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Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

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Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#241

Post by WorldMaker »

mlrtime wrote: post #84
gtirloni wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same situation at a different company, except they kept telling us "we made sure this won't keep happening". Of course few people believed and we lost many good engineers that simply left because they couldn't have a major source of income coming from such unstable place. I like to believe executives know their workforce will shrink more than the layoff numbers. They must know this. They also must know it will be har…

>They must know this. They also must know it will be harder to hire new people. They know this, right? Please someone tell me so. What time horizon are you thinking? People will forget '22/'23 layoffs very quickly. This is especially true if you made it through these last years, the market picks up and you want to move.

In a world where Glassdoor and LinkedIn exists?

I've got an employer that I've held a grudge against for nearly two decades now and another that friends of mine have held grudges against since at least two corporate rebrandings ago, all just off the top of my head. We'll all happily talk dirt in a LinkedIn DM or over beers and who is to say how many of us all posted some anonymous strongly worded letter to something like Glassdoor.

Labor is still a market, for now, and while it isn't as liquid or as free of a market (in terms of open price [wage/salary] information, in terms of too many near monopsonies and/or trust-like behavior) as it should be in America, and companies should stop treating it like a one-way street. Bad labor relations hurts brands and eventually the market uses that information. It's not always efficient at using that information especially because it isn't liquid/free enough, but it uses that information.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#242

Post by WorldMaker »

dangus wrote: post #104
lazyasciiart wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salesforce layoffs had no internal cause - just "investors want us to cut costs". They selected people at random, and we lost tons of people who were essential and difficult to replace. Then they said "we can't guarantee there won't be more, and we can't tell you any way to avoid being hit". And then they said stuff about productivity going down but I didn't care, surprise!

I think this example is way more common than the situation your parent commenter described. Most corporations don’t seem to be identifiably strategic about layoffs. They don’t make a coherent plan until the shit hits the fan and the board dictates that a certain percentage must go. I’ve been laid off three times and not once was my layoff a result of a coherent strategy or reflective of my utility/value to the team.…

Relatedly:

- Layoff to hopefully bump stock price prior to M&A negotiations

- Layoff to "streamline" before new CTO start date whether or not the CTO was expected to change directions and before incoming CTO even evaluated the existing teams. Further simplified: layoff to hopefully bump stock price due to speculation about CTO transfer being theoretically messy on paper.

There's definitely a common thread in my layoffs of some dull ideas to please some form of stock investor's short-term, single Quarter thinking, maybe influenced by actual stock investors. That's also something that there seems to be some data on in 2022/2023 layoff cycles in general how much of them have been "activist" shareholder lead, as much or more than board strategy (though the Venn Diagrams between boards and "activist" shareholders is sometimes quite close to a circle, go figure).

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#243

Post by lucasyvas »

I disagree with the absolute framing of 2 and 3. They're not wrong takes, but they're highly dependent on the company stage.

For 2, it's a feature factory below a certain size or market penetration. You will be valuable but you will be anything but calm and relaxed. Research doesn't qualify, talking about Product here.

3, which is Platform and/or maintenance is definitely unsexy until you are a scale up and your software sucks ass since you never maintained it and no amount of infrastructure can save it. Then to grow you become extremely important.

I think you want to consider the company size, the state of the product, and its market fit before making these assertions.

All three are the best and worst jobs to have, it just depends when and where you are.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#244

Post by lazyasciiart »

geodel wrote: post #160
gtirloni wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt people will forget in time ( But anyone looking for a job ought to do due dilligence when things pick up again and at least set the correct expectations about how long their relationship with the company could last if the market turns bad again.

Why? If anyone frequented this or many other forums they'd know employers can terminate employee any time without any reason whatsoever. Leave the job with as little notice as possible because employers absolutely do not care for you. And when last year it did happen people here are feeling hurt as if forever job promise is broken.

"As little notice as possible" as in send an email 3am Wednesday that you have left the job and as of sending this email you are no longer able to be contacted? I would have a very negative opinion of that person, just as I do of the employer who conducted layoffs that way.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#245

Post by lazyasciiart »

austin-cheney wrote: post #55
lazyasciiart wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salesforce layoffs had no internal cause - just "investors want us to cut costs". They selected people at random, and we lost tons of people who were essential and difficult to replace. Then they said "we can't guarantee there won't be more, and we can't tell you any way to avoid being hit". And then they said stuff about productivity going down but I didn't care, surprise!

Nobody wants to believe that they are easy to replace... as they are laid off and replaced. So, comment redacted.

Some of my former coworkers are lucky enough to now know that they were irreplaceable, or close to it, as they were hired back after being laid off. There are more former coworkers who have been gone almost a year now and wouldn't dream of coming back, but have not been replaced and are still regretted by their former colleagues.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#246

Post by ocimbote »

generic92034 wrote: post #46
a1o wrote: post #19

> Maintenance is always on the chopping block I wonder if someone or someplace figured a way to make software maintenance and support to be better valued. It's like, it's reasonably easy to market and sell internally the start of a project and consume from some internal investment (CapEx like) budget to make it, but once you have done all of that was in scope, you delivered, it's a lot harder to keep it going at the…

Maintenance is instantly a good business case if you can sell maintenance and support contracts to your customers. Of course you will rarely find that in B2C areas, but in B2B it is not uncommon.

Excellent point. I do Platform Engineering in a B2C business, our budget is very thin despite demonstrated the economy of scale provided by proper use of the platform.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#247

Post by WWLink »

mooreds wrote: post #3

In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…

ooOoo I work at the 3rd kind... the thing is, our products have several different major engineering components, luckily we're all treated equally! That can also be a little bit of a downside sometimes, because the software industry definitely pays better at the top lol.

But I'm still getting paid damn well for a job that isn't at a software company. Woo!

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#248

Post by strikelaserclaw »

michael_leachim wrote: post #76
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is nuance here, even within a product company, not all software is equal. There's software to support core business (think ads in Google) and there's probably software to support internal dashboards (also in Google), I'm sure engineers working in ads in Google have much more leverage than those working in making dashboards for ops or some internal ticketing system. Conversely, I'm sure the companies we…

thank you, maybe it is easier to understand when you ask whether business will halt and die if the system you are responsible for is down or suddenly absent or it is going to be a mild inconvenience. I think, defined like this makes it less ambiguous edit: fix msg

this is a good way of putting it, thanks, it is also a good way of assessing ones one value to a company (if i disappear tomorrow, will it mostly be a minor inconvenience or will there be a DEFCON 1 response raised)

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#249

Post by mooreds »

tessierashpool wrote: post #211
jncfhnb wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flat fees. Problem solved.

flat fees fail for dev. as soon as you encounter an unexpected problem, your margin suffers. since unexpected problems can radically alter dev time, your margin can be obliterated.

I love this post about the topic: http://web.archive.org/web/20220507182508/https://rickmaneli...

(Lost on the current site, as far as I can tell.)

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#250

Post by jsdwarf »

One word of warning about the cozy R&D department of a product org: you may suffer from the boiling frog syndrome. Little attrition and long-time continuity means everybody stays in their seat and there a few true career opportunities beyond seniority promotions (dev - senior dev etc). After 5-10 years you find yourself quickly at the end of your promotion trajectory and realize that much younger/cheaper folks have the same role as you. This puts you at a disadvantage in salary negotiations and increases the risk of being let go. Project-driven orgs can be brutal environments, but there is always a possibility to climb up the ladder due to high churn.
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