of Microsoft complaining that…

> but isn't this something that can be more or less corrected by a lot of engineers finding work elsewhere? In this market? I'm skeptical. I'm sure some fraction of them can do so at equivalent or higher pay, but the tech market at the moment is quite soft and I wouldn't be surprised this was taken into account and served as another motivation for this move from MS.

That's fair, I was a victim of the layoffs of 2022 (well, sort of), and it took months to find a job paying well enough to cover my mortgage. I did find one, and I really like it, but it took a lot of time and effort to find...certainly harder than it was early last year.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#156

Post by TensorPoint »

oh_sigh wrote: post #140
slg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worse from a corporate greed perspective because it is effectively saying that Microsoft can't afford to give out a pay raise to anyone. Meanwhile, they had a net income of $17.6 billion last quarter[1]. A layoff can at least be due to a change in direction or some departments, teams, or employees not delivering the necessary value to justify their continued employment. This is saying no one at Microsoft is d…

The company and its income is for the benefit of the shareholders, not the employees. Maybe the argument can be made that they should pay more money to certain people to improve their future income, but that has nothing to do with how much money they make.

Freezing salaries for all employees doesn't seem like a sustainable way to save money in the long run and the second order effects would probably destroy shareholder value not create it

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#157

Post by bagels »

diversionfactor wrote: post #106

And yet, at exactly this time last year: "Microsoft to Nearly Double Salary Budgets, Expand Stock Compensation" https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensatio... So they are freezing after the doubling? This behavior seems skittish and an overreaction, especially given their continued profitability and high margins. Corporate executive behavior reminds me of interacting with ChatGPT: Exec: "What should…

It's about leverage, with all the faang layoffs, they now don't have to pay as much for employees.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#158

Post by nineplay »

tombert wrote: post #138
nineplay wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot comes down to what life stage employees are in. Someone with fixed monthly costs and kids in school is not going to want to a) move and b) deal with the anxiety of working at a start up. Probably companies are banking on that.

Yeah, that's fair, though I still think that's going to selection-bias towards employees who can't really find work elsewhere. I don't know about Microsoft but certainly at Apple there were plenty of people who were pretty mediocre engineers...I certainly was the last 6-8 months I was there because I hated it so much and realized they probably wouldn't fire me.

My cynical hot-take is that big companies don't need great engineers, they need engineers who are good enough to complete the tickets their given and move on to the next one. The great engineers I've known came up with innovative ideas that were briefly admired and then quickly squashed. A few good architects can make a difference, but the army of SWEs are just there to keep the roads rolling.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#159

Post by huijzer »

oh_sigh wrote: post #140
slg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worse from a corporate greed perspective because it is effectively saying that Microsoft can't afford to give out a pay raise to anyone. Meanwhile, they had a net income of $17.6 billion last quarter[1]. A layoff can at least be due to a change in direction or some departments, teams, or employees not delivering the necessary value to justify their continued employment. This is saying no one at Microsoft is d…

The company and its income is for the benefit of the shareholders, not the employees. Maybe the argument can be made that they should pay more money to certain people to improve their future income, but that has nothing to do with how much money they make.

Unhappy employees have a way of making shareholders unhappy in the long-term.

Having said that, the decision probably involved more than the shareholders point of view.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#160

Post by asd88 »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #100

Yet they're making huge stock buybacks and profits each quarter... something is fishy. This is going to royally backfire as soon as the first big tech company blinks and starts hiring and poaching frustrated engineers. The exact same thing happened in the aftermath of '08 where companies that cut and held salaries flat were scrambling in '09 to retain and keep engineers--I distinctly remember Microsoft doing an acros…

Nah, Microsoft has been underpaying engineers in the US for almost a decade now. Their solution is just to replace one frustrated engineer leaving with three in India and that seems to be working great.
Post reply on HN