Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less • Hacker News Board

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#141

Post by dennisgorelik » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

lucisferre wrote: post #40

michaelfeathers wrote: post #10

For those of us in software development, an important thing to think about is what this does to code. The industry is full of old codebases tended by people who were never involved in the planning and initial design of those systems. Knowledge transfer rarely happens sufficiently to prevent accelerating maintenance headaches. I think that we really need to find different ways of developing software to deal with this…

This is interesting, because I've also seen something that is quite the opposite. A codebase where an initially a small but quite inexperienced team wrote most of the original code and while these people are in fact still around they've been promoted to management roles based on their seniority in the company. Usually they never really advanced that far as software developers and are neither really experienced techni…

> These people protect and maintain the original code

If business depends on robustness of that code - of course they protect it.

> They resist better practices and refactoring

How do you know that they resist "better" practices?

It could be they resist fancy practices that would cause more problems than they would solve.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#142

Post by hawkharris » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 2:54 AM UTC

nugget wrote: post #98

cpprototypes wrote: post #75

Switching jobs works well when developers are in their 20's. But I've found in the 30's that a number of factors combine to make it much less attractive: 1) Each jump becomes less and less. There's an invisible salary cap for software engineers. By the time a software engineer is in their 30's, they've jumped a few times and are already close to the maximum. 2) There are costs associated with switching jobs. There's…

Young developers should save 50% of their after tax income. In some ways, this industry is awesome: to be able to make six figures in your early 20s is an incredible benefit and potential head start on financial independence. In other ways, this industry is incredibly cruel: you will run into age discrimination and the other headwinds mentioned in your mid 30s, if not earlier. I tell the folks I mentor to think of th…

As a 20-something developer, I appreciate and agree with your insights.

Also, I give you credit for responding in a mature way to some of the overly harsh responses to your comment. I guess that some level of gruffness comes with the territory of HN's matter-of-fact debate culture.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#143

Post by jebblue » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:25 AM UTC

cpprototypes wrote: post #75

Switching jobs works well when developers are in their 20's. But I've found in the 30's that a number of factors combine to make it much less attractive: 1) Each jump becomes less and less. There's an invisible salary cap for software engineers. By the time a software engineer is in their 30's, they've jumped a few times and are already close to the maximum. 2) There are costs associated with switching jobs. There's…

>> And you start at zero reputation and connections at a new company.

As an employee, so true. It takes me about a year after switching and I'm 50.

>> Unfortunately, the interview skills required to get into the top tech companies is biased against older software engineers.

Also true, I have a recent story that proves this, can't share it though.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#144

Post by jebblue » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:29 AM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #109

nugget wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young developers should save 50% of their after tax income. In some ways, this industry is awesome: to be able to make six figures in your early 20s is an incredible benefit and potential head start on financial independence. In other ways, this industry is incredibly cruel: you will run into age discrimination and the other headwinds mentioned in your mid 30s, if not earlier. I tell the folks I mentor to think of th…

"I tell the folks I mentor to think of themselves as professional athletes with a 15, maybe 20 year career." what terrible advice! Please stop "mentoring" "Young developers should save 50% of their after tax income." I wonder how long it's been since you were young. While saving early is likely a good idea, it's also the time that student loans, young families, buying houses etc are all huge costs that very likely ma…

>> I've been a software developer for 27 years and have encountered none of the "incredibly cruel" discriminations you suggest. It's definitely true and I see this often that many as they age don't bother to stay current,

It happened to me. I did and do stay current, there is a perception among management, especially in UI development that only college grads get the new stuff. The old folks only know how to do back-end well is their perception. This is why enterprises fail, clueless management.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#145

Post by jebblue » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:42 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #138

cpprototypes wrote: post #75

Switching jobs works well when developers are in their 20's. But I've found in the 30's that a number of factors combine to make it much less attractive: 1) Each jump becomes less and less. There's an invisible salary cap for software engineers. By the time a software engineer is in their 30's, they've jumped a few times and are already close to the maximum. 2) There are costs associated with switching jobs. There's…

> 4) For total compensation there seems to be two tiers of companies, the top tech (google, facebook, amazon, etc.) and everyone else. I've noticed the big difference is not the base salary (top tech only pays a few % more). The really big difference is cash bonus + stock (RSU). This is partially true (IMHO). What the other companies provide is potentially higher upside with a lot greater risk. Younger people, or rat…

>> I disagree with this assertion. To be a software engineer is to be in a constant state of learning.

3 years ago at age 47 I interviewed at a promising game company in Austin, TX. The first thing the smug young guy said after weighing my resume by holding it in the air in the palm of his hand was, "pretty long resume, huh?".

