251–260 of 349 posts
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And your boss at 121 time askes so exactly what have you delivered.
Git activity is the most praised metric at my company. Refactoring and commenting is highly rewarded. The utility of this metric is dubious.
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…
I can tell you as a manager the salary bands are generally set by HR for the whole company. I was told point blank at a previous employer that we payed the 70th percentile. I asked how they knew what that was - apparently there are companies that aggregate this data (legally?) and sell it back to HR orgs for $xx,xxx+ a year. HR for some reason wouldn't deviate from this band for top talent (discrimination maybe?)
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This class of characterization gets around, though usually the coverage is more directly about the "culture of fear." Please consider how terrible a job is when you're constantly afraid and working yourself to the bone to avoid being fired; it's probably in line with that. The WSJ had a piece in 2018 which sparked a bunch of follow-on coverage: "Mr. Hastings’ ring of top executives take the keeper test seriously. At…
How does anybody tolerate that kind of work environment? Maybe I'm weak but no amount of money could compensate for that kind of stress and misery IMO. I work for a well-known company that's below FAANG tier but is basically the anti-Netflix. It's just so freaking NICE that I never want to leave even though my salary is slightly below market. I never feel guilty taking time off, employees are encouraged to take sick…
You could splurge it, but you could also manage it well and potentially retire early? My friend seems to be on this path.
You could use your time at a FAANG to get experience, accumulate money, and have the FAANG brand on your resume to leverage for future job prospects?
Also from everything I hear, working as a SWE at FAANG and other top tech companies are still more pleasant to work at than as a SWE in other industries - i.e. finance.
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…
I think there's an anchoring mechanism. You come in at a level and maybe promote after a couple years but then every promotion becomes harder, they are used to you and there's the other engineers with their salaries and there's a lot of mental inertia to see that John should be now a staff engineer when he's already promoted (is he really so outstanding compared to the other engineers?). But you interview with anothe…
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Pay is a sign of how valued I am. If my pay is low I might not need more money but I need the recognition that I'm valued that comes from more pay.
I’ve previously read the the number one employee complaint is not pay but feeling under-appreciated. I think the difficulty for managers is knowing an employee’s particular language of appreciation. One may value being lauded in front of the company with an award or snazzy new title while another couldn’t care less and would rather be shown appreciation through a behind-the-scenes bonus.
as others have pointed out, pay is inextricably tied with perceptions of fairness, so it's a highly relative measure. if programmers are paid 30k on average, then getting 35k seems fair to you. but if the average is 60k, then 35k seems insulting.
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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.
Which is fine but the budget needs to go up by inflation every year. Most places it doesn't. I've switched jobs before because my salary didn't meet inflation. Yes I was near the max for my grade and my responsibilities didn't deserve the next grade. However if I'm losing to inflation I'm gone: that is a pay cut. (I was able to transfer)
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 best thing you can do to improve pay at your workplace is leave. This is the sad truth of the free market.
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This is demonstrably incorrect if you look at some of the highest paying companies in SV. FAANG are of course well known for paying way way above what is necessary to satisfy "everyone's material needs and desires", and yet they are well known for still being ruthless political cultures and backstabbing. Execs might be congenial because at that level, congenial is just how you play the game. It's still cutthroat, but…
This idea of FAANGs having a culture of ruthless political backstabbing is new to me, is it really the case? I have heard about things like misaligned incentives (eg launching a chat app to get people promoted and then discontinuing it a year later) but that actually seems like the opposite of ruthless to me (complacent?)
Netflix: https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-workplace-culture-often-ru...
Amazon: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...
I remember these articles from when they were posted. I don't know of any specific articles for Apple or Google, but I know that my friends at Google think Google is a brutal place to work for most (Google of early 2010s apparently was much more chill, but not anymore). As for Apple, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook are of course known for their incredibly ruthless management style.
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Less autonomy also means less responsibility which affects growth in a bad way, but there is a small bright side to this, it reduces the cognitive workload and one can have leftover energy for side projects and hobbies. For the ones who have absolutely no taste to bureaucracy/red tape/stupid hierarchies of command, this could be soul sucking though
It doesn’t reduce cognitive workload for high performers. With my previous boss, I spent 90% of my intellectual effort managing up. Despite his best efforts, the project was delivered above spec and on time (saving his ass), but I burnt so many political bridges making it happen that I ended up moving teams.
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Yes, they do. This comes up every time compensation gets mentioned on HN. Engineers claim that "I only make $500k/yr at Google and I'm poor because SF prices :(" which is just bullshit. In a previous thread, someone mentioned that they make $300k/yr in SF, and even after paying for housing in a nice area and food/utility expenses, they had over $11,000 per month left over in discretionary income. That is insane. Unle…
I’d be curious to know where that person got such cheap housing. $300k/yr translates to $15k/month take home. Houses are like $10k/month if you’re looking to own. Even if you rent, it’s still close to $5-6k/month if you want a decent neighborhood. I’m not even talking about nice houses btw. Maybe they rent an apartment and share the rent. That’s the only way I see them coming up with those numbers. $300k/year isn’t e…
Renting, there are actual luxury condos and apartments ready to rent for $3-4k, again in multiple nice neighborhoods.
>$300k/year isn’t enough for single income families in the Bay Area.
The median household income for SF families is less than $100k, and you're telling me three times that "isn't enough"? That's bullshit.
Responding to your edit: I don't live in SF, but prior to covid I traveled there every week for work, so I am familiar with the city. For a local example, my best friend makes ~$140k/yr, lives in Nob Hill in a gorgeous high rise apartment, and still has thousands to spend every month on fun discretionary activities. Another close friend who makes ~$250k/yr owns a great house in Inner Sunset and they certainly seem like they are able to afford any other desires they want (a boat, all kinds of tech gadgets, trips all the time, etc).