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Ask HN: How common is a counteroffer for developers who give notice?

89 points by bjornlouser 9y ago

Seems like it was common practice a couple of decades ago. Does anyone try to retain developer talent these days?

aey 9y ago
In my experience there was always a counter offer, unless you are terrible :). But I would strongly discourage you from taking it. Basically, the reason you are not at that salary/position yet, is because you are not recognized at that level by management. getting a bump via a counter offer will mean that you will be last in line for raises/bonus/promotions since you will be viewed as getting paid above your grade. This was what I observed as a manager at a big company during calibrations. If you want a bump, ask your manager - where do you need the most help, what can i do to have a larger impact this cycle etc... - and do those things. If that is not enough, run :)
- badosu 9y ago
  > In my experience there was always a counter offer, unless you are terrible :). I wouldn't give a counter-offer to an employee if I know that I can't really offer a better salary or work environment, and it would be even undesirable for me to have him accept it as he would probably always have the thought of leaving haunting him afterwards. Sometimes not receiving a counter offer is the opposite of being terrible. Yours is a terrible advice.
brogrammernot 9y ago
Very common. However, if you want to stay and it’s just about money or title I would suggest talking to your director of recruiting or engineering manager. In my experience, chatting with them and being honest saying like “I love the company, but I’ve gotten some verbal offers/interest from company X, Y, X and the package they’re offering + the challenges they want me to solve are very intriguing. I’m loyal, so I haven’t taken any interviews as I really want to solve challenges here but this looks like a great opportunity. What can we do to make my current role as competitive that these ones?” You have to be willing to leave though, as they might just say nope and that’s the end of it. I used that same tactic, along with a proposal of what I wanted to do/be paid, and got a hefty increase. It costs a lot to find developers, then to hire good ones. It can be $5-20k + the domain knowledge you have so it’s not cheap to replace a good developer.
- lj3 9y ago
  removed
  - jdc0589 9y ago
    it happens a lot. every time ive quit a job my employer has tried to counter. same story for most co-workers that were good/highly valued.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  > It costs a lot to find developers, then to hire good ones. It can be $5-20k + the domain knowledge you have so it’s not cheap to replace a good developer. My experience is different. Avalanche the expensive and experienced devs with more and more work until they signalize that the team requires upsizing, make them resign. Fish for students, contractors. Hire contractors exclusively through a chain of intermediaries, so their salary and employee rights will be minuscule and they will have no leverage to say "no" to the most ridiculous bullshit. Please tell me there exist companies which appreciate their specialists, which offer a significant payrise to make them stay. I have yet to encounter and work for one.
  - infinite8s 9y ago
    What industry is this? Haven't seen this in finance.
    - expertentipp 9y ago
      IT in post-Communist EU countries. There are global banks employing here as well, but that's the absolute bottom of outsourcing food chain. Met the practices I described above as well in Germany.
galeforcewinds 9y ago
In my experience, factors include whether there are planned hiring freezes or organization structure changes, the critical experience of the developer for critical projects, and the level of understanding of the manager. In many cases, if the business is advancing toward a downsizing, they might choose not to make a counteroffer and instead use the departure to fill a planned staffing reduction. This can pose serious issues for the manager when a business chooses such a course when their manpower was not originally slated for downsizing. I've seen lower appetite for counteroffers in the "middle range" of maturity. When a team has begun to reject cowboy culture and tribal knowledge, embracing high levels of testing, documentation and automation there may be reduced interest in keeping someone for skill and knowledge. I've seen this behavior diminish when organizations reach a higher maturity level and are making a more sizable investment in long-term growth of their employees through things like training. When serving as a manager, there are many cases where one might step in to ask the business not to make a counteroffer, such as: if the employee is relocating due to their spouse, if the employee determines remote work is not a good fit for themselves, or if the employee is seen to be making positive career steps forward which could not be matched in their current work environment. Many managers are big enough people not to try to hold their employees back. There are of course many places I've not worked, and many possible cases I've not seen, but the above is my experience.
TomV1971 9y ago
Very common. Two times, I accepted the counteroffer and stayed (for a while.) It didn’t have any adverse impact. I’m still at the company of the second counteroffer. My experience is that big companies are typically quite rational about the whole thing. No hard feelings or anything, just business.
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  Haha, managers are like girlfriends/boyfriends. They take the first breakups personally. Then after a few more, they mature and wish you good luck on your next one.
le-mark 9y ago
I've found you are counter offered only if you are perceived to be "good" ie a key team member. I've also found it's normal in two situations. For small/medium sized companies there can be counter offers if no one has left in a while (ie year or two), and you are the first 1 or 2 "good" developers try to quit. After that they kind of give up. The second situation is they're hemorrhaging staff, and will counter everyone, or proactively give raises to stem the tide. I once took a counter offer that was nearly 50% of my salary. That was too much money to turn down.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I have seen counteroffers for people who were either underpaid or should have been promoted a long time ago. Once your salary is in line with your standing in the company I haven't seen counteroffers.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Counteroffers aren't always just pay. I had one unusual employee who wanted a very specific, and unorthodox, space turned into his office. He got it, if you're curious.
    - eric-hu 9y ago
      Do you mind sharing more about his space request?
      - KGIII 9y ago
