Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

builtin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 349 posts

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

#271

Post by jacques_chester »

mcgrathpm11 wrote: post #105

I worked at Netflix for several years, where they actively practice paying ‘top of market.’ This is an oft misunderstood tactic, but in action means: 1) Yearly, employees are asked to seek evidence for their top of market compensation. 2) employees do two things as a follow up - They either interview elsewhere to get competing offers to establish ‘top of market,’ or they feel fairly paid and do nothing. Having worked…

I'm probably taking the wrong lesson away here, because from an outside perspective the message seems to be "don't waste time interviewing someone who currently works for Netflix".

You'll either waste your time, or get buyer's remorse. Very little upside.

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

#272

Post by goatinaboat »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #219
YetAnotherMatt wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the times are definitely changing, a lot of people are still very averse to finding a new workplace. This means that even at a 1% raise per year, some people will stick around for decades. One of the best developers at one of the companies I worked for was exactly that kind of person. For the company this means a large amount of extra profit year in year out. The odds of you saying "Nevermind, I'm out" when the…

>This means that even at a 1% raise per year, some people will stick around for decades. One of the best developers at one of the companies I worked for was exactly that kind of person. As someone in their 30s who has spent in-person time at about a dozen companies (a stint in consulting will do that) ranging from start-ups to large enterprise, this is exceedingly rare from what I've seen. Hardly anyone makes it to a…

Hardly anyone makes it to a single decade, much less multiple. Maybe at a law firm, but not in a development role.

I’m guessing you’re a webdev and this is normal for that industry but in more “traditional” fields programmers behave much more like other white-collar workers. I’ve met plenty with 20-30 year stunts at the same company.

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

#273

Post by yibg »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #144
yibg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I’ve seen a job at Netflix characterized this way. Total comp at Netflix also isn’t any higher than say Facebook or google.

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…

I think like any company of a decent size, the truth is it depends. On the team, particular individual etc. At least in the engineering side of things, I haven't seen a culture of fear. There is a bit of anxiety going in, because of the reputation, but pretty soon I realized it was pretty exaggerated.

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

#274

Post by vmception »

YetAnotherMatt wrote: post #120
vbtemp wrote: post #62

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…

While the times are definitely changing, a lot of people are still very averse to finding a new workplace. This means that even at a 1% raise per year, some people will stick around for decades. One of the best developers at one of the companies I worked for was exactly that kind of person. For the company this means a large amount of extra profit year in year out. The odds of you saying "Nevermind, I'm out" when the…

> While the times are definitely changing, a lot of people are still very averse to finding a new workplace.

This is one thing I've coached career-focused and executive aspiring women on.

If they are worried about being assertive and being called a "bitch" at their current organization then they are already playing at a disadvantage.

The competition is full of men that got called "cocky" and self absorbed at many organizations, before landing in one at a senior level in a different place that needed someone new to shake things up or "make the hard decisions".

I don't really see that factored in to the outcomes.

Whether this idea results in a bunch of women finding that no organization wants their assertive attitude? Time will tell. A level playing field definitely involves normalizing behavior.

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

#275

Post by yibg »

bluGill wrote: post #164
yibg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm actually even ok with losing to inflation if that's the market rate. My main issue is internal raises seem to be detached from market rates. I mean, why would you want to pay your engineers that are already familiar with the system and domain less than an external hire?

Maybe there is some math done somewhere that says the money saved from underpaying from reduced raises is more beneficial than the risk of losing an engineer that's already familiar only to be replaced by a more expensive engineer that's new.

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

#276

Post by nurettin »

blyry wrote: post #101
nurettin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would've changed your code from promise chains to await statements (after warning you, of course) because they just look awful. And I would then have expected you to buy me a beer for getting rid of all that ugly code.

So you would've spent company time rewriting working code to match your personal aesthetics? Sounds like parent didn't have a reasonable structure in place to generate consensus amongst the org about stylistic preferences vs tech debt, and where developer priorities should lie. There's some ego in both of your comments as well. Async is nicer looking that promise chains, but there risk in changing working code, no? G…

I assume you are looking at things for a living. And from your corporate tone, so are your coworkers.

