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Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

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Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#221

Post by sokoloff »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #133
maxlamb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but what if you enjoy your job and don’t want to retire?

I love my job but having too much money would let me email someone 4 higher in the hierarchy to give them my opinion on things. :)

Paradoxically, I think the willingness and ability to do that (assuming it's used at all reasonably) tends to increase your visibility and perceived value to the company when averaged over a large number of trials.

"This is stupid, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I like to eat and live indoors." vs "This is stupid and I'm going to tell the CEO that and suggest a better alternative."

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#222

Post by rightbyte »

dagw wrote: post #208
lrvick wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worked at a company that bought a smaller company. That smaller company had free snacks and we didn't. Somewhere in the negotiation someone from our company had promised the employees at the smaller company that they would be able to keep their free snacks. Anyway, merger happens and no free snacks. Now there were probably several reasons why the merger wasn't a success and why basically everybody from that company…

Food is holy in a primal way.

It pisses people off when you mess with their food, don't invite them for it, etc. Way way way more than what is proportional to the costs.

Like, 'pizza for all but the contractor' kind of social transgressions.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#223

Post by ttyprintk »

knallfrosch wrote: post #179

The article ignores that "the market" works. Switching jobs, with new physical locations, new informal structures, new colleagues imposes a change cost on the software engineer too. That's why a lot of people stay. Additionally, paying every engineer the market rate wastes money on those that would have stayed anyway. As a similar problem, countries that pay for babies find that 98% of their money is wasted on couple…

I had to think about your argument. So the underlying collapse in birth rates is actually among 19-year-old women who have chosen college and specifically because of low social mobility. Programs to help the marginal inconveniences of new parents don’t perform as well as directing that budget at social mobility.

So let’s take a four-person company: marketing, HR, CEO, and engineer. Marketing, HR, and CEO share two beliefs: (1) if the engineer goes, the product will change. (2) no company has ever existed without marketing, HR and CEO. So, it’s not like they need a program parallel to these more-babies program; they just need to feel they could adapt to selling any variation of their product.

Engineering has a different belief: imagine what we could do if we had another engineer slot in to tackle this backlog. That does look a little more like the more-babies program.

PS> Article is https://archive.ph/nY2b1

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#224

Post by cryptos »

I see one obstacle by this transparency approach: How to create a fair measure for "impact"? I would say that it is very hard to measure the actual impact of a senior developer. He gives advice here and there, he influences decisions in a good way, he asks the right questions, he recognizes risks early and so on. All that can hardly be measured.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#225

Post by ruszki »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #193
GianFabien wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Can you give an example of a tax regime where this would hold true? I find your example hard to believe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#227

Post by bravetraveler »

rightbyte wrote: post #222
dagw wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company that bought a smaller company. That smaller company had free snacks and we didn't. Somewhere in the negotiation someone from our company had promised the employees at the smaller company that they would be able to keep their free snacks. Anyway, merger happens and no free snacks. Now there were probably several reasons why the merger wasn't a success and why basically everybody from that company…

Food is holy in a primal way. It pisses people off when you mess with their food, don't invite them for it, etc. Way way way more than what is proportional to the costs. Like, 'pizza for all but the contractor' kind of social transgressions.

Seriously. I have a 'thing' about eating around people... feels gross, prefer not to. You'd think I insulted someone for their choices by opting out

I know they mean well with their lunch offer, but I'm barely socialized. I don't want to develop that skill, it's not personal. I'm just firmly independent

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#228

Post by seafoam »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #193
GianFabien wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Can you give an example of a tax regime where this would hold true? I find your example hard to believe.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post.html

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#229

Post by m_rpn »

mmarq wrote: post #181
philipwhiuk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a company paying 150-200K that’s not finance or FAANG?

According to levels.fyi: Personio, Deliveroo, Samsara, Atlassian, monday.com (and others, including my employer) I know many consultants that make 150K+ (which is 600£ per day)

Good for you, i work in finance in london and don't quite make that much, none of my friends in other places like JP, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Instagram ecc does make 200k pounds/year base, maybe in tc yes. Skill issue probably. I would say 90-120k pounds/year base for a mid-senior engineer in FAANG/Finance is what most of us is being offered right now in London, based on my recent experience. What i feel is that many of us are being heavily undercut right now, me included, while consultancy keeps it's pace and everywhere outside London it's a bloodbath.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#230

Post by colesantiago »

mmarq wrote: post #181
philipwhiuk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a company paying 150-200K that’s not finance or FAANG?

According to levels.fyi: Personio, Deliveroo, Samsara, Atlassian, monday.com (and others, including my employer) I know many consultants that make 150K+ (which is 600£ per day)

Apart for consultants which is what I recommend people get into for a high paying job, even looking at levels.fyi, the average pay is actually lower in the UK.

Take Samsara, on average basis an entry level engineer in the US pays higher than a semi-senior SWE (SWE II) in the UK, taking into account the base as well for a senior also looks dismal for UK engineers.

Even when these companies are public, UK salaries just don't seem to be competitive or appealing and this all just proves my point. Just go to the US, FAANG, finance or just be a consultant.

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