How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#131

Post by clairity » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

anchoring and information asymmetries (+ information hiding). they're everywhere and especially all over labor markets. where there is information, it's thinly dispersed and often of dubious quality. anchoring is an easy heuristic to fall back on in those kinds of situations (on both sides).

plus, margin contribution is basically impossible to determine on an individual level, and wages therefore devolve into fundamentally political arguments (as in, expressions of power and influence).

you're expecting a (more) rational market response, when the labor market is anything but fair, free, and transparent, and coerced into that form over centuries by those in power.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#132

Post by _y5hn » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

The straight and boring answer is budgeting.

Either the system allows for it, or it does not.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#133

Post by cat199 » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

much easier to dodge ineffective HR (whether by their own incompetence or organizational inertia) and insecure managers by jumping ship (and optionally asking for a life raft if you want to come back)

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#134

Post by buster » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

Ask yourself, did you provide a 40% increase in value in the last year compared to the year before? Probably not. For another company, that possibly desperately needs a new employee, you might have the value that without you the added income will be zero, with you... More then that.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#135

Post by vbtemp » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #122

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

A lot of companies have budgets allocated to salary increases, so raises are capped. Why that’s the case I have no idea. It’s also strange to me that companies aren’t willing to give a nice raise to an engineer, say from 150k to 180k but are completely fine with hiring a replacement at 180k.

> It’s also strange to me that companies aren’t willing to give a nice raise to an engineer, say from 150k to 180k but are completely fine with hiring a replacement at 180k.

This is literally the story of my professional life.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#136

Post by sys_64738 » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

Needs V Wants.

I need shelter but it only costs so much to full-fill need. Then if I'm get paid sufficient salary to cover all my needs then wants decides the utility of the next marginal dollar. If the value doesn't align with my want then I don't care. As you get older you realize your time is finite and you want to enjoy what you do if you have the opportunity to make such a decision.

So if a job pays 20% more but requires more overtime or more stress then I'll pass.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#137

Post by ikeyany » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #15

100% agree with this article, but would also caution against any kind of generalization. Different people want different things. For the first ~7-10 years of my career I strongly believed that everything was about salary. I picked jobs solely based on the comp package, and the work I did was motivated by bonuses and promotions. I'm sure that's still the case for a large chunk of engineers, but for me, with more exper…

The reason why you can easily pursue those things now is because you optimized for money earlier.

It still is about salary. Except now you can self-actualize since you got the more base pleasures out of your system earlier.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#138

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #68

mywittyname wrote: post #64

I left a job which paid in the 95+ percentile of my area for one that paid right about the median wage (maybe a little less). My reason: I like to own the software I write. We had an influx of people on our team who began to rewrite sections of stuff I wrote a long time ago for no real reason. Basically, some of them didn't like promise chains and decided to rewrite every one they encountered. Things finally bubbled…

I would've changed your code from promise chains to await statements (after warning you, of course) because they just look awful. And I would then have expected you to buy me a beer for getting rid of all that ugly code.

I mean, fair enough, everyone has their personal opinions on style. But these battles can end up with the losing side leaving the company. This was a net loss on both sides: I lost income & a job I otherwise enjoyed while the team lost the key AWS expert that took months to originally fill.

Ironically, a team is probably more likely to lose competent people in such a scenario because they are the ones with many opportunities. A former manager of mine was more than happy to fast track my hiring to my current role.

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#139

Post by vbtemp » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #119

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

It's manager myopia in many cases. I am sure there are some situations where a company may not be able to pay someone in a given role more than X dollars. That company may not view you as capable of the adjacent and more senior role that would increase your comp. But maybe you are on the edge and otherwise a solid employee that they would like to retain, but they feel it would not be fair to other employees in your r…

Thank you for this thoughtful response

Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?

#140

Post by sys_64738 » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #62

I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and responsibility. There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly. I would have love…

Usually when you're hiring you're trying to solve a critical business need. A pay raise to a legacy employee doesn't get you more productivity.