We all want to look at good things. Promise chains were bad things. When I see bad things, I am willing to make the change. So should you. And we should ask before we change. GP was caught off-guard. That is not what we want.

We good?

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

#277

Post by antisthenes »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #94
ed312 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

I remember many, many years ago my boss at IBM explaining that I did not qualify for a raise because I was just over the industry median pay for my band. Honestly, if they had just kept giving me 3% raises every year, it might never have occurred to me to wonder whether I could be making more elsewhere. The weird thing about paying at the 50% line is that it means that your policy is, in effect, "we do not want any a…

Average inflation over the last 20 years is 2.1%

Honestly being given anything under 2.5% is just insulting. Pay freeze or COL adjustment in line with inflation is for a few years in bad recessions imo, like 2009-10 or, probably the upcoming 12-18 months.

Being given 3% is in the neighborhood of "better than nothing", but nowhere near what it should be for an employee trying to get ahead and putting in the required effort.

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

#278

Post by tj0 »

js8 wrote: post #52
zffr wrote: post #37

The article's title is pure click-bait. It would be more accurate if it were "How to Keep Your Engineers Interested in Sticking Around" Very little of the article says anything about how much to pay engineers. I only found 2 paragraphs about engineering compensation: > The most comprehensive study, though, is Daniel H. Pink’s Drive, which is summarized in this animation from the RSA. Pink suggests that money isn’t th…

Be careful though. For example, I don't really care that much about money, but I do care very strongly about fairness. So if you try to cheat me by paying me unfairly (for example, compared to coworkers), even if I would be happy with the money all things considered, I could be unhappy just because you're being unfair.

This was exactly why I left my previous position.

Place was great to work, brilliant team, laid back culture. But refusing to give me an annual raise, on top of paying me below market value (and below my peers) for my experience and skill set was precisely what triggered my departure a month later for a nearly 90% raise. Sacrificed other things, but at the end of the day, "thank you's", "good jobs", and a kegerator doesn't feed my family.

Money isn't everything, but competitively compensating engineers is still a big factor for retention imo.

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

#279

Post by bradlys »

tidepod12 wrote: post #260
bradlys wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In less than 5 minutes of looking I found several very nice houses for $4-5k/month in multiple nice neighborhoods. 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"?…

You're going to have to show listings. Last time, people were posting spam postings they found on Craigslist. If you want an apartment - you can find 1-bedroom "luxury" apartments (also known as normal apartments outside the bay area) for about $3300-4000/month. Even at $7000/month income that leaves "thousands" left over but that is a fucked ratio of expenses. You shouldn't be spending close to 50% of your take home on RENT. You will never be able to retire and live the same lifestyle.

If you want a house, you're not finding a nice house (3+ bedrooms, central air, etc.) and in a nice neighborhood (San Carlos, Hillsborough, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, etc.) for $4000-5000. I'd love to see the listings... I don't even bother with SF because the prices are even more outlandish for nice neighborhoods.

Familiar with the city and actually paying rent here are different. I've had coworkers who lived with their parents who are wildly out of tune with how much it costs to rent a place. I don't know how your friend affords a high rise on $140k/yr - maybe you should ask what their rent is and if they're sharing it with someone.

You can't buy a house now with $250k/yr in inner sunset. Go to Zillow and find me a nice house you can afford on $250k/yr and won't be house poor in the end with. Do it - prove me wrong.

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

#280

Post by davidgay »

salarycommenter wrote: post #212
laurencerowe wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB and G stock grants vest monthly and employees often have them setup to sell immediately on vesting. While there is some volatility in exactly how much you get paid its much closer to Netflix than to compensation at startups and not yet IPO'd companies where you can't realize the stock options until much later.

Quarterly, with no 1 year cliff. Close enough to monthly it's not that bad thought.

No, quarterly vs monthly depends on the number of units ready to vest (if there's enough, it will be monthly).
Post reply on HN