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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?

#251

Post by mmarq »

haspok wrote: post #243
mmarq wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

There is no Atlassian salary data for the UK on levels.fyi. I think you are just quoting American salaries. Deliveroo L6 is 135k average, but I think it is more realistic to look at L5, which is just around 105k. Also, 600 a day as a contractor is nowhere near 150K+, it is 132K paid to your company's account (assuming 220 working days a year - but that's not a salary!), or you go via an umbrella and then it is even l…

On levels.fyi there is one Atlassian P60 engineer (senior? staff?) in London making 230K+.

On L60-L50, I’m not saying that everybody makes 150K+; I’m saying that it’s not impossible for a good senior engineer (or staff or principal, as we call them nowadays) to make more than 150K at a non-FAANG company.

Maybe I got my maths wrong with contractors. I never did it myself, but I know they do crazy things with taxes (eg hiring their wife, son, dog and plants, to reduce the tax bill) and that they don’t take holidays. So I multiplied 600 by 5 and then by 50, got 150K and I assumed they’d make more than an employee earning the same.

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

#252

Post by haspok »

mmarq wrote: post #251
haspok wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no Atlassian salary data for the UK on levels.fyi. I think you are just quoting American salaries. Deliveroo L6 is 135k average, but I think it is more realistic to look at L5, which is just around 105k. Also, 600 a day as a contractor is nowhere near 150K+, it is 132K paid to your company's account (assuming 220 working days a year - but that's not a salary!), or you go via an umbrella and then it is even l…

On levels.fyi there is one Atlassian P60 engineer (senior? staff?) in London making 230K+. On L60-L50, I’m not saying that everybody makes 150K+; I’m saying that it’s not impossible for a good senior engineer (or staff or principal, as we call them nowadays) to make more than 150K at a non-FAANG company. Maybe I got my maths wrong with contractors. I never did it myself, but I know they do crazy things with taxes (eg…

I'd left the city 5 years ago, just before IR35 hit, so my info is not quite up to date, but in general I would say that nobody can work without taking any vacations - both for health and legal reasons. Some contracts may even stipulate a maximum number of days you can work in a year (that's where my 220 number is from).

And it used to be that you could do some tricks to lower your taxes, but there is a limit, and after the IR35 reforms many firms decided they don't want contractors, or they are pushing you inside IR35, which means PAYE taxes, and worse (because you still have to do the accounting for your company, pay corporation tax etc). So contractors are earning LESS than an employee with an equivalent salary, plus there are some extra burdens. It used to be that a regular engineer (without any management responsibilities) could achieve higher income in the short term being a contractor, but I'm not sure that is the case anymore.

Outside London, if you can find a place willing to take you on as a contractor it may still be worth it, because your daily rate will be less, meaning you may not reach higher tax brackets, and compared to almost everyone else around you you would still be king.

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

#253

Post by nxpnsv »

shiroiushi wrote: post #143
nxpnsv wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, unpleasant.

How so? Getting out of a bad marriage isn't unpleasant at all. A bit traumatic perhaps, but that's like going through the trauma of major surgery so you can have your badly broken leg bolted together so you don't have to get an amputation or die of infection. The feeling of freedom and peace you get after getting out is worth the trauma of divorce. Same goes for getting out of a shitty job with bad coworkers or a bad…

Sure, there is relief and a feeling this was necessary and for the best - but also broken dreams, failing social expectations, broken friendships. I guess I mostly agree with you, but I think such traumas make for unpleasant experiences...

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

#255

Post by solardev »

sumedh wrote: post #235
kaba0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, this 10x dev myth should just die. There are only at most 2x developers, and most ordinary people are just below the 1x factor.

> this 10x dev myth should just die. How would you rate someone like John Carmack?

He overflows to -2147483648x.

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

#256

Post by pas »

rightbyte wrote: post #220
Corrado wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Oh dear. I agree with your point, but man, I do not handle free soda at work well. I do comfort drinking way too much.

Time to do tea ceremonies at work. It's very comforting!

