Great developers are raised, not hired • Hacker News Board

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#211

Post by DtnB » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #176

freyir wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think you’re entitled to a trained developer for the price of an inexperienced developer. That’s not going to happen. No wonder they leave.

The end result is hiring trained developers for the price of trained developers, and sending the inexperienced developers to be trained somewhere else. Where? That's their problem. See? Looking just for one's interests works both ways.

Do you not see how there is value in having someone who is trained to your specifications? You're still getting labor out of someone but when they move to being a proper dev you don't have to worry about any training issues because you trained them. I truly doubt you hire developers who are productive from day one, when your mentees will be productive from day one as a real dev AND will probably have less growing pains from having learned bad habits or a different standard at another company.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#212

Post by mamon » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #47

msluyter wrote: post #20

I officially mentored someone at my previous company and helped him move from a support tech role into a software dev position. It was incredibly rewarding. But to play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't there something of a natural disincentive to level up one's employees in such a tight labor market? To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someon…

>To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someone else "catches" the fish, that effort is largely wasted. Even more curious is that IT culture is basically that if you want to get paid what you're worth, you have to quit and go to another company. So these companies put all this effort into raising a better developer, and then refuse to pay them what…

My personal best was a 100% pay increase, when I went from being young and naive to "know your worth and negotiate aggresively" attitude :) That was almost 8 years ago, I changed the jobs few times since then, for additional aggregate 50% increase in salary.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#213

Post by poisonborz » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #207

As a developer, I want to work with people who are at least as knowledgeable as me, and preferably much more so. I want to spend my time learning what I do not know, not teaching what I do.

You must be a junior with a few years of experience. Even so, you should discover that teaching will boost your knowledge a lot. Being surrounded by more experienced people may give you a short term boost, but teaching what you already know will deepen your knowledge in what you only think you know, which is way more important to improve.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#214

Post by wwweston » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #47

msluyter wrote: post #20

I officially mentored someone at my previous company and helped him move from a support tech role into a software dev position. It was incredibly rewarding. But to play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't there something of a natural disincentive to level up one's employees in such a tight labor market? To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someon…

>To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someone else "catches" the fish, that effort is largely wasted. Even more curious is that IT culture is basically that if you want to get paid what you're worth, you have to quit and go to another company. So these companies put all this effort into raising a better developer, and then refuse to pay them what…

> The last time I switched jobs, I got a 40% pay increase. That's ridiculous. I even told the company I was underpaid and they asked if I could wait a year for a raise.

As far as I can tell, management that can see beyond the idea that your current payscale is what you should be payed is pretty rare. There's just something about anchoring on a price once it's negotiated.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#215

Post by hinkley » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #47

msluyter wrote: post #20

I officially mentored someone at my previous company and helped him move from a support tech role into a software dev position. It was incredibly rewarding. But to play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't there something of a natural disincentive to level up one's employees in such a tight labor market? To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someon…

>To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someone else "catches" the fish, that effort is largely wasted. Even more curious is that IT culture is basically that if you want to get paid what you're worth, you have to quit and go to another company. So these companies put all this effort into raising a better developer, and then refuse to pay them what…

My experience is that one of the reasons people will leave is feeling trapped. If they feel like they can easily leave they will stay longer. Not a lot longer, maybe six to eight months. But that’s still up to 20% longer.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#216

Post by mamon » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #197

swiftcoder wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you give your current salary during a negotiation, the other end is going to come right back with that salary +5% (at best). Hidden information is your friend in any negotiation, but especially here, since the hiring folks also know how variable industry salary ranges are. You want to put the first move in their court - decline to give your current salary at all costs, and ideally also avoid offering up your p…

This advice functionally doesn’t work. They’ll just intentionally lowball the first offer and then say well they can’t read your mind so you need to tell them what you want. A better strategy is to really research competitive wages and anchor high by honestly saying what you want. If they can’t come close, then walk away. If they ask you to compromise, tell them you’re not going to negotiate against yourself by stati…

First of all, they cannot force you to give them your current salary. My standard answer to such question is a slightly more polite version of "it's none of your bussiness". And if they don't want to provide a salary range, and ask you to come up with the number, then just give them your current salary +50% and see how they react. Of course you might then need to step down a little, and accept your current salary + 20-30% instead, but that's still pretty good.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#217

Post by z3t4 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #142

salarycommenter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an alt specifically for discussing compensation because I know it elicits that reaction and I don't want that associated with my professional identity. I think discussing compensation frankly and openly is very important. People have no idea what is possible. Two people on the same team at the same company can have wildly different compensation. My goal with this alt is to get people to take the biggest slice…

Any advice on learning your true worth? Assume for a minute that Glassdoor is useless, as the "salary range" it displays shows that the maximum is 2-2.5x the minimum.

The only thing that matter is what they think you can get elsewhere. eg. what others are willing to pay. Think of it as an auction. Something might be worth $100 but if the highest bid is $10 you are only going to bid $15 not $100.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#218

Post by swiftcoder » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

troels wrote: post #200

swiftcoder wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you give your current salary during a negotiation, the other end is going to come right back with that salary +5% (at best). Hidden information is your friend in any negotiation, but especially here, since the hiring folks also know how variable industry salary ranges are. You want to put the first move in their court - decline to give your current salary at all costs, and ideally also avoid offering up your p…

This is the "common knowledge" thing to do, but I don't think it's always applicable. If you have an advantage in the market (e.g. are sought after), you can simply present a high figure and either they accept or you move on to the next. By playing the let-them-go-first game, you're implicitly signalling that you don't know where the ceiling is. On the other hand, if you say a high figure with confidence, they may ac…

I don't necessarily disagree with you on anchoring at a high value. But moving first with your current salary is a guaranteed losing strategy.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#219

Post by pm90 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

msluyter wrote: post #20

I officially mentored someone at my previous company and helped him move from a support tech role into a software dev position. It was incredibly rewarding. But to play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't there something of a natural disincentive to level up one's employees in such a tight labor market? To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someon…

> Make the culture of your company so awesome that people will want to stay, even if you can't pay the most. Make mentoring/growth a central strategy at every level so people will see a path to grow.

This is why company culture is so important. You may not be able to compete on financial compensation right away, but if you have a culture thats great, enables people to learn and grow and work with other great folks, its very attractive as compared to simply throwing more money.

Not to mention: many folks _want_ that kind of mentorship and culture. They desperately want to learn from smart, experienced developers.

Re: Great developers are raised, not hired

#220

Post by noego » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

salarycommenter wrote: post #61

wccrawford wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To follow the author's analogy, by mentoring someone, we're effectively "adding a fish" to the pond, and if someone else "catches" the fish, that effort is largely wasted. Even more curious is that IT culture is basically that if you want to get paid what you're worth, you have to quit and go to another company. So these companies put all this effort into raising a better developer, and then refuse to pay them what…

Currently switching jobs for a personal record 57% increase in total compensation. And I was NOT poorly compensated before. I was already in the 99th percentile for individual income. The harder I push on comp the more I get each time. I am not going to lie and say that it didn't take years to build to this point in terms of skill, work record, professional network, and interview ability. It took three FAANG companie…

You went from 300k to ~460k? Well done. Have you considered sharing your experiences around how you negotiated that?