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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?

#271

Post by tasuki »

Corrado wrote: post #196
red_admiral wrote: post #148

As 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 w…

> 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.

It sounds like hell. How do you not get fat doing this?

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

#272

Post by tmn »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #52

Hiring people is like gambling for companies, as in most tech companies hire some person on the off chance they're a 10x developer, though expect them to be a 1.5x one on average. Even if you're a 2x developer, you haven't lived up to the hypothetical 10x ideal to your employer, so they aren't willing to put in the extra money and effort to convince you to stay, there's more incentive to put that money into hiring th…

Insignificant quibble, but they should be expected to be a 1x developer on average by definition.

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

#273

Post by Indian_in_US »

thot_experiment wrote: post #93
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Here’s hoping you’re lucky enough to live until then. "? The median lifespan is over 80 and developers are paid above the median, often by quite a bit. It's far, far more likely in your 50s that you'll be staring down the barrel of a layoff + industry downturn and cursing yourself for the money spent on your trip across Europe and other frivolities in your 30s.

I don't think this is true for most people, when you ask older people about their regrets, it's often that they worked too much and didn't live enough.

I’m at that point where I’m working less and making more money and I’ve done most of the stuff people want to do traveling, hiking, gaming, etc. and I’m still in my 30s. Now everything starts to feel same old boring there’s no excitement.

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

#274

Post by jakub_g »

sameermore wrote: post #92

My 2 cents - I think this is also a function of the domain the organisation operates in. IMHO, there are predominantly two types of companies - one where the technology creates the business vs. one where the business uses the technology as an enabler. For the former, think of companies like Boeing, nVidia or the Windows/Office divisions at Microsoft. Here, the product of technology is what brings in the money. For th…

Yep - in first IT is "profit center" and in the latter it's "cost center".

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

#275

Post by epiccoleman »

steelframe wrote: post #25
BadHumans wrote: post #9

This 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…

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'd have to make it into FAANG or similar to double my comp. I'd certainly be open to the idea, but the path seems awfully narrow for senior level midwestern engineers like me.

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

#276

Post by HDThoreaun »

tasuki wrote: post #271
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…

> 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. It sounds like hell. How do you not get fat doing this?

So strange how even within the same country our cultures differ enough to have stuff like this which actually disgusts me. Have southerners never heard of coffee? How fat do you have to be to take soda breaks instead of coffee or smoke breaks?

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

#277

Post by RichardCA »

BurningFrog wrote: post #108
alberth wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> included frustrations with management Which I presume this is another way to say “your direct boss”. Because 99% of an employees view of a company, and opinions about their employer, is actually just a reflection of their like/dislike of their direct boss.

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.

Telling someone they are a bad cog is the corporate machine is not Red-Pilling. It's Blue-Pilling.

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

#278

Post by YZF »

brazzy wrote: post #155
YZF wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really work like that. The reality is that you can't work 50% of the time for half the salary (if that's what you mean). When you make more money you typically want a nicer place to live, maybe a nicer car, your standard of living will go up somewhat. Now to maintain that standard of living you're going to need to save more money. Maybe you have kids and you want to be able to pay for their education, or b…

Developers in the USA earn far beyond the level where the lifestyle creep that you describe is so compelling that it makes any sense at all to say "you can't work 50% of the time for half the salary". A more solid factor is that companies don't want to hire part-time developers, because coordination overhead means twice the number of developers each working half as many hours are far less effective.

I meant it in that sense. Even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to work 50% for half my salary (likely) because my employer would have a problem with that. For the reason you gave and others.

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

#279

Post by 1oooqooq »

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?

a lawyer very much can, but 1. there's no machine or script capable of replacing one yet, and 2. they are half sales people with their own client lists.

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

#280

Post by pedrosorio »

rapjr9 wrote: post #210
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Here’s hoping you’re lucky enough to live until then. "? The median lifespan is over 80 and developers are paid above the median, often by quite a bit. It's far, far more likely in your 50s that you'll be staring down the barrel of a layoff + industry downturn and cursing yourself for the money spent on your trip across Europe and other frivolities in your 30s.

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…

> Covid and other things reduced life expectancy in the US.

It reduced life expectancy for people who were alive in 2019. Those statistics say nothing about the life expectancy of people who are currently alive.

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