        He was a DBA and rather antisocial. He wanted his office to be in what was also the wiring closet, which was a space very much away from everyone else, very small, and became his home away from home. As strange as it may sound, he was worth all his quirks and more. As for quirks, he had plenty. I've never met a better DBA, however. We were working with full TB data sets by 2000. He enabled that, for the most part. Walmart was in an article touting themselves as the first to deal with a database a TB in size, he found that greatly amusing. I have trouble wrapping my head around databases, I think he just knew them by intuition. His choice of office space was one of his more mild quirks. I believe he is still retired but I can safely say he enabled us to do things we'd not have been able to do without him. Edit: I could probably write whole books about the people who worked with me. Getting started in the early 90s seems to have made quite a difference in the people aspect. I never had an HR department and I'm not sure I could have forced one into the mix. I'd been the original programmer, except I can't code very well. I eventually hired professionals. They, of course, told me how much my code sucked. They were rather blunt about it and I took the hint and got out of their way. Eventually, the code to enter the server room was changed at the main office. I could have forced them to give me the code but that seemed unwise. I hired people to do things I could not. If I could do it, I wouldn't have hired them. So, I learned to put my ego aside and get out of their way. This is long enough, but that's the gist of it.
jasode 9y ago
>Does anyone try to retain developer talent these days? There's a line of thought which assumes that an employee that's given notice has already mentally "checked out". Therefore, it's unwise to present counteroffers. Even if the manager persuades the employee to accept the counteroffer, it's inadvertently detrimental to the team because you have retained a disengaged mind that was eager to leave. To avoid all that, you wish them well with a smile and just let them leave. Many companies follow that principle. It's important for a developer to know ahead of time if the company doesn't do counteroffers because if you're just fishing around for job offers with no intention of changing jobs, the company may call your bluff and let you leave.
- analog31 9y ago
  Something I've wondered is whether this is basically a bluffing tactic: If an employee is persuaded that there will be no counteroffer, then it's more of an emotional hurdle to start the job search. On the flip side, I was hired during a hiring freeze.
  - platz 9y ago
    It would only be a bluff if your initial threat to take another offer was a bluff, which would change the situation entirely
- ugh123 9y ago
  Every situation is different. Example: An employee has become bored in their current role, and a snoozing manager hasn't noticed in a while. If the employee hasn't been engaged by their manager then, sure, they'll look elsewhere. HR's (and the manager's manager) first question should be: have we offered this employee a different role outside of this project/team. Not every employee who has given notice is completely "checked out". They may be frustrated in their current role where they might not have been given the right opportunities for more responsibility or higher profile projects. Asking the employee what their real issues are is the first step.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
ufmace 9y ago
Varies widely depending on the individual situation of the developer, the company, the manager, and the relationship of the developer to everyone else, relative skill and experience, and countless other factors. I haven't personally gotten any yet after 3 resignations in my professional career, but that may be because in all of them, I was leaving because I was already very sure, based on factors other than the salary, that I no longer wanted to work there. Well, the first one, I might have been able to get a counter-offer or other change in working conditions if I had been fishing for it, but I had long been coming to the conclusion that I just didn't see myself there long-term. There is a lot of discussion out there about getting and giving counter offers and whether or not you should accept one. One thing I would say to the companies/managers that I haven't seen much - if you have the budget and desire to keep the employee to make a counter-offer, why didn't you just give them that raise in the first place? Seems easier than letting them run around interviewing at other places and negotiating offers with other companies, just to save 10% or whatever of their salary for a year or two.
dawnerd 9y ago
Demand Media counter offered me a few times and I took it since the pay bump was substantial. The last one I told them they had to bring the rest of the people on my team up to my level. Once they did I quit for good. Take that DM.
- imaginenore 9y ago
  Why would you do something so mean?
  - hellofunk 9y ago
    I think you have to understand that particular company to understand why he would do that. I've known more than one person who worked for them.
  - icedchai 9y ago
    Mean? Organizations don't have feelings. People do. It sounds like they did a beautiful thing: looking out for the rest of their team.
- everdev 9y ago
  Exactly why management shouldn't counter offer, the employee already left once and likely will again in the near future.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  I once wrote for them, what a strange company. I didn't think they were still around, the assignments dried up.
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    Once panda hit they massively scaled back the content side of things, started going more editorial if you want to call it that.
    - hellofunk 9y ago
everdev 9y ago
If you give notice, you're saying "I'm at the end of my rope, I'm leaving". If you go to management and say "I've been struggling with X, Y and Z can you help me?" then you're signaling that you trust the company to help you, wether that's workload, salary, etc. Management that counter offer after giving notice is 9/10 trying to keep you around long enough to find a better replacement knowing that you'll leave again in the near future, or they'll boot you when the replacement is up to speed.
- noitsnot 9y ago
  Most of the time they're trying to keep you around long enough not to have to deal with hiring someone else anyway.
- kpxxx3 9y ago
  > If you give notice, you're saying "I'm at the end of my rope, I'm leaving". No not usually. I don’t get why a group (techies) that fancies themselves so rational can’t understand simple economics. Giving notice means I have leverage with a better offer no more less. The reason for that may be hard for the current employer to fix or not. Often it is not hard for them to fix, especially in larger organizations. And often coming with a better offer in hand is the only way to signal that. We can wank about ideal managers and all that but that is not how the world works.
buro9 9y ago
It depends on why you were considering leaving. If the reason is something that money could solve, then I always encourage the company to offer more. An example of this might be "I wasn't looking, still don't feel like I am. But company X asked me to look at a role, and I felt I shouldn't just ignore and it turns out they're offering $ and whilst I don't really want that role I would be a fool to decline it out of hand as that difference helps achieve <insert life goal>.". In that case... if the company can do it, do it. But if it's more "I went looking for something else and I hate this job, and this other stuff winds me up, but if you gave me all this extra money I'd suffer it a while longer"... then the company should wish you well and if they understand fully how toxic you now are to the team would let you leave that same day. It depends. It always depends.
