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When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

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Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#61

Post by technotony »

shaneoh wrote: post #46
bevekspldnw wrote: post #4

Used to be a high performer at Big Tech. Found out a coworker with less experience at the same level had $200k/year more in comp. I didn’t care about the money, I care about being taken for a fool. There were additional factors, but I left and started my own company within three months and nobody in my old team has anywhere close to my experience.

More curious about your story of starting your own company on a near-whim! I've been grinding out trying to do the same over a year or so without any traction at all and I'm finding myself almost back at Square 1 without any more solid ideas.

Dalton and Michael talk about folks pivoting too much and not fully learning/validating from each pivot in this recent video. Obviously I don't know anything about what you've been doing but perhaps there's some wisdom here: https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/when-to-pivot-and-when-to-s...

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#62

Post by autoexecbat »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #32
rjbwork wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the industrialized world, the fertility rate is almost universally below replacement rate, and has been for a long time. So, as boomers are retiring, there are not as many people replacing them.

[flagged]

> please have at least three kids.

I'm very happy to do so - on exacally one condition, daycare becomes free.

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#63

Post by sdenton4 »

rjbwork wrote: post #14
tombert wrote: post #8

Can someone who understands economics better than me explain how the workforce can "shrink" in 2024? The number of people isn't going to dramatically decrease, are just a ton of people retiring? Or does this imply that there's going to be a reduction in the number of available jobs?

In the industrialized world, the fertility rate is almost universally below replacement rate, and has been for a long time. So, as boomers are retiring, there are not as many people replacing them.

If only there were lots of people from not-the-US who wanted to live in the US...

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#64

Post by withinboredom »

tombert wrote: post #48
hallway_monitor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I live in the US, have a decent-paying job, but I don't have any kids, and I got a vasectomy so it seems unlikely that I will have any kids. If something happens by accident (e.g. the vas deferens heals), my wife and I would almost certainly keep it and we'd be parents, but I don't think that's terribly likely. I actually do really like kids, I like my nieces and nephew, but the problem is that the value proposition…

If you look at children as some utility-investment ... yeah, you probably shouldn't have kids.

But, you are incorrect even then. Eventually, you will get old. Your siblings and parents will be long gone. Then your spouse. You'll have nobody to pass your knowledge on to, at least, nobody to pass it on to that actually cares in a way only a child can about a parent. No grandchildren to spend time with that you simply didn't have the time to as a parent.

I don't know man. I had some cancer, and recently got a tumor in my fucking face. I can tell you right now, when faced with death: careers and money means shit.

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#65

Post by CapstanRoller »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #32
rjbwork wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the industrialized world, the fertility rate is almost universally below replacement rate, and has been for a long time. So, as boomers are retiring, there are not as many people replacing them.

[flagged]

>we need the next generation of people

Who is "we"? Are you a business owner in need of an ever-increasing pool of cheap labor, or a business owner in need of an ever-increasing customer base, or a land owner/real estate developer/landlord in need of an ever-increasing population requiring housing?

(I won't even get into the massive environmental impact of having a child, let alone three!)

>if you have a partner and are financially stable, please have at least three kids.

For what purpose?

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#66

Post by pryelluw »

shaneoh wrote: post #46
bevekspldnw wrote: post #4

Used to be a high performer at Big Tech. Found out a coworker with less experience at the same level had $200k/year more in comp. I didn’t care about the money, I care about being taken for a fool. There were additional factors, but I left and started my own company within three months and nobody in my old team has anywhere close to my experience.

More curious about your story of starting your own company on a near-whim! I've been grinding out trying to do the same over a year or so without any traction at all and I'm finding myself almost back at Square 1 without any more solid ideas.

This just tells me you’re not well versed in sales and marketing. Learn those first (specially direct response) and the other pieces will glide into place with less effort.

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#67

Post by Gasp0de »

austin-cheney wrote: post #57

With higher pay plus less experience comes entitlement. It’s the attitude of I shouldn’t have to do x, y, or z . Usually it’s because they can’t do those things and in full fear mode vomit some bullshit excuses. That, more than anything else, is why I’m in another line of work full of former programmers who are eager to do something else.

What line of work is that?

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#68

Post by fnordpiglet »

zerr wrote: post #59
jedberg wrote: post #9

This is one of the reasons I loved Netflix. Each year they would say "to get new people in the door with your level experience, we had to offer them $XXX. Therefore we are raising you to $XXX." Some years I got 25%+ raises. Netflix understood this like no one else.

That's better than being forced to do interviews at other FANGs, getting offers and only then getting raises matching those offers. I heard Netflix suggested this as well, for determining the current "market rate". Offloading the market research to engineers basically.

In finance this is called price discovery. In the labor market it’s called waiting until someone is one foot out the door. It’s much more expensive to correct the situation once someone has already decided to leave.

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#69

Post by rybosworld »

dragon-hn wrote: post #37

I just had a very valuable teammate quit this week from lack of salary progression. New-ish grads are making more than him for much lesser jobs. The business refused to do even a token salary increase because of the ‘economic climate’ Now a critical project won’t happen on time, which will cost the company many magnitudes more in revenue than it would have cost them with a token increase. Oops.

This is easily fixed by giving management attrition targets. Some companies (Amazon) say "you need to let go of ~6% of your headcount every year."

Others will flip this and say: "you need to retain 94% of your headcount every year."

The effect on salaries is more or less the same. If you know you need to keep employees, you give salary increases to the one's most at risk of leaving. If you know you need to let go of employees, you don't provide salary increases to the one's you want to get rid of.

Many companies don't have an attrition target at all, though.

Re: When new hires get paid more, top performers resign first

#70

Post by newaccount7hhhf »

dragon-hn wrote: post #37

I just had a very valuable teammate quit this week from lack of salary progression. New-ish grads are making more than him for much lesser jobs. The business refused to do even a token salary increase because of the ‘economic climate’ Now a critical project won’t happen on time, which will cost the company many magnitudes more in revenue than it would have cost them with a token increase. Oops.

What do you mean “cost them money” I legitimately can’t think of situation where releasing a product behind deadline would cost a business money? Obviously they just allocated resources more efficiently because they have fewer people. Likely they made more money because of increased demand.
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