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

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

#21

Post by thanatropism »

awat wrote: post #3

Not directly a compensation component but organizations can make sure they have a technical leader supporting software organizations. Consulting with companies on productivity I can’t express how much devs not feeling like they have representation/a voice at the exec level negates comp effectiveness.

Question is, can this be faked?

What we're saying is that coders are often willing to pay for "a seat at the table". But maybe management can sell them a placebo.

It's not clear-cut that management ignoring coders will always turn out for the worse, even though management that always ignores coders probably has, historically. Maybe sometimes their voice matters and sometimes not.

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

#22

Post by the_jeremy »

IMO, the only reason above-market pay doesn't raise retention as much as people want is that it's possible to have above-market pay and a job people enjoy doing.

And on the other hand, you can offer enough above-market and people will do any job, as evidenced by the other thread I saw yesterday where people were making crazy salaries to implement unethical, deceptive practices against their users.

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

#24

Post by j45 »

Money alone doesn't keep many problem solvers around.

Problem solving is as important as the compensation.

A great environment to solve problems, and to be able to work with other smart, conscientious people, while pursuing new levels of mastery is a really good sell.

People who are driven solely, or primarily by money can't be paid enough and will on that mindset, tend to move on.

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

#26

Post by cdumler »

iso1631 wrote: post #12
throwaway4666 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more

Indeed, pay me $1m a day and I'll stare at a wall for you. Probably wouldn't do it for long, the first day would be amazing - that buys a great house. The rest of the week and I'm set for a very comfortable retirement.

For a few days. My experience is that high pay will A) keep bad people around for much, much longer and B) keep good people around until they get too fed up with the bad people.

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

#27

Post by nthj »

iso1631 wrote: post #12
throwaway4666 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more

Indeed, pay me $1m a day and I'll stare at a wall for you. Probably wouldn't do it for long, the first day would be amazing - that buys a great house. The rest of the week and I'm set for a very comfortable retirement.

This is part of why stock options are so valuable to organizations as an incentive: the retention power of high pay without the calculus of “do I have enough?” from liquid compensation

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

#28

Post by exabrial »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #5
exabrial wrote: post #2

It's only about 50% about pay for STEM fields. They have to be engaged, feel like they have a voice or influence in the culture/business decisions, have great equipment to use, and flexible time off.

All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more

This is true, but it's a temporary solution. Eventually intellectuals get bored.

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

#29

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #5
exabrial wrote: post #2

It's only about 50% about pay for STEM fields. They have to be engaged, feel like they have a voice or influence in the culture/business decisions, have great equipment to use, and flexible time off.

All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more

[deleted]

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

#30

Post by centimeter »

> When it comes to engineers, the key to employee retention isn't just about pay.

Maybe I’m atypical, but at a certain point all the other factors just don’t cut it. If you’re trying to pay me $400k/yr total comp and I can get $600k/yr elsewhere, the disparities in culture or whatever have to be pretty significant to dominate.

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