- nilkn 9y ago
  I really agree with this. Your exact example -- every detail -- happened to me a few years ago. I was offered a ~50% raise without really seeking it out. I went to my boss (with whom I had an excellent relationship) and explained the situation. I got the raise that day, and over two years later I've continued to get great raises/promotions, and it has become the best job I've ever had. It is important to note that I was doing really important work at the company. I was probably not considered a "normal" employee.
edoceo 9y ago
I've offered a counter to everyone I wanted to keep on the team. Am not batting 1000. I think if you don't get the counter, the reason is clear.
reificator 9y ago
Purely anecdotal, but I've actually been given two counter offers before even looking for other employment. I call them counter offers and not simple raises because of the tone and demeanor of those involved. These were not just "you're doing well" conversations, they were "here's some extra compensation, please please tell us if you even think of looking elsewhere so we can plan ahead" conversations.
Avernar 9y ago
To me a counter offer is basically saying "we got away paying you less than what you're worth to us and you finally called our bluff". That's why I'll never accept a counter offer.
- kpxxx3 9y ago
  Lol. They didn’t get away with anything. Unless you were sold as a slave you negotiated some terms mutually. Why the fuck would any party in a business transaction voluntarily pay more if they have no reason to believe that is necessary. Do you tell amazon that Walmart is selling the same item for $10 more so they can raise their price so you don’t “get away” paying a lower price than most likely what some people are paying? There’s no bluff being called. This is simply the normal way for transaction participants to act rationally and in their best interests.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Why the fuck would any party in a business transaction voluntarily pay more if they have no reason to believe that is necessary. Umm, because it WAS necessary. Just one party didn't update their pricing until after the market moved against them. "No reason to believe" is pure nonsense; it's management's full-time job to be on top of that, and they failed.
  - Avernar 9y ago
    > you negotiated some terms mutually Most people are not skilled negotiators. That aside, the balance in that negotiation is in favour of the employer at the start. At that point you are worth nothing to them. They can just go to the next candidate. You on the other had have a mortgage, debts to deal with, bills to pay, family to feed, etc. It takes time before that balance tips towards the employee. That's when the company needs to reassess what they're paying you. > There’s no bluff being called. They know you're worth more but at your yearly performance review they'll do their damnedest to only give you cost of living if even that. Then they put the burden on you to prove you're worth more than that. "What did you accomplish this past year?" They know what you did for them. They're hoping you were too busy to document it yourself. "We can give you more but you have to take on more responsibilities." They were paying you less than you were worth for your current workload before this! This extra work will mean even more unpaid overtime which will nullify the raise and even turn it into an effective pay cut. Even if you do manage to document your past work and/or agree to more work you'll just hit the arbitrary raise cap they put in place. "This is the best that we can do." They are bluffing. They're gambling that you can't find a better offer. Or that it's too much hassle to switch. But once you call their bluff that's when you get to finally see what they really could have been paying you. > act rationally and in their best interests Companies very rarely do this for long term goals. Short term gains is top priority. Saving money on payroll now is better to them than mitigating the big financial loss that loosing a key employee would cause in the future. That is the reason why we see this counter offer behaviour each and every time. You've change the "he's going to quit sometime in the future" to "he's quitting NOW". You've now made it a short term issue and that's what finally got them to react.
iammiles 9y ago
Several months ago I gave notice to my startup employer that I had accepted an offer at another company. I was asked if there was anything they could do to keep me. I said unless they doubled my (low) salary I wouldn't have much of an interest in staying. I liked the people I worked with, I liked the work culture, and even liked what the company was building, but at the end of the day it was worth it for me to switch to working on "non-sexy" legacy tech at a large corporation and all the BS that comes with that for financial gain, stability, and benefits.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Do legacy tech at large corporation jobs actually provide stability? It seems you face a higher risk of outsourcing there than the risk of collapse at a Silicon Valley company with traction.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - viraptor 9y ago
    It depends. If your role is "generic, replaceable developer" then you could risk outsourcing. If you're in a specific kind of project, or in a specialist position, it's less likely. Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. The redundancy pay was sweet though.
    - daxelrod 9y ago
      > Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. Sorry to hear that. As long as it wasn't canceled because they had trouble paying the bills or the teams were dysfunctional, that's usually pretty short-sighted of the corp. Here's a bunch of people that we've already taken the cost of recruiting/training/onboarding who are familiar with our technology and processes. The right answer is to reassign them to other work in the organization.
      - 9y ago
jwatte 9y ago
There's a difference between "this offer shows that I'm underpaid in my current position" and "I decided to move on for a variety of reasons." An employee who gives me solid market data, and is a good performer who likes the current position, does me a favor if they let me know I missed the memo on current market. In most companies, it's 2-4% pretty year into infinity, and if the overall market grows faster than that, independent research may be warranted. Meanwhile, of someone gives notice, rather than starts a conversation, I'd be much more wary. If we don't have a good, open relationship already, a quick raise won't fix that.
lazyant 9y ago
It's common but it's a lose-lose situation; the employee will resent that she hasn't been paid what she was worth and will be afraid to be replaced at any moment and the employer will feel like the developer stays just for the money and will leave at any time if somebody else matches it.
k__ 9y ago
When I said I want to leave my manager offered me his place... But the directors said only people who come to work before 11 are allowed to be managers
amorphid 9y ago
