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Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

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Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#81

Post by anal_reactor »

atmavatar wrote: post #79
ryathal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A minor delay in progress for someone else to be unblocked is generally a win.

That depends on a lot of factors: * How minor is the delay? The more senior the person being asked, the more likely they're working on something complex enough such that the delay incurred by an interruption is non-trivial. * Is the person asking actually blocked? Often times, people get into a mode where they will interrupt others to ask questions they could have answered themselves with a little additional research…

Fantastic.

The problem is, having a well-organized and cooperative team massively outweights having a bunch of rockstar developers each pulling in their own direction, unless we're talking about the tiniest of organizations. And I'm not going to be on friendly terms with someone I'm not allowed to talk to.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#82

Post by mostlysimilar »

dole wrote: post #78
calderwoodra wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no risk for senior engineers. Senior engineers have all the power in the current job market. Either you're seeing mid-level or lower RTO or there's another reason.

Senior engineers are the new mid-level, or you graduate to management. Maybe YOUNG "senior engineers" seem to have the power, the Sr. Engineers pushing 50 and 60 need to prove their worth against younger and cheaper work, domestic or offshore/remote.

If you're working for an organization with such incompetent technical leadership to believe this then you should jump ship immediately, because they're doomed regardless.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#83

Post by ryandrake »

thegreatbeanz wrote: post #75

Disclosure: In October 2021 after 10 years working at Apple I left to join Microsoft, so I’m not totally unbiased. I love the sentiment this article is expressing, and anecdotally the thesis holds in my experience: senior engineers have lots of opportunity, so they can (and will) leave if they disagree with office policies. That said, the article is not good journalism. Its own cited data doesn’t actually represent t…

> One of my former departments at Apple has management checking badge in and out times to enforce the policy. That’s insane!

I keep in touch with a few of my co-workers who still work there, and they tell me there are a non-zero number of people still giving their badges to their RTO'ed buddies to "badge them in" on the right days. I'm sure that's strictly against multiple policies and they'll probably get caught at some point, but... people find a way.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#84

Post by dietr1ch »

relyks wrote: post #39
dietr1ch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not ordered to go back to the office? They were ordered not to go back to the office?

Yeah, what he's saying contradicts what the article is suggesting. That's why I'm asking about it

(I was just highlighting how ambiguous "opposite" is there)

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#85

Post by zeroonetwothree »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #67
npteljes wrote: post #59

I firmly believe that management doesn't, or shouldn't mind this. I think a successful company is not necessarily built on top talent, but rather on people whose behavior can be managed - and on managers that are similarly competent. Similar to how on a building site, extraordinary bricklayers are not necessary, only a specific kind of adequacy is. The other thing is that people who have something extraordinary also…

This is an interesting perspective. I almost agree, in that many or most companies out there will be more or less fine with mid-tier talent. Not every company or product requires the best talent out there. But I still think there will be downstream effects to driving out strong performers, and time will be the judge there.

It’s probably not true for the companies in the article (eg Apple)

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#86

Post by tail_exchange »

Phiwise_ wrote: post #27
solumunus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of those are actively looking for jobs.

Probably more than are going to end up finding one, unfortunately: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hG1R

The fact that the y-axis of this graph starts at 60 instead of 0 makes it seem way worse than it actually is. We seem to be at ~70% the value pre-pandemic.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#87

Post by paranoidrobot »

talldayo wrote: post #8
paranoidrobot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless, as some have suggested, it's a deliberate tactic to cheaply reduce headcount. (No need for severance/redundancy payouts if people self-select to leave).

If your only remaining employees are desperate sycophants, they're probably not the sort of top talent that actually knows what they're worth. Maybe I'm wrong though.

The freedom to just up and move jobs isn't equally available for everyone.

Anyone who doesn't have a permanent right to work (eg on some kind of visa) can find it hard to switch jobs.

If you live in a place where Healthcare is tied to your employer, then that can cause problems, too, if you/a family member have some kind of chronic/ongoing medical issues.

If your salary package has some kind of deferred portion, then that can also make switching difficult.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#88

Post by maxbond »

tucnak wrote: post #53
greenthrow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, no. The only people who care about the company are the execs who own enough stock to care and green newbies who haven't been burned yet by companies who do not care about them at all.

So cynical! I'm trembling.

I would say your position is the cynical one. Encouraging the people who don't tie their identity to their workplace to leave so that you are only left with the ones who "care" is manipulative. It reminds me of the time I went to a real estate scam seminar. At the halfway mark, they encouraged everyone who wasn't ready to sign a check on the spot not to come back from intermission.

This concept of "caring" is just a new coat of paint on "we're not just a workplace, we're a family," a strategy to get your employees to volunteer for more responsibility in exchange for kudos (rather than the pay or title they would demand if asked directly).

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#89

Post by Phiwise_ »

tail_exchange wrote: post #86
Phiwise_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more than are going to end up finding one, unfortunately: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hG1R

The fact that the y-axis of this graph starts at 60 instead of 0 makes it seem way worse than it actually is. We seem to be at ~70% the value pre-pandemic.

What are you talking about? It's an index. The data starts proportional at 100%. Says so on the scale. Did you not read the page? 0 would imply there is no dev jobs anywhere in the country. The industry could go through the worst crash of all time and still get nowhere near that value. Saying it's not at zero contains no useful information. 70% of normal operations is pretty dire for switching jobs compared to ordinary expectations is the point I was obviously making.

Re: Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

#90

Post by celdon25 »

carom wrote: post #51
celdon25 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I would not build a business off of $180k engineers. I would rather pay double that (while being selective about talent) and get something (better) built with fewer people. Where are these 360k jobs posted? I never see anything close to that.

Major metro big tech, toward the senior side of things. Check out [1]. Salaries in the 200s are very realistic. 300s is senior or long tenure with stock appreciation. It is worth grinding leetcode for a few months. 1. https://levels.fyi/

Ah, thought you were referring to salary, not IOUs. I'll stick with consulting.
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