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Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than

Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than you.

ouid 10y ago
That seems false. What is my incentive, as an employer, to give such an employee a promotion or a raise? I'm not trying to get him to work harder for more pay.
- falcolas 10y ago
  They have visibility. "Bob was here until 7 at night fixing bugs in the code! Where was Alice?" It won't matter that Bob didn't fix the bugs; Alice did when she came in the next morning. It won't matter that Bob caused the issue in the first place. Alice probably didn't even hear the above exclamation, it was an internal dialogue in their manager's mind, so she can't even offer a rebuttal. Bob was seen working "when it mattered". Perception trumps performance, sadly.
  - ouid 10y ago
    I meant to say that I don't see why I should give someone a raise simply as a result of increased performance. it's my goal as an employer to extract more value from an employee than they cost. The only thing that would compel me to give out raises is a change in market conditions, which can usually be detected by an employee threatening to leave for a job which pays more.
    - falcolas 10y ago
      If you're waiting for employees to leave, you're waiting too long. Raises, bonuses, cost of living adjustments; all are part of how you attempt to retain talent. If you're hiring coding cogs, then no, you don't need to give any raises. Just hire at the market rate and plan for 50% attrition every year. But if you want to keep your employees for more than a few years, you pay them more than the market rate. You match the cost of living increases, you give them performance bonuses, and you give them a minimum of 5-10% raises annually. Bonus points if you recognize that ass-in-seat time is not a good proxy for performance. Do that, and they won't leave because they aren't getting paid commensurately with their skills. Still need to give them interesting work, though.
      - ouid 10y ago
        You are making the false assumption that value is fixed for a fixed amount of work. Programmers, and more generally engineers, do not have a fixed value for labor. It is generally the case that it is much more efficient to have the same engineer starting and finishing a project. This means that you as a programmer, have negotiating power that scales with the amount of work that you have already done. If you are not getting paid in proportion to what it would cost to replace you at any given point of the process, then you are getting paid well below the actual "market" rate. This means that if you are an at will programmer, you can do less work the closer the project gets to completion without it being a good idea to fire you. If a small raise disproportionately discourages this behavior, then it makes sense, but it does not count as "paying you more than the market rate". I suspect that you receive, on average, a smaller percentage of the cost of replacement as time goes on.

Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than you.

ouid 10y ago

That seems false. What is my incentive, as an employer, to give such an employee a promotion or a raise? I'm not trying to get him to work harder for more pay.

falcolas 10y ago
They have visibility. "Bob was here until 7 at night fixing bugs in the code! Where was Alice?" It won't matter that Bob didn't fix the bugs; Alice did when she came in the next morning. It won't matter that Bob caused the issue in the first place. Alice probably didn't even hear the above exclamation, it was an internal dialogue in their manager's mind, so she can't even offer a rebuttal. Bob was seen working "when it mattered". Perception trumps performance, sadly.
- ouid 10y ago
  I meant to say that I don't see why I should give someone a raise simply as a result of increased performance. it's my goal as an employer to extract more value from an employee than they cost. The only thing that would compel me to give out raises is a change in market conditions, which can usually be detected by an employee threatening to leave for a job which pays more.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    If you're waiting for employees to leave, you're waiting too long. Raises, bonuses, cost of living adjustments; all are part of how you attempt to retain talent. If you're hiring coding cogs, then no, you don't need to give any raises. Just hire at the market rate and plan for 50% attrition every year. But if you want to keep your employees for more than a few years, you pay them more than the market rate. You match the cost of living increases, you give them performance bonuses, and you give them a minimum of 5-10% raises annually. Bonus points if you recognize that ass-in-seat time is not a good proxy for performance. Do that, and they won't leave because they aren't getting paid commensurately with their skills. Still need to give them interesting work, though.
    - ouid 10y ago
      You are making the false assumption that value is fixed for a fixed amount of work. Programmers, and more generally engineers, do not have a fixed value for labor. It is generally the case that it is much more efficient to have the same engineer starting and finishing a project. This means that you as a programmer, have negotiating power that scales with the amount of work that you have already done. If you are not getting paid in proportion to what it would cost to replace you at any given point of the process, then you are getting paid well below the actual "market" rate. This means that if you are an at will programmer, you can do less work the closer the project gets to completion without it being a good idea to fire you. If a small raise disproportionately discourages this behavior, then it makes sense, but it does not count as "paying you more than the market rate". I suspect that you receive, on average, a smaller percentage of the cost of replacement as time goes on.