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

At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 194 posts

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#51

Post by t_mann »

ipaddr wrote: post #44
t_mann wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that now, but once you actually are in such a position and you realize that you could pay off your college debt plus your mortgage in 2-3 years, things might change in your mind.

When you count on that bonus that came last year it could mean that mortgage goes under. Making a lot of money is great until it doesn't come for whatever reason.

By 'paying off your mortgage' I obviously meant repaying the principal plus interest in full, not meeting your regular payments.

It should go without saying that you shouldn't take out a mortgage where you can't afford the regular payments out of your regular income. Banks are very unlikely to grant you such a loan anyway.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#52

Post by moron4hire »

nindalf wrote: post #45
daenz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between keeping a secret, and avoiding legal trouble by not specifically naming an employer.

Is Valve really going to file a lawsuit against him and argue in court whether this actually happened or not? They're not. Do they even have grounds to file a lawsuit? Likely not, American courts aren't that sympathetic to libel claims. But let's assume for a minute that what you're saying has some merit. Maybe Valve does have grounds to sue. And maybe they're interested in suing. In that case, is this lousy attempt…

It's very likely that Valve is a major client of his current business. Geldreich builds and licenses a texture compression system that can supposedly outperform anything else on the market.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#53

Post by agumonkey »

Oh this is fascinating to me. Since I joined the workforce back 5 years ago (non IT and IT) I've witnessed so much bs on every side. Everything he describes I've seen. People spend more time tricking the game than I'd ever thought possible. That said I'm shocked devs are playing too since they have a comfy life. I guess it just taps into the same primitive reptilian brain reflexes.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#55

Post by hahaxdxd123 »

SEJeff wrote: post #37

Big end of year bonuses are par for the course (in addition to a nice salary) in finance. I've worked as an engineer in the industry for close to 15 years.

Finance (I'm thinking prop trading) seems different from Valve. You eat what you kill - if you're sabotaging team members you're not making money.

If you're at Valve, you can count on your monopoly still printing money while you carve out pieces of the pie for yourself. Any negative effects from your work will be felt years later when you're long gone.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#56

Post by joshgachnang »

GoOnThenDoTell wrote: post #2

Ive never really understood bonuses for engineers, just provide more base pay

I agree. My view is if I don't get 100% bonus, I'm leaving to find a company that will pay me 100%. It seems like a good way to lose your best engineers.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#57

Post by vsareto »

t_mann wrote: post #16
lr4444lr wrote: post #7

The smartest piece of advice I ever got on bonuses: they are part of your salary that your employer reserves the right to discretionarily not pay you. I consider bonuses of absolutely no account in a comp package. If they are given, I happily accept. If not, I have no disappointment. I give the company my diligent efforts because I care about my responsibilities and my colleagues regardless. A carrot on a treadmill i…

You say that now, but once you actually are in such a position and you realize that you could pay off your college debt plus your mortgage in 2-3 years, things might change in your mind.

Yearly bonuses can carry a large amount of risk for the time and work invested, especially if you've traded base salary for it (which could go into investments). And the bonuses are not as transparent or regulated as even risky investments. The real problem with them is the year long bet. Do it quarterly or monthly, and I'm all for it.

There are situations where it definitely makes sense, like if you're pretty secure without the bonus, you're friendly with the people deciding the bonuses, the base salary is high enough, there is some guaranteed minimum bonus, and you don't burn out trying to attain/maximize it.

Ultimately, you can't get away from the fact that some financial health is at the whim of persons within the company and frankly they just aren't going to care as much about it as you do. It's very much a gamble instead of a solid investment.

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#59

Post by ido »

Jasper_ wrote: post #49
Mr_P wrote: post #5

If you replace the word "bonus" with "promo", then you unfortunately get an eerily-accurate reflection of the state of FAANG companies.

A lot of companies boot you out if you don't get a promo. The idea is that you take the "worst" 10% of your workforce (where "worst" means not getting promos), and fire them, every year. Even if you have no desire in chasing the promo train for more money, you sort of need to play along, just to have a job in a year or two.

I believe what you are describing is called stack ranking and has fallen out of favor with tech companies. Microsoft at least used to do that (I think they don’t anymore).

Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus

#60

Post by rootusrootus »

agumonkey wrote: post #53

Oh this is fascinating to me. Since I joined the workforce back 5 years ago (non IT and IT) I've witnessed so much bs on every side. Everything he describes I've seen. People spend more time tricking the game than I'd ever thought possible. That said I'm shocked devs are playing too since they have a comfy life. I guess it just taps into the same primitive reptilian brain reflexes.

When we have gotten to the point where 5 years of bonus might very well give you an entirely feasible retirement nest egg, I'm not surprised people go to great lengths to game it. Most of us go our entire careers to build the retirement fund that some people get in 5 years at Google.
Post reply on HN