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?
#2It'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.
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#3Not directly a compensation component but organizations can make sure they have a technical leader supporting software organizations.
Consulting with companies on productivity I can’t express how much devs not feeling like they have representation/a voice at the exec level negates comp effectiveness.
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#4[deleted]
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#5It'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.
All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#6Not directly a compensation component but organizations can make sure they have a technical leader supporting software organizations. Consulting with companies on productivity I can’t express how much devs not feeling like they have representation/a voice at the exec level negates comp effectiveness.
Is it better to work at companies where the CEO is a programmer? Like Epic Games or Microsoft when Gates ran it?
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#7It'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.
Well, 50% is a lot. And it’s a lot easier to alter and cut back on those other things than pay, because pay is written in the contract.
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#8An interesting question is whether paying enough (imagining an unlimited budget) won't end up selecting for coders who care more about the money than the work.
A further question is whether these coders are actually better for the org -- the Henry Ford efficiency wage-type incentive may keep them at consistent pace and quality, whereas rockstars with physics PhD may have parallel agendas to make the project more fun to work with.
Re: How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around?
#9In 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 graceful with each other because their material success is guaranteed, and promoting collegiality among execs is usually an orgizational goal.