At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by t_mann » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #48

t_mann wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different? Somehow we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was, which, unless you work in sales maybe, is going to involve a lot of judgment.

At Wrox Press during the dotcom era editorial staff were comped with direct sales-derived royalties. Was the most connected I have ever been to a metric that clearly mattered to the business. There were some perverse incentives - people wanted to work on bestsellers, there was jockeying for credit for carryover work from previous editions, but in general it promoted a creative energy around trying to publish hit book…

Yeah, everywhere that's close to sales it's usually possible to attribute revenue shares directly. But even in those organizations a lot of people will be doing work that can't be directly measured (IT, accounting,...), so either you cut those people out of bonuses or you find some metrics to include them.

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

#62

Post by secondcoming » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #8

A tech company in Bellevue Washington with a "shadowy and illusory "peer review" system" - this is Valve we're talking about, right? (fits his Twitter bio)

I thought it might have been why the Windows UI is such a mess.

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

#63

Post by jewel » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

t_mann wrote: post #40

krallja wrote: post #35

The only bonus I have ever received which didn’t make me feel scummy was profit-sharing. Most companies don’t do it because profit is for the owners. Everything else just feels like a way to decide whether or not to pay me what I’m worth after I’ve already done the work

How is that different? Somehow we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was, which, unless you work in sales maybe, is going to involve a lot of judgment.

You can make the profit sharing bonus proportional to salary. So if there is 100k available for bonuses and your quarterly payroll is $1M, then pay everyone a 10% bonus. You still have to set salaries correctly but that's a problem whether there is a bonus or not.

I've seen this work well at a small software company. It paid out once a quarter for anyone who had been there a year.

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

#64

Post by andrekandre » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

t_mann wrote: post #40

krallja wrote: post #35

The only bonus I have ever received which didn’t make me feel scummy was profit-sharing. Most companies don’t do it because profit is for the owners. Everything else just feels like a way to decide whether or not to pay me what I’m worth after I’ve already done the work

How is that different? Somehow we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was, which, unless you work in sales maybe, is going to involve a lot of judgment.

  > we have to measure what your individual contribution to the company's profits was

we do?

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

#65

Post by jameshart » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

t_mann wrote: post #61

jameshart wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Wrox Press during the dotcom era editorial staff were comped with direct sales-derived royalties. Was the most connected I have ever been to a metric that clearly mattered to the business. There were some perverse incentives - people wanted to work on bestsellers, there was jockeying for credit for carryover work from previous editions, but in general it promoted a creative energy around trying to publish hit book…

Yeah, everywhere that's close to sales it's usually possible to attribute revenue shares directly. But even in those organizations a lot of people will be doing work that can't be directly measured (IT, accounting,...), so either you cut those people out of bonuses or you find some metrics to include them.

Editorial work is not close to sales. It’s upfront product development work.

What Wrox did, though, was very clearly assign editors to book projects. You worked on one book at a time - each book was a little startup venture that shipped a product at the end.

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

#66

Post by bombcar » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #46

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.

Money is clearly a factor, but I think a lot of it comes down to culture in the working group. Promotions mean status upgrades, and in a lot of these companies, status is actually important. At least at Microsoft, there's a culture of where your title determines if you're a part of the "in group" or not. Not at least Senior? Forget about anyone outside your immediate working group taking you seriously, let alone defe…

This is a perpetual problem for any organization with a hierarchy - and taking care to have successful off-ramps for those who want to continue to contribute without being forced into a management track is important.

It’s gotten better but there’s still limitations, and many people solve it by switching organizations- which has more costs than many realize.

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

#67

Post by Jasper_ » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #41

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.

Good God yes. Once my team owned a service that did X. Among it's functionality, it had an API that, as a side effect, stored some data that could be retrieved. Sadly, this service had no validation that the data being input made any sense in the context of what this service did. A developer on a neighboring team had a big promo project on the go. As a simple hack, and as a way to save time, his project used our serv…

The fast-paced "fail upwards" where you get a new job at a new FAANG every few months while leaving a trail of destruction in your wake astounds me, and I don't understand how it works and how companies keep falling for it.

There are a lot of excellent ex-FAANG programmers I've worked with, and a lot of terrible ones, and my experience is that usually the ones with the most prestigious titles show up, do 3 months of junior level work which we end up having to rip out later, and then leave to their next high-paying gig.

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

#68

Post by CPLX » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #38

exdsq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just coming to say that - he's not the best at keeping things secret lol.

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

Or just maintaining plausible deniability.

I would certainly have a different opinion about someone saying negative things about me in anonymous generic terms that people paying attention could figure out, vs using my name and posting direct criticism. As would most people I think.

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

#69

Post by wreath » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #41

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.

Good God yes. Once my team owned a service that did X. Among it's functionality, it had an API that, as a side effect, stored some data that could be retrieved. Sadly, this service had no validation that the data being input made any sense in the context of what this service did. A developer on a neighboring team had a big promo project on the go. As a simple hack, and as a way to save time, his project used our serv…

How is this his fault? Your service had poor validation or design and was used in ways it was intended to. You knew this but still didn't patch it?

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

#70

Post by bombcar » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #59

Jasper_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It’s pretty useful if you’re an up and coming growth company paying higher than average comp as it ensures you’re continually snatching new employees from other companies.