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

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

#91

Post by t_mann »

andrekandre wrote: post #64
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.

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

Well, we gotta find some way to split it, we could use any metric though, true. We could pay everyone equally, or make it a lottery, or donate it to charity in the employees' names, or whatever you can think of. But we have to make a decision.

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

#92

Post by toast0 »

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 was kind of a mix of stack ranking, fire X% on a periodic schedule, and up or out, you've got X years to get promoted or you'll be fired. Microsoft says they stopped stack ranking, but it's not clear if they did. Facebook says they don't force a ratings curve, but they did while I was there. Just because something has fallen out of favor and companies acknowledge that it's fallen out favor doesn't mean they don't do it.

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

#93

Post by astrange »

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.

That’s not a problem in California because it’s not possible to buy anything to get the mortgage in the first place.

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

#94

Post by sundvor »

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.

Heard that's not necessarily enough, "not specifically naming".

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

#95

Post by toast0 »

jameshart wrote: post #65
t_mann wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Editorial work is close to sales in that it's clear that editorial quality impacts sales and it can be clear who did the editorial work on an item that sold. (Depends on the editorial process though, if you do a lot of group work, maybe it's hard to say who did how much).

As opposed to IT work where sure, if the editors computer doesn't work, it's hard for them to do their editing, but there's not much connection to a specific item.

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

#96

Post by daenz »

moron4hire wrote: post #58
daenz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad hominem attack.

No, it's evidence that he over reacts to minor issues, marking his criticisms in general as not particularly trustworthy.

I don't know either of you, so I don't have a dog in a fight. But when you start a post off with " so and so is a phenomenal asshole", You should know that a reasonable person reads that as an ad hominem attack, regardless of how you intended it.

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

#97

Post by solveit »

drexlspivey wrote: post #85
wreath wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s an internal service, you don’t treat your co-workers as hostile actors.

At a large enough company you kind of have to... as this situation shows.

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

#98

Post by daenz »

sundvor wrote: post #94
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.

Heard that's not necessarily enough, "not specifically naming".

IANAL but would love a lawyer to chime in. My understanding was that you could indeed get in trouble if you don't cast enough ambiguity around the identity of the person/company you are trashing, but casting some ambiguity is better than none.

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

#99

Post by ffhhj »

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)

Yeah, around a decade ago this also made the news:

"Valve fires Jeri Ellsworth, who was developing Steam Box game controllers"

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

#100

Post by pizza234 »

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.

> 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.

An interesting firsthand view on the dynamics of the motivations comes from HN post from some times ago (https://frantic.im/leaving-facebook). Some excerpts:

> The salary is high. Facebook aims to pay top 5% compensation in the market (we’ll get back to that). This makes a lot of other things very comfortable: you can go to a restaurant without worrying too much about the bill, get a nicer car, a nicer house, better stuff.

> The benefits are top notch. Almost every doctor I visited said “wow” when looking at the health insurance. It’s very comfortable to know that you are likely not going to receive a huge bill for doing an ultra sound for a routine checkup.

> Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line.

All the benefits above, in one way or another, are relative¹ ("niceR" car, not "nice" car) so ultimately, it's a matter of aspiring because aspiring, rather than aspiring to reach a certain level.

So unfortunately, being a developer with a comfy life tends not to have an effect on ethics.

Note: the above statements give an unfair image of the author/full article; the extracts are only meant to give an idea of certain dynamics.

¹=with bottom limits; being too poor certainly hurts.

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