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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#191

Post by WalterBright »

kranke155 wrote: post #78
WalterBright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That number is entirely dependent on their leverage.

It works like this. If I could hire bob for $10, but he produces $100 worth of value, hell yes I'm going to hire Bob. But Evil Corp sees that and thinks "damn, I want Bob to contribute $100 to my bottom line, so I'll hire him away from Bright Corp by enticing him with $20 pay.

Then, BadAss Corp thinks the same thing, and hires Bob away for $30. This process repeats until Bob's pay + opportunity cost == $100.

However, there is a point of diminishing value being added. If lots of Bobs are available, the incremental value (leverage) each one adds becomes less. There are only so many redesigns of one's database that improve productivity much.

As you can see, the more Bobs, the less they'll get paid. Until Frank comes along with a new idea for adding value, and starts the process over again.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#192

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

didip wrote: post #134
tombert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ava…

At its height, FAANG companies are dishing out > $500k total compensation to engineers. You would have to be quant analysts themselves to beat that number.

I don't know, I worked at a trading desk of a major bank. All the smartest PhD quant analysts worked from some Siberian village for like $20k/year. Those who really got the dough were the traders in NYC.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#193

Post by ejb999 »

the_overseer wrote: post #189
ejb999 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you take a pay cut to save someone else's from being laid off in your company? It's a serious question, just curious, there is no right answer - I wouldn't, nor would I accept even a $1 cut in my pay - the day that happens is the day I give my notice. Not an option for everyone I know.

So you wouldn't take a $1 pay cut per year so that a person might have enough to take care of his family? Is this who you really are? $1 that could save someone from starving and you wouldn't give it? It says a lot about you to make such a statement, I am not sure you realise this.

you really think a tech worker with any skills at all is going to starve? If their skills are so bad they can't get another job, then they don't deserve to be protected in the job they are currently in -

However, would I give someone a $1? sure and probably a lot more - but that is different than accepting a pay-cut for any reason from my employer who is booking billions of dollars a year in profits while letting people go.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#194

Post by alephnerd »

asd88 wrote: post #160
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.

It's happening at other Big Tech firms as well tbh.

Also, plenty of Indian Nationals working at these firms who are stuck in the immigration purgatory have started returning to India to work at the same employer's office there (albeit with a TC adjustment that is still competitive). Heck, even Big Tech and target startup salaries in India have begun reaching the $30-50k range (take a look at YC startups hiring in India for example).

At this point, a lot of fresh Indian H1-B talent coming to the US are those who were stuck working at shitty outsourcing companies (talent which Indian companies won't touch), saved up money to do a random STEM masters to get the F-1, get a couple years of American work experience plus save dollars, and then return to India.

Same thing happened with the Electronics industry in the 1990s-early 2000s with Taiwanese nationals leaving Silicon Valley to return to Taiwan or moving to HK/mainland China (live in HK, commute to Shenzhen/Dongguan/Guangzhou), Korean nationals returning to work for Korean companies in the 2000s-early 2010s, and Chinese nationals in the 2010s-Present returning to Mainland China.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#195

Post by gamblor956 »

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.

Is there some sort of bizarre political campaign on HN to try and redefine why companies exist?

Companies are legal constructs that were created to provide investors in business activities limited liability with respect to their investment in a mutual business activity. And that's it.

For their first several hundred years, companies were expected to provide benefits to their employees and the localities in which they operated in exchange for that limited liability. (And see what happened to Lloyd's of London's shareholders to understand why that is a more than fair exchange.)

If companies want to be all about "benefit for the shareholders" and to hell with everyone else, then its about time we take away the limited liability.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#196

Post by pianoben »

mirekrusin wrote: post #76
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.

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

I encourage you to give GPT, Copilot, etc a spin. You'll quickly be reassured about developer job security!

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#197

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

daveslash wrote: post #152
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you "steal" a job?

Ask George Costanza, who's currently managing the Penske file.

Well, although he put a lot of work into it (they didn't call him the Little Beaver in college for no reason) he wasn't Penske material, so he shouldn't have been there. But that still doesn't answer the question.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#198

Post by mupuff1234 »

WalterBright wrote: post #179
mupuff1234 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so why don't current employees of MSFT also deserve a raise? You know, the people who actually built and sold the products?

They get the rise in the value of their MSFT stock options. Microsoft has historically had low salaries - because the money was made from the stock options.

So why doesn't the same apply to Satya?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#199

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #191
kranke155 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That number is entirely dependent on their leverage. It works like this. If I could hire bob for $10, but he produces $100 worth of value, hell yes I'm going to hire Bob. But Evil Corp sees that and thinks "damn, I want Bob to contribute $100 to my bottom line, so I'll hire him away from Bright Corp by enticing him with $20 pay. Then, BadAss Corp thinks the same thing, and hires Bob away for $30. This process repeats…

Consider also that although an engineer has the potential to engineer large amounts of value, that doesn't mean he will. Hence, the value of him to the company is discounted by the risk that he won't deliver.

I.e. an engineer who has a track record of delivering value can command a much higher salary. I know one who got a million dollar salary.

This is also why CEOs get paid so much. Leverage. Nadella is a prime example. As an MSFT shareholder, I'd say he was darn well worth it.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#200

Post by scruple »

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.

Right. Wealth and power are concentrated and do not need to be coordinated. Their individual actions and self-interests organically merge to maintain the state of affairs that keeps them wealthy and in power.
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