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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?

#51

Post by tidepod12 »

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…

This is demonstrably incorrect if you look at some of the highest paying companies in SV. FAANG are of course well known for paying way way above what is necessary to satisfy "everyone's material needs and desires", and yet they are well known for still being ruthless political cultures and backstabbing.

Execs might be congenial because at that level, congenial is just how you play the game. It's still cutthroat, but overt backstabbing doesn't get you very far in a tight knit group of execs. But in other groups like a team of devs, IME high pay just attracts the kind of person who wants even higher pay and will do whatever it takes to get it.

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

#52

Post by js8 »

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.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

prepperpotts wrote: post #31
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…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by tehjoker »

exabrial wrote: post #2

It's only about 50% about pay for STEM fields. They have to be engaged, feel like they have a voice or influence in the culture/business decisions, have great equipment to use, and flexible time off.

The next level of consciousness is that these other 50% applies to every other person in the world, not just people within our in-group.

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

#55

Post by prepperpotts »

mrnook wrote: post #48
prepperpotts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Found the study: https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489 It was conducted in 2010, so I wonder if anything would change if it was conducted again today. The current tech industry was in its infancy 10 years ago, and a lot of high paying jobs have been created since.

True. Cost of living has spiked a lot in tech hubs, too, but devs are usually on the upper tier of the income curve.

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

#56

Post by cellularmitosis »

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…

Indeed! "Autonomy, mastery, and purpose" in terms of dev opportunities: mastery is somewhat common, autonomy is rare, and purpose is ultra rare.

I have straight-up told managers that I'd be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for more autonomy. Haven't found a taker yet :)

It is so frustrating to repeatedly demonstrate value, endlessly repeat the story about how "gmail was the result of 20% time", yet be forever told "nah, we just need you to stick to grinding tickets".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_Ab...

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

#57

Post by _jal »

nthj wrote: post #27
iso1631 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, pay me $1m a day and I'll stare at a wall for you. Probably wouldn't do it for long, the first day would be amazing - that buys a great house. The rest of the week and I'm set for a very comfortable retirement.

This is part of why stock options are so valuable to organizations as an incentive: the retention power of high pay without the calculus of “do I have enough?” from liquid compensation

Huh? Everyone I've ever known who had significant options knew exactly what they were worth.

I knew someone who changed their bash prompt to (price * unvested count / days left). He said at the time it was the only thing that kept him from quitting or punching his manager.

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

#58

Post by z3rgl1ng »

prepperpotts wrote: post #31
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…

This is untrue:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/6...

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

#59

Post by ghaff »

centimeter wrote: post #30

> When it comes to engineers, the key to employee retention isn't just about pay. Maybe I’m atypical, but at a certain point all the other factors just don’t cut it. If you’re trying to pay me $400k/yr total comp and I can get $600k/yr elsewhere, the disparities in culture or whatever have to be pretty significant to dominate.

At those levels, you're probably talking about at least some stock-based comp and that's harder to factor in.

But that aside, a lot of people would care less about the delta between $400K and $600K than the delta between $50K and $75K.

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

#60

Post by nisten »

I find the reasoning of this article pretty obnoxious to be honest.

They start off with a valid argument, that if you treat engineers better than everyone else it creates resentment in other parts of the company and that makes sense.

If that weren’t enough, all of this “special treatment” towards engineers can create resentment throughout the rest of the company. Such negativity hurts performance and retention in other business units where employees might feel that they’re treated unfairly.

I've actually experienced this myself as the new guy, even within the engineering department. Then 5 paragraphs later this is what they write:

Maybe instead of offering free lunches on Fridays, you can provide funding to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC, once that’s hosted in real life again) or a Coursera subscription. If you’re in the mobile apps space, you might offer to buy the newest iPhone or Android device for your engineers annually on a “yours to keep” basis.

I'm sorry for the negativity, I just don't think I can trust the judgement of the author on this issue after reading that. Also as a mobile developer, shouldn't you be aiming for your app to perform well on low to midrange devices first, thus targeting the largest ammount of potential users? If you're styling for the iphone x/11 notch you're gonna be doing that in the simulator first regardless.

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