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Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

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Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#71

Post by Eridrus »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #39
pnathan wrote: post #17

Point one: if you want me to want to stick around, your company has to have challenges I want to work on over time. Point two: do not underpay me. I will tolerate a fuzz around market rate, and I will adapt to market conditions. I will quit as soon as I can if you systematically undervalue me (see point one: my value will go up). Point three: build a company designed for fifty years, to deliver use and value, and you…

In line with these points but more nuts and bolts: if you want people who won't leave within at least N years, give them N-year guaranteed contracts that can be terminated only for cause/good reason (these are terms with specific legal meaning). Since I will have agreed in advance to the pay rate for each year, you can't undervalue me unless I'm complicit, and you can't lay me off just because your company is doing p…

I'm pretty sure developers in silicon valley don't want greater security.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#72

Post by fredkbloggs »

Eridrus wrote: post #71
fredkbloggs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In line with these points but more nuts and bolts: if you want people who won't leave within at least N years, give them N-year guaranteed contracts that can be terminated only for cause/good reason (these are terms with specific legal meaning). Since I will have agreed in advance to the pay rate for each year, you can't undervalue me unless I'm complicit, and you can't lay me off just because your company is doing p…

I'm pretty sure developers in silicon valley don't want greater security.

It depends who you think the average bay area engineer is. If you've bought into the view that it's a 23 year old single white man who lives with 4 indistinguishable roommates in a small house in San Francisco, believes he's God's gift to engineering, and wants to job-hop his way to CTO and millionaire status by 27, you're probably right. After all, he's a 10x A-player, everyone is killing it, and the last time there was a bust he was in second grade. Security's for losers!

The reality is that most people who make a living writing software in the bay area are middle-aged, married or partnered, have children and a fat mortgage, and aren't really a part of "silicon valley". They live quietly, don't go to meetups or write blogs, and they're mediocre to decent contributors at work and they know it. A large minority, perhaps even a majority, are not white; they are Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, and from almost every other national or ethnic background you could name. Many are women, despite the oft-repeated myth of sexist hiring practices. In a nutshell, they're ordinary people with ordinary concerns nothing like the HN echo chamber's perceptions of the world. And you can bet your ass they'd like a little security.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#73

Post by Eridrus »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #72
Eridrus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure developers in silicon valley don't want greater security.

It depends who you think the average bay area engineer is. If you've bought into the view that it's a 23 year old single white man who lives with 4 indistinguishable roommates in a small house in San Francisco, believes he's God's gift to engineering, and wants to job-hop his way to CTO and millionaire status by 27, you're probably right. After all, he's a 10x A-player, everyone is killing it, and the last time there…

Besides all the waffling here, what I'm reading is that some people want insurance against a bubble popping.

And that seems reasonable, but I'm not sure how you expect that to work, given the last bubble caused entire companies to go under, and multi-year commitments to staff might cause even more to go under, or at least through bankruptcy proceedings where they will shed those staff anyway.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#74

Post by Eridrus »

sanderjd wrote: post #57
nick_urban wrote: post #40

Companies will never value employees as much as employees value themselves. If programmers can get a promotion and a 20% raise by switching employers, and a 3% raise by staying, why would they stay? I find it funny that startups would expect to attract "missionaries" when most of them lack missions of any substance.

I've always found this market inefficiency fascinating. It's conventional wisdom (not just in the software industry) that the best way to get a big raise is to switch jobs, but your employer "should" be aware of the market rate for your work, and have the most information about your value and the most incentive to keep you around. I've always wondered if new employers are overvaluing new hires, or whether current emp…

Alternatively, if new employers were not paying a premium, they would have a harder time attracting talent, so they are willing to pay more to fill the slots they really need to fill.

And employees have a switching cost, if you're getting paid 5% below market, that's probably not enough to get you to jump ship by itself.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#75

Post by Eridrus »

tomjen3 wrote: post #54
eabraham wrote: post #14

"Your goal, as a hiring manager, is to find the people who want to invest in their careers, who are aiming for mastery and not just looking to make more money or build a shiny resume." Why are these two concepts mutually exclusive? Experience, money, and mastery are just a few of the side effects of a successful career.

Yeah, that made me see red. Just money? Money is food in my mouth, money is attention from a qualified doctor in a good hospital when I get ill, money is a good place to live in a nice and safe area, with heating that turns on in the winter, money is a car that starts when you turn the key, with a tank full of gas. Money is fucking important.

In the context of software engineering in silicon valley, money isn't the difference between being able to afford a car that starts or not, it's mostly about how much money you have sloshing around in a rainy day fund.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#76

Post by tomjen3 »

Eridrus wrote: post #75
tomjen3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that made me see red. Just money? Money is food in my mouth, money is attention from a qualified doctor in a good hospital when I get ill, money is a good place to live in a nice and safe area, with heating that turns on in the winter, money is a car that starts when you turn the key, with a tank full of gas. Money is fucking important.

In the context of software engineering in silicon valley, money isn't the difference between being able to afford a car that starts or not, it's mostly about how much money you have sloshing around in a rainy day fund.

Okay lets change it then: more money is how long you can do without a job and still have all those things.

Re: Fixing Engineering's Loyalty and Longevity Problem

#77

Post by [deleted] »

rifung wrote: post #68
golemotron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being that diversity is correlated with financial performance. Can you back that up?

Sure. I imagine Google will easily give you more results but here's one: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/is_there_a_pay... As has been said many times before, correlation is not causation though, and other studies have shown that the more females you have, the better a team performs so maybe we dont need diversity and just need more women. I do remember reading other articles about the benefits of racia…

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