I think this reads a bit differently today than 2021… should be in the post title
Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
191–200 of 294 posts
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economy has been objectively really great last few years. Many people say the economy is bad, whatever the measurable macro-economical state of the economy is.
If you find it almost impossible to get jobs I don’t know if it matters.
You see, according to that one HN commenter everything is always fine (they own capital)
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doubling your income would mean you can take 50% of your time off with the same income. Pretty sure that would change your life!
Typically with a higher income you taxation rate increases even more. So 50% more salary might only end up being 20% more in your hand.
> So 50% more salary might only end up being 20% more in your hand.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#194How can a company effectively measure an employee's impact?
In my experience, when performance metrics are tied to salary, employees often manipulate the numbers to reflect a more favorable outcome, which may not accurately represent their true impact.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#195As a regular reader of Rachelbythebay - I agree with the sentiment of a lot of other posters here, it's not the money that makes people quit. A classic story here is the "Sodas are no longer free" one: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... The total cost of free sodas for engineers is probably small compared to their salaries, and for the individual engineer, the new $0.50 per soda cost is p…
100% this. In every company I have been at that was going south, the first things to go after a hiring freeze were snacks and lunch. When companies walk back any benefits of the job that cause you to pay for things out of pocket, you just got a pay cut, and should GTFO.
Amen! This has been my experience too. When the free snacks go, it is time to move to the next job. Usually the big cuts follow 6-18 months after the first snacks have gone.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#196As a regular reader of Rachelbythebay - I agree with the sentiment of a lot of other posters here, it's not the money that makes people quit. A classic story here is the "Sodas are no longer free" one: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... The total cost of free sodas for engineers is probably small compared to their salaries, and for the individual engineer, the new $0.50 per soda cost is p…
Holy carp! When they took away the free soda at KFC I started updating my resume. I worked at the KFC headquarters for over 10 years and for most of that time they had free soda in the lobby. Then the cafeteria management got turned over to a 3rd party, I'm guessing as a way to save money. Setting aside a food company not managing their corporate cafeteria, this 3rd party wanted to sell sodas and that's really hard when the company is providing them for free. So, KFC took out the free soda machines in the lobby.
I'm not joking when I say that free soda was a huge selling point to new recruits in the IT department. We even used it as a "smoke" break for those of us who didn't smoke. Feeling that after lunch malaise? Walk down 5 flights of stairs to get a small Pepsi. Need to talk out some tech problem with a co-worker? Grab a soda together and take a walk. It was great.
When they announced they were removing the soda machines one of the KFC VPs even offered to pay for the supplies out of their own budget. Rumor has it that the total cost was in the neighborhood of $30k / year, which was nothing in the grand scheme of things. But the higher ups said no and the machines were removed. That's when I (and others) started to update our resumes.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#197This entire piece starts from the conclusion that engineers leave because they aren't paid enough then works backwards from there. This is wrong from my experience. Anecdotally, I have never left a job because of money. Sure, I left jobs and got ones that ended up paying more money but the reason I started looking in the first place wasn't money. It was for other reasons that usually included frustrations with manage…
HR has a saying "employees don't leave jobs, they leave managers". Pay has motivated me to look for other jobs, but only after I was already worn out and frustrated with my current job. Switching jobs isn't like getting a new car or moving to a new apartment. It's traumatic, kind of like going through a break-up. You work with the same people for years and then suddenly you will never see them again. That isn't pleas…
If you train the LLM on today's practice, guess what, they will act exactly like today's managers, bias and faults inclusive.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should try leaving a company for money sometime. Financial independence really is life-changing, and you can get there surprisingly quickly in the tech industry by putting yourself on the market more often. Anecdotally, at my current company nearly everyone I know who left did so within a few months of hitting the 4-year cliff on their signing equity. I've left 3 companies in my career primarily because the next…
I make low six figures in a low to medium cost of living area. I don't think even doubling my income would change my life too much.
Maybe not for you, but for your family and future children it could be a life changer. If something happens to you, having a few millions in the bank is also very nice.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Red Pill: The boss/employee relationship depends equally on both people. If you always "have a terrible boss" that really means your relationship with your boss is bad, which depends on both people. You were warned. The Red Pill is near: To spell it out: If you consistently have a terrible relationship with your boss, with several bosses... I'm sorry, but the common factor is you. You're probably a shitty employee.
The more negative things a new hire has to say about their former employer or coworkers, the more likely that they are unbearable to work with.
Maybe, but it’s a mistake to begin applying this without a big-enough sample. A slippery slope exists: what if they say negative things about the domain? Worry that new patterns in project management are unproven but unchallengeable? I’ve had new hires say that their old team was “hard to work with” but for a release cycle I can’t be sure if that’s a compatibility odor or simply the truth.
Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?
#200It's always puzzled me why many tech companies seem so reluctant to give counter-offers to departing employees. Trying to pay as little as possible and not easily giving raises, even to their most productive employees, is at least somewhat understandable. But if a valuable employee is about to leave, possibly taking some critical knowledge with them, you'd think that a 50% raise should be on the table out of pure sel…
I've made some counter-offers in my time as a manager, but I've never had a counter-offer accepted.
For a start: everyone resigns because of multiple factors, and money is of course one of them - but when handing in their resignation, in order to leave on a positive note they'll focus on factors outside of anyone's control. Usually people tell me they're leaving because of something like because they want to explore new challenges, or that they just feel that it's time for a change, or because a shorter commute will give them more time with their kids.
Such reasons do not invite a counter-offer. You want to spend more time with your kids? Good for you! I won't try to argue you out of it.
For another thing, when someone offers their resignation you only have a few hours to pull together a counter-offer - so on the occasions when I was able to make counter-offers, they were pretty meagre. I always get my team as close to the top of the salary range for their role as I can, so there's no headroom for anything big without getting a bunch approvals for a special exception.
And finally, a lot of people who leave get offers that are kinda good, or at least good for their situation. If a kid's leaving my employer, who most people haven't heard of, for somewhere like OpenAI? That recognisable brand might well be great for their career. Leaving to get a PhD? Great, so long as they know what it really involves.
And if I wouldn't council them to stay, I'm not going to be able to sell a counter-offer persuasively.