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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#161

Post by yamtaddle »

pydry wrote: post #26
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 wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

If history is any guide, probably more than zero, and surprisingly blatant and poorly-concealed.

And I don't think anyone's even tried to suss out illegal market-manipulation schemes that are surely hatched at various seems-like-something-out-of-a-comic-book-but-is-actually-a-real-thing rich people secret societies and "retreats" and shit. It's wholly unbelievable that there's not a ton of that going on there, better-hidden than the ones that amount to one CEO emailing another with "let's illegally collude, LOL" (which, incredible as it seems, also happens, but at least sometimes gets caught).

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#162

Post by SoftTalker »

status_quo69 wrote: post #52
skrebbel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not secretly a salary cut, it's an explicit salary cut relative to the cost of living and everything else. After all, your money is worth less now than it was a year ago if there's no cost of living increase? I'm sure the initial circumstances of salary negotiations for a position took into account current economic factors. I'm much less likely to want to stick around at a company that cannot compete with living…

But the company itself faces all those challenges too. Customers are cutting back because inflation is forcing them to reallocate their own spending. Supplies cost more. Raising prices isn't always possible in the face of competition, at least not enough to offset inflation.

Inflation is basically a correction for a previous period where money was too cheap. It hurts everyone (at least everyone who didn't prepare for it).

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#163

Post by csa »

fzeroracer wrote: post #99
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.

How exactly is it a 'natural reversion' when even high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?

> high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?

If any “high-performing employee” feels like they are taking a “massive pay cut” merely due to inflation, then something is wrong.

Either they were grossly underpaid to begin with (change jobs, it can be done if you’re that good and that low paid), they aren’t actually that good (so total comp package, including RSUs and refreshers, is relatively weak), or they have a warped perception of the value of money.

If a dev is pulling in 300k+ (standard, especially the +, at places like MS), and the cost of eggs, rent, or restaurant food is something they actually notice and impacts their day-to-day life, then I wish them the best of luck — they will need it.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#164

Post by bdavisx »

nforgerit wrote: post #43
pianoben wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Personally I feel that the "rest of society" is getting way too little money vs. us getting way too much (opinion based on the fact that profits/productivity have outgrown salaries for too long).

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#165

Post by givemeethekeys »

At this point all tech employees, especially those who work at large tech firms are one big union - you're definitely getting treated like one big heard, whether you like it or not.

Share your salaries, train each other, give each other confidence, and get your worth!

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#166

Post by sokoloff »

oh_sigh wrote: post #147
nickpp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executives lost to competition due to cut comp are much harder to replace than regular workers. Sucks, but it’s the reality.

If, say, Sundar was only offered a $100M package instead of a $226M package, where would he go that would pay him more than $100M? There's no other person out there who would do the job for $100M? An issue would be that Sundar is plugged into Google and knows all the ins and outs and has the relationships that an outsider would take some time to learn/form, but on the same hand, Sundar going out into the wide world i…

> There's no other person out there who would do the job for $100M?

I'd be willing to do a terrible job at it for only $10M/yr. That's not what the shareholders want; they want Sundar to keep doing what is, from the shareholders' point of view, a quite respectable job, seeing the shares grow from $34 when he become CEO to $112 now for a CAGR of around 17%.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#167

Post by fzeroracer »

csa wrote: post #163
fzeroracer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is it a 'natural reversion' when even high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?

> high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation? If any “high-performing employee” feels like they are taking a “massive pay cut” merely due to inflation, then something is wrong. Either they were grossly underpaid to begin with (change jobs, it can be done if you’re that good and that low paid), they aren’t actually that good (so total comp package, inc…

A paycut is a paycut no matter how you try to spin it. If someone's earning 150k a year with 5% inflation and doesn't get a raise the next year matching inflation, they are quite literally taking a 5% pay cut in comparison to changing jobs which likely offers salaries starting at the post-inflation level.

In this case it's worse because not only are their salaries not going up, but the things nominally used to get around raising salaries (bonuses, stock) is also not going up. You trying to spin it by saying 'well they're earning 300k+ a year anyways' is not helping your point when there are plenty of junior and mid-level engineers earning far below that which are going to be most impacted.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#168

Post by soulbadguy »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #118
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…

> Microsoft has been bleeding talent for the last 5-6 years due to low compensation. I have been hearing this for awhile now. When I compare MS pay and benefits to what is on offer at other companies, almost the only jobs I see with better TC are at Meta and Google. And that will likely not be a thing of Meta's future.

Things have probably changed in the last year or so since the pandemic, but due to a combination of stock appreciation and much smaller company size pretty much everyone was paying more than MSFT : Uber, lyft, airbnb, snowflakes etc... and a bunch of pre-ipo company depends on how much one believed their valuation.

The only company paying worst than MSFT were the hardware company such as AMD,Qualcomm and intel. But hardware companies are known for low wages

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#169

Post by slg »

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.

Capitalism really breaks people's brains sometimes. It isn't about who owns the profit. An employer/employee relationship is a business agreement. That includes an implicit (and sometimes explicit) agreement to regularly reevaluate employee compensation based off a combination of employee and company performance. This decision severs that connection. Now there is no level of employee performance which can yield better compensation. There is also no reason to believe this will change in the future because this decision is not motivated by a lack of money. It is motivated by the desire to increase profits. That desire isn't going to go away in the future.

And if we must truly take the perspective of the shareholders, this is a stupid move because that link between performance and compensation is the primary motiving factor for many employees to put actual effort into their job. Why should any Microsoft employee put in anything but the minimal effort at this point? Is personal pride the best remaining reason?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#170

Post by sokoloff »

tombert wrote: post #35
nineplay wrote: post #24

Perhaps its a false dichotomy, but I'll take a pay freeze/cut over a layoff any day.

I don't necessarily disagree, but fundamentally I think this will lead to "anyone who can find a higher-paying job will find a higher paying job." Part of what's enticing about these "blue-chip" megatech corporations like Microsoft or Apple is that they pay good salaries. Most work at these companies is not interesting (at least it wasn't at Apple), but you stay because the pay is good. If the pay is shit, I'll take…

If the pay was good before, it's at least 96% of good now.
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