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

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

#321

Post by sieabahlpark »

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…

Your experience at varying different companies is more valuable than a single perspective of someone internally.

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

#322

Post by rkangel »

thanatropism wrote: post #21
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.

Question is, can this be faked? What we're saying is that coders are often willing to pay for "a seat at the table". But maybe management can sell them a placebo. It's not clear-cut that management ignoring coders will always turn out for the worse, even though management that always ignores coders probably has, historically. Maybe sometimes their voice matters and sometimes not.

It can be faked to the engineers, it can't be faked to reality.

Companies for whom engineering is key need to (at least to some extent) organise themselves around engineering. The strategic decisions need to take into account the needs and capabilities of engineering and engineers. If they don't then they won't be good at it. They'll be staffed with mediocre people who generate mediocre output very slowly.

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

#323

Post by bumby »

bluGill wrote: post #309
bumby wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but I think it depends on the context of your job. Are you doing good work within the context of the duties in the job description? I think a good manager will praise that work but that’s essentially fulfilling your end of the work/pay contract. Expecting continuous raises for meeting agreed upon expectations comes across as entitlement beyond the scope of that labor agreement. But if you’re consistently…

Ever hear of inflation? If my pay isn't keeping up with inflation I'm not as valuable as I was last year.

That’s essentially the 1-3% annual raise the first post was referring to and wholly different than the 30-40% raise that was central to the discussion

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

#324

Post by blaser-waffle »

RussianCow wrote: post #213
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave, then. Seriously, just give two weeks and call it a day.

Not every job is about the money. Sometimes a job is worth keeping even if you know that you're leaving money on the table. That doesn't make this practice any less shitty, though.

Yeah it's a little harder when you're not in SanFran or NYC or another hub. Like, I got options, but they're going to involve planes, trains, and moving companies. Might totally be worth doing, but that's a whole lot different than changing my morning commute by 10 minutes.

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

#325

Post by scarface74 »

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…

It’s called “salary compression and inversion”

https://www.payscale.com/compensation-today/2020/05/what-is-...

Inversion is just the extreme. When new employees come in making more than existing employees with the same experience.

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

#326

Post by scarface74 »

greedo wrote: post #293
oarabbus_ wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

At my company, there are developers who have been there 30+ years. They have seen a lot... Insurance companies change slowly. We still have COBOL, mainframes, etc. Applications that cost $10k/minute if they're down. Part of the equation is job security. You eat enough shit, put up with enough mgmt BS, but you get a steady paycheck, decent benefits, and little threat of downsizing.

I just spoke to my former coworker for the first time since around 2008. When he left the company we both worked for, he went to an insurance company. He’s been there for a decade. They actually have a pension.

I’ll be on my sixth job since then starting in July.

I have another friend who graduated in 1995. A year ahead of me. He was hired as Cobol programmer. 25 years later, he’s still writing COBOL.

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

#327

Post by scarface74 »

_57jb wrote: post #299
greedo wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my company, there are developers who have been there 30+ years. They have seen a lot... Insurance companies change slowly. We still have COBOL, mainframes, etc. Applications that cost $10k/minute if they're down. Part of the equation is job security. You eat enough shit, put up with enough mgmt BS, but you get a steady paycheck, decent benefits, and little threat of downsizing.

Isn't it crazy this is what it all boils down to...looking over our 30 some odd years grinding away and we are looking to stay safe. You can live your dream or help someone else build theirs.

What makes you think some people’s dream might not be to work from 9-5 go home to their spouse, 2.5 kids, their house in the burbs and get money to put into their account every two weeks?

Save consistently and retire?

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

#328

Post by scarface74 »

buster wrote: post #134
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…

Ask yourself, did you provide a 40% increase in value in the last year compared to the year before? Probably not. For another company, that possibly desperately needs a new employee, you might have the value that without you the added income will be zero, with you... More then that.

That’s not how it works if you take part in the market. You are worth what a company is willing to pay you. This is an artifact of supply and demand.

It doesn’t matter if I am providing 40% more value if I can jump ship and get a job that pays 40% more.

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

#329

Post by scarface74 »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #324
RussianCow wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every job is about the money. Sometimes a job is worth keeping even if you know that you're leaving money on the table. That doesn't make this practice any less shitty, though.

Yeah it's a little harder when you're not in SanFran or NYC or another hub. Like, I got options, but they're going to involve planes, trains, and moving companies. Might totally be worth doing, but that's a whole lot different than changing my morning commute by 10 minutes.

I don’t live in a tech hub. My company cut pay across the board because of Covid. I interviewed for $BigTech, got a job that’s fully remote - even post Covid.

More roles will hopefully become remote.

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

#330

Post by C1sc0cat »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #320
ipnon wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git activity is the most praised metric at my company. Refactoring and commenting is highly rewarded. The utility of this metric is dubious.

My Sympathies id start looking for a new Job Ah like the place I worked at where some one spent 10 person years of effort to replace a perl system with the corporate standard Oracle one. No value to the share holders but they ticked the boxes for probation managed a teem of eight or more and a budget of "1 million pounds"

Sorry I meant promotion here.
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