If you like your employer... One option you have is to prepare to ask for a raise, and then pitch them on why you're worth more before you accept the other offer. They might agree with you, and simply give you the raise you're asking for. Using this approach, you're making it about the company before you make it about yourself. If you don't get the raise, accept the other offer. If a counter offer comes your way, you can decide whether you wanna deal with it.
magoon 9y ago
With few exceptions, don't take a counter-offer.
- jaimex2 9y ago
  the exception being only if the money is stupid good?
  - wolco 9y ago
    If you have been working at a place for a number of years you take the increase knowing that will fired as soon as a replacement can be found. This increases the amount they have to pay via notice pay. Only would work in a large corporate situation where you know your team is being laid off in a year anyways.
jacobkg 9y ago
If you don’t think that your company would counter because they think you will have “already checked out” or “can’t be saved” there is one option you can try. Go out and get some job offers for higher salaries and then decline them all. Come back to your manager after some time has passed and mention that you had recently validated your value in the market and know what you are worth and that though this time you weren’t interested you can’t know what the future will hold. They may see that you can still be retained and make an effort to keep you.
- twblalock 9y ago
  The better approach is to get other job offers but don't decline them. If your company wants to keep you, they will find a way. Otherwise, take another offer.
- avh02 9y ago
  I can't do full on job seeking if I know I'll not take the job. The amount of people's time you waste is significant. If there's even a slimmer of chance I could accept it, yeah, I could go for it.
  - twblalock 9y ago
    There is also the risk that your manager might not believe that you did not intend to leave. The whole plan sounds fishy. I don't know if I would believe someone who told me they were only interviewing to find out their market-rate salary. So, the whole thing could end up being tantamount to giving notice anyway.
- scaryclam 9y ago
  I think you need to be careful doing that. If the companies you interview at ever figure out you wasted their time and money, you may get blacklisted. Worse, the HR workers or hiring managers may let others know about it as well.
akilism 9y ago
i've only left 2 jobs in the last 12 years but both gave me counters.
tptacek 9y ago
In addition to 'jasode's line of thought about employers not countering because giving notice means you've checked out, you should also understand the corollary, which is that even if you're retained through a counter, you might still be "damaged goods" and excluded from promotion, incentive compensation, and the most important projects. There was, a dozen or so years ago, a notion that you should never accept a counteroffer for exactly this reason. Your employer would be buying optionality on retaining you. What they want isn't you, but the right to decide when to replace you and a longer grace period to do that in. This definitely does happen; it happened explicitly to me in a previous job (I was told a few years after I left, a year or so after accepting a counter and then being marginalized).
sidcool 9y ago
Very very common. One could be asking for a raise, promotion, project change etc for months. Then when a resignation is tendered, counteroffers start to trickle in. Upon enquiring why so, they grin like the Grinch. I also believe that developer availability is going to soon outspeed demand. Revel while we get the importance.
- jaimex2 9y ago
  Its a shame it has to come down to those games. Generally when asked what I was offered I quote something stupid to not get a counteroffer or pull off the biggest hustle of my life. I don't think you should ever take counter offers if you previously asked for a raise and got no where.
tomkinson 9y ago
One shouldn't give notice then negotiate. One should say 'I am considering giving notice', then negotiate.
zde 9y ago
It is common, and you will probably get 2 or 3 counteroffers, but (unless you bluffed) none will make you stay.
contingencies 9y ago
I had one in 2009/2010. They made it too good to refuse. I accepted.
pjdemers 9y ago
If the outside offer is for a similar role, just more money, then a counter offer is common. That's because if employees leave for the same job somewhere else, then you are not paying enough. If the outside offer has a different role, or a different level of responsibility, then, it is difficult to make a counter offer. I've had more than a few developers leave for less money, sometimes allot less, because they wanted to do something different.
CyanLite3 9y ago
I'd take a counter under the following scenarios: 1) Company knows they are going to eliminate a team within XX months. I'd take a huge counter (3x salary) to stay on to help shutdown a project or sell the company. 2-3x salary in these cases are fairly normal when a company gets sold and they just need help transitioning to the new parent company. 2) Company offers a severance package along with it. E.g., we'll give you a salary bump and a 12-month severance if we let you go without cause, within one year. However, I've been on both sides, and I've offered a counteroffer to anyone who is leaving and I wanted to keep. Any company who doesn't do that probably doesn't have good developers who are constantly getting recruited on LinkedIn.
fuzzygroup 9y ago
I've hired a lot of engineers and I've seen this a number of times. In my experience once someone gets to the point of interviewing and considering another job, well, they're on the way out. I've done the counter offer and tried to get them to stay a number of times and it just never tends to work out -- they take the offer and then within six months they are out anyway. What I always do though is try and keep a good relationship with all departing staff so if there's a critical need for knowledge that only they have, they can be brought back on a consulting basis for specific problems. That way people can leave and organizationally you're not stuck in a bind.
egamirorrim 9y ago
Anecdotally, i've always been counter offered - and i've left 4 jobs as a developer. Usually around 10% more, assuming you say your primary reason for leaving is monetary and 'advancement' of course. If you say you're unhappy because of behaviour x and y they'll probably think they can retain you just by changing those. You have to be up front. Edit: 2 of these were 'big companies', 2 were small (small business and a startup)
shaftway 9y ago
On the flip side I've had a manager tell me to never accept a counter-offer. It's basically a dead-end path for you, especially at smaller companies. If you take it then management resents you, and you're likely to be passed over for promotion/raises in the future. And that's just if they're not vindictive. If they are they'll just get a brain dump, wait for your offers to expire then lay you off. He wasn't very happy when I gave notice and rejected his counter-offer.
gdfer 9y ago
I have left 3 jobs and for all have asked/told not to bother with a counter offer because my decisions were not based on $. Looking back on my career thus far im sure i could have made more money but not sure i would have been better off.

