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

31–40 of 349 posts

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

#31

Post by prepperpotts »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #9

In accordance with the standard hierarchy of needs, culture flows down from compensation. When everyone's material needs and desires are well satisfied, they interact genuinely and naturally. When people feel like good compensation is difficult to achieve, they put more effort into zero-sum internal politics, maintaining appearances, and so forth. You see this in upper management all the time; execs are friendly and…

Definitely agree with the latter part here about execs, but I feel like anxiety around compensation doesn't tie back to material needs as much as to the extent to which people measure their self-worth by compensation.

Years ago, these studies were going around saying that people are happier when they make more money up to about $70k, at which point more money doesn't make you happier anymore. I'm sure that has to be adjusted for inflation etc by now, but very few devs make less money than they need to live comfortably by most people's standards.

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

#32

Post by awat »

ponker wrote: post #6
awat wrote: post #3

Not directly a compensation component but organizations can make sure they have a technical leader supporting software organizations. Consulting with companies on productivity I can’t express how much devs not feeling like they have representation/a voice at the exec level negates comp effectiveness.

Is it better to work at companies where the CEO is a programmer? Like Epic Games or Microsoft when Gates ran it?

I don’t now that it’s specifically better to have a CEO that was an engineer. It probably is based on my experience.

What I’m referring to is that period where engineers want to stay vs being heavily comp’d to stay. You can see people throughout this thread saying pay me a large amount and I’ll stare at a wall. If you want engineers not to fully optimize comp (read as $$$$$) against the market they need to feel represented and like they have a say in day to day decisions in the company.

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

#33

Post by ghaff »

paxys wrote: post #15

100% agree with this article, but would also caution against any kind of generalization. Different people want different things. For the first ~7-10 years of my career I strongly believed that everything was about salary. I picked jobs solely based on the comp package, and the work I did was motivated by bonuses and promotions. I'm sure that's still the case for a large chunk of engineers, but for me, with more exper…

Also, for many people, their salary out of school isn't "enough" for the lifestyle they want to live, they have student loans, need to buy a car, etc. So even relatively modest salary differences can seem like a big deal.

While not true of everyone, people in tech fields tend to have a more comfortable financial cushion as they get older, and at least modest differences in pay don't matter as much as other factors.

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

#35

Post by [deleted] »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #9

In accordance with the standard hierarchy of needs, culture flows down from compensation. When everyone's material needs and desires are well satisfied, they interact genuinely and naturally. When people feel like good compensation is difficult to achieve, they put more effort into zero-sum internal politics, maintaining appearances, and so forth. You see this in upper management all the time; execs are friendly and…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by zffr »

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 the main driver for highly skilled workers who choose to stay in their jobs. Instead, he identifies a combination of three factors: the ability to be self-directed, getting better at the job, and having a purpose in one’s endeavors. In other words, once a person’s basic financial needs are met, money starts to become less and less relevant as a criterion for job satisfaction, especially compared to purpose, self-improvement and self-direction.

> Unsurprisingly, this conclusion mostly matches my own experience with engineers. Whether companies pay at market level or 20%-30% above market makes very little impact on staff retention. You might stretch retention slightly in the latter case, but the investment is often not worth the net result. Keeping your engineers engaged and motivated makes a much more substantial difference, so that’s what we’re going to look at next.

Even these paragraphs are primarily about how money is not the primary way to keep engineers engaged and motivated.

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

#39

Post by neilwilson »

In Herzberg's theory, Money is merely a hygiene factor, not a motivating factor.

Generally by the time engineers start thinking about money you've already lost them.

My rule of thumb has always been that when I start thinking "I'm not getting paid enough to put up with this", it's time to move on whatever happens.

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

#40

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

It probably depends quite a bit on the engineer's life outside of work.

For much of my career, I was the only income earner in a family of 6. Making ends meet was sometimes a challenge, which made me very salary-sensitive and averse to the risk of income disruption.

My family finances have somewhat improved in recent years, letting me unclinch a little regarding money. This lets me put more weight on other factors relating to job satisfaction and feeling of purpose.

Post reply on HN