At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
1–10 of 194 posts
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#2Ive never really understood bonuses for engineers, just provide more base pay
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#3Hedge funds are an example of the bonus impact because most pay out the majority of their employees TC via bonuses and from what I've read tends to lead to a high stress work environment. I can understand how bonuses could be intended to be for incentives to deliver work and perhaps as golden handcuffs (RSU bonuses that require a couple of years to vest etc), but yeah there's pitfalls etc.
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#4But the bonus is just an incentive mechanism. The question really is what things influenced the bonus award? Sensible things or not so sensible things? Did they tie the bonus to things that the company wanted or not?
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#5If you replace the word "bonus" with "promo", then you unfortunately get an eerily-accurate reflection of the state of FAANG companies.
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#66-7 figure bonuses for mid-20's, or the story of how we got a global financial crisis in '08. Seems to work wonders in tech too.
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#7The 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 isn't going to change that.
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#8A 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)
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#9But the bonus is just an incentive mechanism. The question really is what things influenced the bonus award? Sensible things or not so sensible things? Did they tie the bonus to things that the company wanted or not?
No matter which measures you choose, as soon as you tie financial incentives to them, people will find ways to pervert what they're supposed to measure. That observation is so general that there's even a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
Re: At one company I worked at only one thing mattered: the yearly bonus
#10A 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)
Just coming to say that - he's not the best at keeping things secret lol.