89 points by bjornlouser 9y ago

Seems like it was common practice a couple of decades ago. Does anyone try to retain developer talent these days?

aey 9y ago

In my experience there was always a counter offer, unless you are terrible :). But I would strongly discourage you from taking it. Basically, the reason you are not at that salary/position yet, is because you are not recognized at that level by management. getting a bump via a counter offer will mean that you will be last in line for raises/bonus/promotions since you will be viewed as getting paid above your grade. This was what I observed as a manager at a big company during calibrations. If you want a bump, ask your manager - where do you need the most help, what can i do to have a larger impact this cycle etc... - and do those things. If that is not enough, run :)

badosu 9y ago
> In my experience there was always a counter offer, unless you are terrible :). I wouldn't give a counter-offer to an employee if I know that I can't really offer a better salary or work environment, and it would be even undesirable for me to have him accept it as he would probably always have the thought of leaving haunting him afterwards. Sometimes not receiving a counter offer is the opposite of being terrible. Yours is a terrible advice.

brogrammernot 9y ago

Very common. However, if you want to stay and it’s just about money or title I would suggest talking to your director of recruiting or engineering manager. In my experience, chatting with them and being honest saying like “I love the company, but I’ve gotten some verbal offers/interest from company X, Y, X and the package they’re offering + the challenges they want me to solve are very intriguing. I’m loyal, so I haven’t taken any interviews as I really want to solve challenges here but this looks like a great opportunity. What can we do to make my current role as competitive that these ones?” You have to be willing to leave though, as they might just say nope and that’s the end of it. I used that same tactic, along with a proposal of what I wanted to do/be paid, and got a hefty increase. It costs a lot to find developers, then to hire good ones. It can be $5-20k + the domain knowledge you have so it’s not cheap to replace a good developer.

lj3 9y ago
removed
- jdc0589 9y ago
  it happens a lot. every time ive quit a job my employer has tried to counter. same story for most co-workers that were good/highly valued.
expertentipp 9y ago
> It costs a lot to find developers, then to hire good ones. It can be $5-20k + the domain knowledge you have so it’s not cheap to replace a good developer. My experience is different. Avalanche the expensive and experienced devs with more and more work until they signalize that the team requires upsizing, make them resign. Fish for students, contractors. Hire contractors exclusively through a chain of intermediaries, so their salary and employee rights will be minuscule and they will have no leverage to say "no" to the most ridiculous bullshit. Please tell me there exist companies which appreciate their specialists, which offer a significant payrise to make them stay. I have yet to encounter and work for one.
- infinite8s 9y ago
  What industry is this? Haven't seen this in finance.
  - expertentipp 9y ago
    IT in post-Communist EU countries. There are global banks employing here as well, but that's the absolute bottom of outsourcing food chain. Met the practices I described above as well in Germany.