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

#257

Post by notepad0x90 »

dataflow wrote: post #117
notepad0x90 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are good points, but at the end of the day, people issues are management issues. It may not be your specific manager that is responsible but the management of the company and HR, who are responsible for the work environment that is set. I'd imagine it is a business (think money) decision on how much time and effort is put into cultivating a reasonably tolerable work environment. if employees have unreasonable d…

If by "people leave managers" they mean anyone in the chain up to and including the CEO, then I guess? That's hardly a meaningful statement though, it's practically a tautology... the CEO is ultimately responsible for everything the company does, so whatever reason you have for leaving is their responsibility... by definition. I can't say I find a tautology like that to be a particularly insightful observation, but m…

Let me put it differently and talk about immediate managers only. If the people problem is coming from other teams, the immediate manager should "shield" their team members from that. If it is between their team members, then they need to somehow manage the person reporting to them. They can't always, and I personally find that understandable. But still, the "people leave managers" expression is implying that either that manager is not capable or they are not being given enough resources, authority or training to manage people in their team and outside their team.

From the CEO down to line managers, management is responsible for setting the tone and culture. Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook alike are responsible for how horrible and toxic of a work environment exists at amazon and apple. If the company is great, employees can usually switch teams when they don't like a manager.

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

#258

Post by red-iron-pine »

klooney wrote: post #219
rapjr9 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median lifespan is no longer over 80, at least not for middle age males in the US, though it is for females: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html It also depends a lot on what your current age is. If you're 60 or older it's 80 or more. If you're younger than that and male it's under 80, going down the younger you are. Covid and other things reduced life expectancy in the US. This is the 2021 table, the mo…

There are some uh, relevant socioeconomic correlations here.

to a degree, yes.

but obesity -- which correlates with income level and area code -- is what's killing people early. if you're fat as hell at 19 you're probably going to be even fatter at 60, and heart disease or cancer is going to kill you.

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

#259

Post by rramadass »

Ancalagon wrote: post #131
1oooqooq wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

engineers either have patent quotas or are blue collar as far as any Enterprise is concerned. do you have patent quotas at your position? if not they are counting the days to replace you with a machine, someone overseas, a script, AI. depending on the decade.

Why is a lawyer position irreplaceable, but an engineering/blue collar one is not? Not trying to be spiteful or angry, just geniunely curious about the business logic and psychology behind that kind of decision making. Isn't every job replaceable?

Two main reasons;

1) Power/Politics - This is basically Human Nature at work and institutionalized as Management/Leadership/etc to put themselves at the top. A lot of it is BS (see the books by https://jeffreypfeffer.com/) but unfortunately only the enlightened in the industry have woken up to this. It is also the case that in these domains many of the objectives are intangible/subjective and difficult to measure thus allowing the actors to create an illusion of "Importance".

2) Nature of Engineering - The output of any Engineering activity has a well-defined boundary. This makes it more tangible/manageable/measurable and reason about. All the main costs are paid upfront and once gizmo-x/software-y is done the recurring costs are generally pretty low. This gives the illusion that the Engineer is now not worth his pay compared to his current output and hence replaceable/dispensable based on bean counter calculations. It also doesn't help that Engineers do a pretty good job so that a product/software once released and accepted in the market is generally very stable and not in much need of rework. This is the reason "Planned Obsolescence", "Subscription Model" etc. were invented by the Industry.

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

#260

Post by lacker »

mppm wrote: post #172

It'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 think counteroffers in your typical high-quality tech company are generally bad for three reasons.

First, you should be giving people pretty good compensation packages. If you're underpaying massively in the first place, then you're going to consistently lose your best employees.

Second, you should recognize who the best employees are, promote them, and pay them more.

Third, you should be giving people at the same level very similar compensation packages. It will get a little bit off but you want to try to keep things fair.

Given these rules, counteroffers lead to trouble. If you have ten equal engineers and one of them is overpaid 1.5x, do you just keep them overpaid by 1.5x the rest of their career as you promote them? Do you keep it a secret from the other ones? Etc etc.

Usually when a counteroffer seems like it makes sense you are screwing up one of these principles of a well-run company. Maybe you're underpaying people but also not getting what you're paying for. You're paying 40th percentile pay and getting a 20th percentile team. You give every engineer an equal salary. Then your star engineer gets an offer from Google that doubles his pay.

Yeah, then it makes sense to counteroffer. But it would be better to not be in this situation.

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