I game every day, I developed a simple game for fun in the 90s'. I get gaming and what gamers like. I can do programming, hold my own with new or old technologies, do front-end, back-end, embedded, you name it and the most important thing he had to say to me was, "pretty long resume, huh?".

Come to think of it, many places I've interviewed at in Austin are like that, I call it the UT attitude.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#146

Post by jebblue » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:51 AM UTC

stonemetal wrote: post #42

alain94040 wrote: post #22

This article should create a fun discussion, but be aware that it's most likely completely bogus. I suspect it suffers from survivor bias: anyone who is in a position to jump ship and get a 20% raise consistently is not average. If you try to change jobs every 2 years and are not great at your current position, you'll likely be sorely disappointed.

I disagree. Software engineering skill and software engineering job interview skills are only tangentially related. The only thing jumping ship regularly says is you jump ship regularly.

So if they are any good, someone should stand up and say, we should pay this person what they want, if they want to work remote and there are no specific restrictions placed upon them by their job requirements; let them. Keep them. That must not be happening in those cases though or they wouldn't be jumping, that's the point of the article.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#147

Post by megablast » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:53 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #59

notacoward wrote: post #54

This "loyalty penalty" is far from new. It was totally obvious to me, and to many of those around me, over twenty years ago. If you stayed at one company, you'd fall behind the industry-wide trend. You'd start to see people who were more junior overall, and clearly less familiar with your product, hired with salaries above yours. If you wanted to keep up with that industry trend, you were forced to keep moving. I eve…

your right, been the case since I started in the 80's. Still the case, best way to get payrise to to show a offer and then they will struggle matching and then say you can expect a substantial payrise over the next few years, or some other excuse. But what I have seen in the 80's, 90's, 00 and today are people who leave for a new job, then come back a few years later and in that process get paid more than there last…

> best way to get payrise to to show a offer and then they will struggle matching and then say you can expect a substantial payrise over the next few years, or some other excuse.

No, the best way is to keep abreast of what new hires are getting paid, and make sure you are staying ahead.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#148

Post by megablast » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 3:55 AM UTC

nugget wrote: post #98

cpprototypes wrote: post #75

Switching jobs works well when developers are in their 20's. But I've found in the 30's that a number of factors combine to make it much less attractive: 1) Each jump becomes less and less. There's an invisible salary cap for software engineers. By the time a software engineer is in their 30's, they've jumped a few times and are already close to the maximum. 2) There are costs associated with switching jobs. There's…

Young developers should save 50% of their after tax income. In some ways, this industry is awesome: to be able to make six figures in your early 20s is an incredible benefit and potential head start on financial independence. In other ways, this industry is incredibly cruel: you will run into age discrimination and the other headwinds mentioned in your mid 30s, if not earlier. I tell the folks I mentor to think of th…

> Young developers should save 50% of their after tax income.

As someone who travels overseas once or twice a year, goes out all the time, I still manage to save>50% of my income. I don't have a car, cycle everywhere, live in a great share house, always look for deals (for traveling and eating out), and stay in the cheaper hotels/bus it around.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#149

Post by kamaal » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 4:05 AM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #54

This "loyalty penalty" is far from new. It was totally obvious to me, and to many of those around me, over twenty years ago. If you stayed at one company, you'd fall behind the industry-wide trend. You'd start to see people who were more junior overall, and clearly less familiar with your product, hired with salaries above yours. If you wanted to keep up with that industry trend, you were forced to keep moving. I eve…

>> Their biggest worry seems to be that if they make an adjustment for one person then everyone else will demand one as well

Though this is true, but its come back to you in some other form though.

Salaries are never a secret, and generally once you get to know a new hire's salary, hired at your level and experience being higher than yours- What follows is resentment. Generally if you ask for a raise you won't get one, and will likely leave.

Re: Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

#150

Post by kamaal » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 4:14 AM UTC

overgard wrote: post #46

HR is really a problem here (at least in the software industry). Pay is usually based on title and how many people you manage, but I think that's pathological for managing developers because developers aren't interchangeable. You have huge variances in skills and knowledge. The thing is, development skills scale in a way most job skills can't. You can have at developer that has 10x more impact than other developers.…

>>I think that's pathological for managing developers because developers aren't interchangeable.

Actually in most cases we are super easily interchangeable. Java related technologies, that involve interacting with databases and presenting data in some way(HTML etc) is what most business software is out there. Developers working in such domains are pretty easily replaceable. Almost like cogs in a wheel.

Pay is based on title because managers are perceived as decision makers, who direct the overall direction of the company. Maintain business contacts and relationships and are supposed be the one's who replace the cogs in the wheel.