galeforcewinds 9y ago

In my experience, factors include whether there are planned hiring freezes or organization structure changes, the critical experience of the developer for critical projects, and the level of understanding of the manager. In many cases, if the business is advancing toward a downsizing, they might choose not to make a counteroffer and instead use the departure to fill a planned staffing reduction. This can pose serious issues for the manager when a business chooses such a course when their manpower was not originally slated for downsizing. I've seen lower appetite for counteroffers in the "middle range" of maturity. When a team has begun to reject cowboy culture and tribal knowledge, embracing high levels of testing, documentation and automation there may be reduced interest in keeping someone for skill and knowledge. I've seen this behavior diminish when organizations reach a higher maturity level and are making a more sizable investment in long-term growth of their employees through things like training. When serving as a manager, there are many cases where one might step in to ask the business not to make a counteroffer, such as: if the employee is relocating due to their spouse, if the employee determines remote work is not a good fit for themselves, or if the employee is seen to be making positive career steps forward which could not be matched in their current work environment. Many managers are big enough people not to try to hold their employees back. There are of course many places I've not worked, and many possible cases I've not seen, but the above is my experience.

TomV1971 9y ago

Very common. Two times, I accepted the counteroffer and stayed (for a while.) It didn’t have any adverse impact. I’m still at the company of the second counteroffer. My experience is that big companies are typically quite rational about the whole thing. No hard feelings or anything, just business.

kelukelugames 9y ago
Haha, managers are like girlfriends/boyfriends. They take the first breakups personally. Then after a few more, they mature and wish you good luck on your next one.

le-mark 9y ago

I've found you are counter offered only if you are perceived to be "good" ie a key team member. I've also found it's normal in two situations. For small/medium sized companies there can be counter offers if no one has left in a while (ie year or two), and you are the first 1 or 2 "good" developers try to quit. After that they kind of give up. The second situation is they're hemorrhaging staff, and will counter everyone, or proactively give raises to stem the tide. I once took a counter offer that was nearly 50% of my salary. That was too much money to turn down.

maxxxxx 9y ago
I have seen counteroffers for people who were either underpaid or should have been promoted a long time ago. Once your salary is in line with your standing in the company I haven't seen counteroffers.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Counteroffers aren't always just pay. I had one unusual employee who wanted a very specific, and unorthodox, space turned into his office. He got it, if you're curious.
  - eric-hu 9y ago
    Do you mind sharing more about his space request?
    - KGIII 9y ago
      He was a DBA and rather antisocial. He wanted his office to be in what was also the wiring closet, which was a space very much away from everyone else, very small, and became his home away from home. As strange as it may sound, he was worth all his quirks and more. As for quirks, he had plenty. I've never met a better DBA, however. We were working with full TB data sets by 2000. He enabled that, for the most part. Walmart was in an article touting themselves as the first to deal with a database a TB in size, he found that greatly amusing. I have trouble wrapping my head around databases, I think he just knew them by intuition. His choice of office space was one of his more mild quirks. I believe he is still retired but I can safely say he enabled us to do things we'd not have been able to do without him. Edit: I could probably write whole books about the people who worked with me. Getting started in the early 90s seems to have made quite a difference in the people aspect. I never had an HR department and I'm not sure I could have forced one into the mix. I'd been the original programmer, except I can't code very well. I eventually hired professionals. They, of course, told me how much my code sucked. They were rather blunt about it and I took the hint and got out of their way. Eventually, the code to enter the server room was changed at the main office. I could have forced them to give me the code but that seemed unwise. I hired people to do things I could not. If I could do it, I wouldn't have hired them. So, I learned to put my ego aside and get out of their way. This is long enough, but that's the gist of it.

jasode 9y ago

>Does anyone try to retain developer talent these days? There's a line of thought which assumes that an employee that's given notice has already mentally "checked out". Therefore, it's unwise to present counteroffers. Even if the manager persuades the employee to accept the counteroffer, it's inadvertently detrimental to the team because you have retained a disengaged mind that was eager to leave. To avoid all that, you wish them well with a smile and just let them leave. Many companies follow that principle. It's important for a developer to know ahead of time if the company doesn't do counteroffers because if you're just fishing around for job offers with no intention of changing jobs, the company may call your bluff and let you leave.

