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Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

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Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#261

Post by icedchai »

goalieca wrote: post #232
icedchai wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Over the past ~25 years, I've had 10 jobs, everything from junior engineer to a (failed) startup CTO. I've never left a job due to compensation. Poor morale, stubborn leadership, dysfunctional teams, uninteresting work, obviously bad business models, managerial incompetence and nepotism, have all been reasons. I even left jobs to take a pay cut to get out of these bad situations.

It’s because you’ve never stayed lo my enough for your salary to get stale. Around year 5-7 you’ll get tired of the less than inflation amounts of raise if you even get that. Every time I’ve switched jobs I get a title bump and a big raise.

That is true, to some extent. The longest I ever held a job was 6 years. Shortest, 6 months.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#262

Post by BurningFrog »

YZF wrote: post #120
BurningFrog wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubling your income would mean you can take 50% of your time off with the same income. Pretty sure that would change your life!

It doesn't really work like that. The reality is that you can't work 50% of the time for half the salary (if that's what you mean). When you make more money you typically want a nicer place to live, maybe a nicer car, your standard of living will go up somewhat. Now to maintain that standard of living you're going to need to save more money. Maybe you have kids and you want to be able to pay for their education, or b…

I have asked to work 4 day weeks at 80% of my salary a few times, and not had a problem. When I once asked for a 3 day week that was turned down.

The other way to work 50% is to take a few months or years break between jobs.

I've enjoyed doing that. It's certainly not for everyone.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#263

Post by Ancalagon »

District5524 wrote: post #167
Ancalagon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a lawyer position irreplaceable, but an engineering/blue collar one is not? Not trying to be spiteful or angry, just geniunely curious about the business logic and psychology behind that kind of decision making. Isn't every job replaceable?

I think the reason is not that lawyers are irreplaceable, to the contrary perhaps. The reason is most likely that law firms are always led by lawyers, while that's rarely true for firms where most engineers work (or for most other professions). Typcially, law firms can only be owned by lawyers due to regulatory constraints (the UK, Australia being a notable, but not particularly successful exception). While this rule…

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for explaining!

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#264

Post by AnimalMuppet »

lainga wrote: post #80
gregfjohnson wrote: post #78

A person close to me works at a law firm. She was feeling a bit stagnant, so she connected with a recruiter. She got a very solid offer with a significant pay bump. She gave her two weeks' notice to her firm, including appointments with the partners. One of the partners asked her for a half hour. They came back with a massive pay raise, and a promotion to partner if she would stay. She was in a state of shock, but th…

What prevents engineering firms from acting like law firms?

Partners at law firms know that the money comes from the lawyers, and they (probably) know who the rising stars are.

Managers at engineering firms too often think that the money comes from the wisdom of the managers and the hustle of the marketers, not from the work of the engineers.

This may be because partners at law firms are lawyers, but upper managers at engineering firms often are not engineers.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#265

Post by consteval »

BurningFrog wrote: post #106
BadHumans wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make low six figures in a low to medium cost of living area. I don't think even doubling my income would change my life too much.

Doubling your income would mean you can take 50% of your time off with the same income. Pretty sure that would change your life!

> you can take 50% of your time off

The economy and society isn't structured like this. I'd happily take half the pay I have now for half the time. But the only way to get that time is to make 10 dollars an hour flipping burgers.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#266

Post by consteval »

ruszki wrote: post #225
throwaway2037 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So 50% more salary might only end up being 20% more in your hand. Can you give an example of a tax regime where this would hold true? I find your example hard to believe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

Even under a progressive tax things don't work the way conservative fiscal armchair economists would like to have you believe.

Poor people still, comparatively, spend more of their income to taxes. That's because poor people have to spend more of their income on direct consumption, i.e. not investment.

If I'm poor I'm easily spending 90% of all my money on stuff for me, right now. If I'm rich that drops to 10%, and the rest goes towards stuff that isn't taxed.

So, while income tax may favor the poor, sales tax very obviously favors the rich. The only reason a progressive tax exists is because rich people are so powerfully favored in modern tax systems, we need to try to bring them back in line to the burden poorer people face. Even still, poor people face more burden.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#267

Post by consteval »

BurningFrog wrote: post #102
nsxwolf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find my salary very difficult to replace, and it's not particularly high. I'm assuming it's all pay cuts from here on out with the economy the way it is.

The economy has been objectively really great last few years. Many people say the economy is bad, whatever the measurable macro-economical state of the economy is.

This is because the idea of economy has been highjacked by armchair capitalists.

The economy has almost nothing to do with the average person's quality of life. We've completely lost the plot. That's why a country like the US can have such an insane GDP and GDP per capita and have comparatively much lower quality of life than countries with worse economies.

When people say the economy is bad, they mean the things that actually matter. When economists say the economy is good, they're speaking of some theoretical economy nobody can see. They're speaking of numbers on a screen, that don't go into your pocket. That's where the discrepancy comes from.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#268

Post by VirusNewbie »

fire_lake wrote: post #169
zelos wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.levels.fyi/ . I don't know how accurate their data is, though.

I mean experience wise, not TC. Like “how do my skills compare to a Google L7?”

what do you want to know? (not L7 though).

Mostly the level determines scope:

L3 can work on a feature or part of a feature. L4 can own a large feature. L5 owns a project. L6 owns a large project or something that affects multiple projects. L7 is working across multiple teams to improve many teams projects.

However, a project at rando big company might be very different than a project at a FAANG, so even these terms are incredibly nebulous.

Generally, most FAANGs are very snobby in that even if you pass the interviews, if you don't come from another FAANG type company you get down leveled. I know multiple people this happened to( Interviewed for L7 EM, offer L6 EM. Interviewed for L6 SWE, offer at L5 SWE).

Age and experience matter less though. I know L5s who are 29, and L5s who are in their late 50s.

So if you interview for L6, unless you nail every part of every interview, expect L5. Same with L7, L4, etc.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#269

Post by thot_experiment »

longdustytrail wrote: post #124
thot_experiment wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true for most people, when you ask older people about their regrets, it's often that they worked too much and didn't live enough.

There are many people who don’t get asked about their regrets when they’re older. And there are many people living lives of quiet desperation.

Yes but the set of people we're talking about in this context is software engineers often paid well above median.

Re: Why Don't Tech Companies Pay Their Engineers to Stay?

#270

Post by everforward »

lainga wrote: post #80
gregfjohnson wrote: post #78

A person close to me works at a law firm. She was feeling a bit stagnant, so she connected with a recruiter. She got a very solid offer with a significant pay bump. She gave her two weeks' notice to her firm, including appointments with the partners. One of the partners asked her for a half hour. They came back with a massive pay raise, and a promotion to partner if she would stay. She was in a state of shock, but th…

What prevents engineering firms from acting like law firms?

People may hate this, but people leaving is valuable to companies as a whole.

Lawyers typically specialize and they work off the same body of work everywhere (the same set of laws). Having worked for 10 law firms doesn’t mean that they know something current employees don’t.

Tech isn’t like that. Everywhere is different, many of us touch multiple specializations, the body of knowledge we need is always shifting. An engineer that has worked 10 places very likely does know things your current employees don’t, like different tools.

Losing an engineer is bad for the individual business, but engineers moving around is good for businesses in general.

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