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Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

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Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wrong. My estimated income for the year was $0, so the only choice was Medicaid or full out of pocket.

You did it wrong. Just always estimate just above the Medicaid threshold (assuming you legitimately don’t think you’ll make much in the year). Then you get the maximum subsidy, which might even make a Bronze plan completely free. If you end up making less at the end of the year, and really should have been on Medicaid, nothing gets clawed back. If you end up making more than estimated, you just have to pay back some…

Well, there's six grand I'll never get back. At least I know for the future.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#322
post #81

I'm not sure that this is sustainable anymore. I've definitely done the job hopping game, and it generally led to a substantial increase in salary each time, but eventually that comes back to bite you. I got laid off three times last year, and that already looks pretty bad on a resume, but then seeing a bunch of jobs beforehand where I was only there for two years makes a lot of employers really hesitant to move forw…

for the sake of being marketable to recruiters and other hiring people, I think being honest won't do much good. I'd leave a handful of jobs, not necessarily the most recent, but for example ones where impact was the most salable, and the rest just throw under the rug, make up some dates if needed. I think it is very reasonable thing to expect from senior people, to highlight the most relevant experience from their l…

Well I have a job now that at least seems pretty stable, so hopefully it won't be an issue because I'll be here for a long while anyway, but yeah, being honest kind of seems like a losing game.

It's extremely hard for me to lie (or even do anything even remotely dishonest) during job interviews. I believe that omitting important details is still a lie, plus I think I have a mild form of autism that makes it so I have to be overly precise in my language which means that I get into really specific detail when it's really not called for (as I'm sure anyone who's read my longer HN comments has figured out).

I'd probably be better off if I just shut up more during interviews and let them assume things.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#323
post #54

Employers don't reward long-term employees because they don't need to. Even though everyone knows you make more by job-hopping, companies are following a rational strategy because too few people "walk the walk" despite wanting more salary. Arguably unethical, but rational. At the cost of losing a minority of job-hoppers they retain the cheap majority that: - finds job interviews exhausting, or is anxious about being…

Holy crap, this list nails it.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's strange to me. Why is it extortion? They're doing you a favor by giving a chance to compete. Seems like honest communication to me. It is no different than giving customers a notice of price increase or giving contractors an option to bid.

It smells of extortion to me because the reason for doing it is to use the offer as a threat. > Seems like honest communication to me. Extortion is honest communication, too. The existence of an offer doesn't do anything to help me decide whether or not I can go along with a pay increase. It only communicates that the employee wants to threaten me into agreeing to one. In my opinion, the better way is to ask for the…

I guess to me, extortion or threat imply taking or degrading something you are entitled to. It doesn't seem like you think you are entitled to the work of the employee, so I'm honestly confused by the reaction.

At first I thought it was simply because it is presented as an ultimatum, but it seems like you have no problem being given conditions. Saying I want X to keep working here is acceptable, but the same exact statement with an offer weaponizes it.

If they have an offer they don't tell you about but have an otherwise identical request, is that less of a threat?

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#325
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My observations suggest that this applies far more to lower performing employees than higher performing ones since the barrier to change jobs is lower for top tier talent. I think talent and the capability to market/self-promote oneself (I believe only for the latter capability, the barrier to change jobs is much lower) are mostly uncorrelated.

EDIT: Grrr! This comment meant for the GP, sorry. I think there is an unstated underlying assumption in this comment that "higher performing" implies "drop-in transferable technical/social skills" legible to the target interviewing entity. Maybe for software but for wide swaths of actually engineering (double graduate engineers in this family) I doubt that rather strongly. The default 2 weeks vacation for the decades…

Coming from the EU, every time I see "2 weeks vacation" I get a twitch.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#326
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You proved you're competent to the potential suitor by obtaining an offer. They got some valuable quality candidate interviewing experience which can be difficult to achieve, and you got a rock solid tangible improvement in your work QoL, even if the target ultimately didn't achieve their hopeful hire. Possibly they got some data that (to them) implies they should have offered more money. Win win. I would say a…

Sure, I guess you could play it back and forth like your sibling comment implies, that seems risky though (you might end up with no offers). Also why do I want to stay with the cheap people? They proved to be unable to deliver market rates for my efforts unless I make a big scene about it. I don't like to do business with people like that.

There might be other factors at play, though. Like one company I stayed at for a while was only a lovely 45 mins walk from my house, and that was excellent for my mental health every morning and afternoon. Trading that for an hour in the car would mean I'd want more to offset it.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you leave positive impressions on your coworkers? Did you maintain contact? Part of the advantage of moving every few years is that you work with more people, which means more people are willing to recommend you for open positions. In those three jobs you were laid off from did any of your coworkers also get laid off? Where did they go to, and can they give you a recommendation? No matter what story your resume t…

I don't know that it's true that moving a lot means you work with more people. I'm at my current company 10 years. From being here 10 years I now know tons of people who came here for 2 years and left. Not to mention all the relationships with people still here.

> I don't know that it's true that moving a lot means you work with more people.

It's generally true that you meet more people switching jobs every 2 years. You work with all the people that stayed and all the people that also left after 2 years. You end up on more total teams.

It's not universally true. If you stay in a place with higher than average turnover, constantly working with new people then you would be in an position to work with more people. Additionally, if you worked in a very centralized team in a very large software company you could end up working with more people.

Finally, the quantity of people you've worked with isn't the key metric you should maximize your professional network for. You ideally want in any 3 month period multiple people in your professional network whose recommendation will carry a lot of weight for an open position you would be interesting in taking that would give you a strong recommendation. After you've reached that level of baseline employment security then you want to maximize for people that will recommend better and better positions.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#328
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said: > Coming to me with an offer letter in an attempt to get a pay raise is a thing that I think speaks very poorly of the person. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your honesty here, But I don't think that's fair, and probably why you're getting push-back in this thread.

The part that gives me pause isn't that the employee is agitating for their own interest. That's good and expected. It's the method by which they're doing it. It's OK if you and others don't think it's fair. We just disagree on that aspect. I don't think it's fair for an employee to use that particular method. To me, it comes off as a kind of extortion to the current employer, and mistreats the employer who made the…

Probably it was the extortion comment. You could also I guess call it an ultimatum.

But then again companies typically do shitty things to employees all the time because the company has the leverage. You've probably witnessed some of that yourself.

Sam Altman and OpenAI come to mind.

So I guess I don't understand what's changed about the relationship when the employee finds leverage to use against the company.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Inside Meta there was a robust network sharing offer and raise/promo letters. Someone hired in at your same level today would be making 10-20% more per year that you had been employed there .

Huh? This must have been in equity, right, given that the bands were consistent for everyone when I was there. I find it hard to believe that they changed that.

Total comp. TC of most L4+ was >50% RSUs, it doesn't make much sense to discuss only base+bonus

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? This must have been in equity, right, given that the bands were consistent for everyone when I was there. I find it hard to believe that they changed that.

Total comp. TC of most L4+ was >50% RSUs, it doesn't make much sense to discuss only base+bonus

> TC of most L4+ was >50% RSUs

In the US, during a period of insane stock price appreciation, yes.

People who joined in Dec 2022 got massively screwed though, so it's not really reliable cash.

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