analog31 9y ago
Something I've wondered is whether this is basically a bluffing tactic: If an employee is persuaded that there will be no counteroffer, then it's more of an emotional hurdle to start the job search. On the flip side, I was hired during a hiring freeze.
- platz 9y ago
  It would only be a bluff if your initial threat to take another offer was a bluff, which would change the situation entirely
ugh123 9y ago
Every situation is different. Example: An employee has become bored in their current role, and a snoozing manager hasn't noticed in a while. If the employee hasn't been engaged by their manager then, sure, they'll look elsewhere. HR's (and the manager's manager) first question should be: have we offered this employee a different role outside of this project/team. Not every employee who has given notice is completely "checked out". They may be frustrated in their current role where they might not have been given the right opportunities for more responsibility or higher profile projects. Asking the employee what their real issues are is the first step.
- humanrebar 9y ago

ufmace 9y ago

Varies widely depending on the individual situation of the developer, the company, the manager, and the relationship of the developer to everyone else, relative skill and experience, and countless other factors. I haven't personally gotten any yet after 3 resignations in my professional career, but that may be because in all of them, I was leaving because I was already very sure, based on factors other than the salary, that I no longer wanted to work there. Well, the first one, I might have been able to get a counter-offer or other change in working conditions if I had been fishing for it, but I had long been coming to the conclusion that I just didn't see myself there long-term. There is a lot of discussion out there about getting and giving counter offers and whether or not you should accept one. One thing I would say to the companies/managers that I haven't seen much - if you have the budget and desire to keep the employee to make a counter-offer, why didn't you just give them that raise in the first place? Seems easier than letting them run around interviewing at other places and negotiating offers with other companies, just to save 10% or whatever of their salary for a year or two.

dawnerd 9y ago

Demand Media counter offered me a few times and I took it since the pay bump was substantial. The last one I told them they had to bring the rest of the people on my team up to my level. Once they did I quit for good. Take that DM.

imaginenore 9y ago
Why would you do something so mean?
- hellofunk 9y ago
  I think you have to understand that particular company to understand why he would do that. I've known more than one person who worked for them.
- icedchai 9y ago
  Mean? Organizations don't have feelings. People do. It sounds like they did a beautiful thing: looking out for the rest of their team.
everdev 9y ago
Exactly why management shouldn't counter offer, the employee already left once and likely will again in the near future.
hellofunk 9y ago
I once wrote for them, what a strange company. I didn't think they were still around, the assignments dried up.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Once panda hit they massively scaled back the content side of things, started going more editorial if you want to call it that.
  - hellofunk 9y ago

everdev 9y ago

If you give notice, you're saying "I'm at the end of my rope, I'm leaving". If you go to management and say "I've been struggling with X, Y and Z can you help me?" then you're signaling that you trust the company to help you, wether that's workload, salary, etc. Management that counter offer after giving notice is 9/10 trying to keep you around long enough to find a better replacement knowing that you'll leave again in the near future, or they'll boot you when the replacement is up to speed.

noitsnot 9y ago
Most of the time they're trying to keep you around long enough not to have to deal with hiring someone else anyway.
kpxxx3 9y ago
> If you give notice, you're saying "I'm at the end of my rope, I'm leaving". No not usually. I don’t get why a group (techies) that fancies themselves so rational can’t understand simple economics. Giving notice means I have leverage with a better offer no more less. The reason for that may be hard for the current employer to fix or not. Often it is not hard for them to fix, especially in larger organizations. And often coming with a better offer in hand is the only way to signal that. We can wank about ideal managers and all that but that is not how the world works.

buro9 9y ago

It depends on why you were considering leaving. If the reason is something that money could solve, then I always encourage the company to offer more. An example of this might be "I wasn't looking, still don't feel like I am. But company X asked me to look at a role, and I felt I shouldn't just ignore and it turns out they're offering $ and whilst I don't really want that role I would be a fool to decline it out of hand as that difference helps achieve <insert life goal>.". In that case... if the company can do it, do it. But if it's more "I went looking for something else and I hate this job, and this other stuff winds me up, but if you gave me all this extra money I'd suffer it a while longer"... then the company should wish you well and if they understand fully how toxic you now are to the team would let you leave that same day. It depends. It always depends.

nilkn 9y ago
I really agree with this. Your exact example -- every detail -- happened to me a few years ago. I was offered a ~50% raise without really seeking it out. I went to my boss (with whom I had an excellent relationship) and explained the situation. I got the raise that day, and over two years later I've continued to get great raises/promotions, and it has become the best job I've ever had. It is important to note that I was doing really important work at the company. I was probably not considered a "normal" employee.

edoceo 9y ago

I've offered a counter to everyone I wanted to keep on the team. Am not batting 1000. I think if you don't get the counter, the reason is clear.

reificator 9y ago

Purely anecdotal, but I've actually been given two counter offers before even looking for other employment. I call them counter offers and not simple raises because of the tone and demeanor of those involved. These were not just "you're doing well" conversations, they were "here's some extra compensation, please please tell us if you even think of looking elsewhere so we can plan ahead" conversations.

