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

531–540 of 597 posts

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#531

Post by oblio »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #250
oblio wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are stock buybacks, then? They're more employee hostile than dividends, that's for sure.

> They're more employee hostile than dividends, that's for sure Why are buybacks more employee hostile than dividends?

Because I have to sell the shares and I get a bunch of cash. Dividends could happen yearly and for significant amounts, considering how cash rich these companies are.

For the whales, sure, they're great, since they do the whole "borrow against the share price and extend forever".

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#532

Post by oblio »

shagie wrote: post #423
oblio wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at their revenues in 2019 and in 2023. Except for Failed Metaverse Inc, everyone else has grown revenue proportionally and profits decent enough.

In 2019, Microsoft had about 150k people. Most recently, they have 221k. And while last year was potentially quite good, that isn't the projection. https://i.imgur.com/gUz6AlW.png Employees went up significantly: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+employee+c... Revenue leveled off: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28Microsoft+revenue%29 Profits are on a downward slope now: https://www.wolframalpha…

Oh noes!

The tragedy!

Their revenue and profit per employee will be at their highest points for every year until at least 2020! Who could ever bear that???

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#533

Post by oblio »

pb7 wrote: post #219
oblio wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, could they start paying dividends so that I can keep my shares and get money each year instead of having to sell them?

You can sell X% of your stock every year and pretend it’s a X% dividend. It’s the same thing. It’s not like you get any voting rights.

But at the end of the day I'd be left with no stock.

Dividends could be paid out indefinitely as long as the company is profitable.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#534

Post by sublinear »

heywhatupboys wrote: post #527
sublinear wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most SE's wouldn't survive a week in hard labor work. Respectfully, speak for yourself. This isn't as rare, or as difficult imo, as you think it is. I'm speaking from a lot of disadvantage. It is what it is. > require limited skill Isn't this site usually full of people whining about smooth talkers with no skill? I know I've whined a lot about that. Also is what it is. The world is only unforgiving to those with na…

So, we agree now that software engineers are not working-class people by any common or accepted terminology?

I still strongly reject your definition of "working class". It's not the common definition by many miles amongst many significant crowds.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#535

Post by sgerenser »

rcarmo wrote: post #491
verst wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really true for Microsoft. At Microsoft we generally do not get significant new stock grants or refresh grants, even on promotion no new stock is granted often. This may be different for principal engineers or certainly partner level folks - but senior engineers with more than 4 years of tenure will have essentially no significant stock to vest.

That’s just plain not true. And I say that as someone who got some stock and is aware of just how much my US peers got comparatively.

Microsoft does pay bonuses and stock refreshers, but outside of one-time “Special stock awards” (which I’ve heard is mainly reserved for retention of people likely to jump ship), the refreshers aren’t very significant until you reach level 65 (principal). At least compared to refreshers at other major tech companies.

It depends on the exact level and how well the employee negotiated their sign-on RSUs, but most employees are going to face a compensation cliff of some sort at the 4 year mark.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#537

Post by freediverx »

throw123123123 wrote: post #457
korginator wrote: post #365

With the rate of inflation and interest rates going up, salaried workers need a cost of living adjustment at the very least, even if we forget about a bonus or a big pay hike. This decision is unethical to full-time employees seeing the tidy profit they made. It's a clear signal to the employees not to expect any practical reward for hard work, what a great way to motivate people. This is yet another large and powerf…

Wages are not downstream of profits - they are a price in a market for labor. If companies could pay 0 they would pay 0, and if employees could charge infinite they would charge infinite. It's better this way - otherwise employees at companies that make no money would have to take no salary.

It’s only better this way from the corporation’s POV. Without labor unions, any salary negotiations are heavily weighted in favor of the corporation.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#538

Post by vertis »

htag wrote: post #469
_huayra_ wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still new at the company, but it seems like promotions are basically (at best) the accumulated COLA adjustments one ought to have been given, but they make it seem like some performance-based thing. Indeed, I have a RSU vesting schedule 4 years from hire. It is financially unwise to stay beyond that on-hire grant vesting period, it seems.

The A in COLA is adjustments. COLA Adjustments is like SQL Language or ATM Machine.

This is why I like to say SQ Language and and AT Machine.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#539

Post by ClumsyPilot »

fingerlocks wrote: post #519
saagarjha wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous, but perhaps I haven’t fully explained my position? I have never installed a toilet but I’m confident that I could go into a store and buy one, and the instructions are probably straightforward. That said, I would probably still call a plumber because the risk of me doing it wrong seems uncomfortably high, and I could end up with a smelly mess or thousands of dollars in water damage.

And my position is that teaching you to install a toilet without causing water damage by turning the shutoff valve 90 degrees is in no way comparable to teaching c-suites to code.

Your comparison is wrong

Installing a toilet is more like wroting a bash/shell script that is 99% googleable - most people can figure it out in a weekend

Writing a whole applocation is more like doing plumbing for an industrial installation. that handles hangerous chemicals

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#540

Post by maeil »

heleninboodler wrote: post #479
bruce511 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very "techy" viewpoint. There are only a very small number of companies globally, (a percentage that can be rounded to 0), that give equity as part of the employee compensation.

I feel like tech is the implied context here. In tech, the number is a lot closer to 100% than 0%.

It's magnitudes closer to 0% than to 100%. Like 0.1% compared to 99.9%.
Post reply on HN