Avernar 9y ago

To me a counter offer is basically saying "we got away paying you less than what you're worth to us and you finally called our bluff". That's why I'll never accept a counter offer.

kpxxx3 9y ago
Lol. They didn’t get away with anything. Unless you were sold as a slave you negotiated some terms mutually. Why the fuck would any party in a business transaction voluntarily pay more if they have no reason to believe that is necessary. Do you tell amazon that Walmart is selling the same item for $10 more so they can raise their price so you don’t “get away” paying a lower price than most likely what some people are paying? There’s no bluff being called. This is simply the normal way for transaction participants to act rationally and in their best interests.
- gaius 9y ago
  Why the fuck would any party in a business transaction voluntarily pay more if they have no reason to believe that is necessary. Umm, because it WAS necessary. Just one party didn't update their pricing until after the market moved against them. "No reason to believe" is pure nonsense; it's management's full-time job to be on top of that, and they failed.
- Avernar 9y ago
  > you negotiated some terms mutually Most people are not skilled negotiators. That aside, the balance in that negotiation is in favour of the employer at the start. At that point you are worth nothing to them. They can just go to the next candidate. You on the other had have a mortgage, debts to deal with, bills to pay, family to feed, etc. It takes time before that balance tips towards the employee. That's when the company needs to reassess what they're paying you. > There’s no bluff being called. They know you're worth more but at your yearly performance review they'll do their damnedest to only give you cost of living if even that. Then they put the burden on you to prove you're worth more than that. "What did you accomplish this past year?" They know what you did for them. They're hoping you were too busy to document it yourself. "We can give you more but you have to take on more responsibilities." They were paying you less than you were worth for your current workload before this! This extra work will mean even more unpaid overtime which will nullify the raise and even turn it into an effective pay cut. Even if you do manage to document your past work and/or agree to more work you'll just hit the arbitrary raise cap they put in place. "This is the best that we can do." They are bluffing. They're gambling that you can't find a better offer. Or that it's too much hassle to switch. But once you call their bluff that's when you get to finally see what they really could have been paying you. > act rationally and in their best interests Companies very rarely do this for long term goals. Short term gains is top priority. Saving money on payroll now is better to them than mitigating the big financial loss that loosing a key employee would cause in the future. That is the reason why we see this counter offer behaviour each and every time. You've change the "he's going to quit sometime in the future" to "he's quitting NOW". You've now made it a short term issue and that's what finally got them to react.

iammiles 9y ago

Several months ago I gave notice to my startup employer that I had accepted an offer at another company. I was asked if there was anything they could do to keep me. I said unless they doubled my (low) salary I wouldn't have much of an interest in staying. I liked the people I worked with, I liked the work culture, and even liked what the company was building, but at the end of the day it was worth it for me to switch to working on "non-sexy" legacy tech at a large corporation and all the BS that comes with that for financial gain, stability, and benefits.

closeparen 9y ago
Do legacy tech at large corporation jobs actually provide stability? It seems you face a higher risk of outsourcing there than the risk of collapse at a Silicon Valley company with traction.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- viraptor 9y ago
  It depends. If your role is "generic, replaceable developer" then you could risk outsourcing. If you're in a specific kind of project, or in a specialist position, it's less likely. Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. The redundancy pay was sweet though.
  - daxelrod 9y ago
    > Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. Sorry to hear that. As long as it wasn't canceled because they had trouble paying the bills or the teams were dysfunctional, that's usually pretty short-sighted of the corp. Here's a bunch of people that we've already taken the cost of recruiting/training/onboarding who are familiar with our technology and processes. The right answer is to reassign them to other work in the organization.
    - 9y ago

jwatte 9y ago

There's a difference between "this offer shows that I'm underpaid in my current position" and "I decided to move on for a variety of reasons." An employee who gives me solid market data, and is a good performer who likes the current position, does me a favor if they let me know I missed the memo on current market. In most companies, it's 2-4% pretty year into infinity, and if the overall market grows faster than that, independent research may be warranted. Meanwhile, of someone gives notice, rather than starts a conversation, I'd be much more wary. If we don't have a good, open relationship already, a quick raise won't fix that.

lazyant 9y ago

It's common but it's a lose-lose situation; the employee will resent that she hasn't been paid what she was worth and will be afraid to be replaced at any moment and the employer will feel like the developer stays just for the money and will leave at any time if somebody else matches it.

k__ 9y ago

When I said I want to leave my manager offered me his place... But the directors said only people who come to work before 11 are allowed to be managers

amorphid 9y ago

If you like your employer... One option you have is to prepare to ask for a raise, and then pitch them on why you're worth more before you accept the other offer. They might agree with you, and simply give you the raise you're asking for. Using this approach, you're making it about the company before you make it about yourself. If you don't get the raise, accept the other offer. If a counter offer comes your way, you can decide whether you wanna deal with it.

magoon 9y ago

With few exceptions, don't take a counter-offer.

jaimex2 9y ago
the exception being only if the money is stupid good?
- wolco 9y ago
  If you have been working at a place for a number of years you take the increase knowing that will fired as soon as a replacement can be found. This increases the amount they have to pay via notice pay. Only would work in a large corporate situation where you know your team is being laid off in a year anyways.

jacobkg 9y ago

If you don’t think that your company would counter because they think you will have “already checked out” or “can’t be saved” there is one option you can try. Go out and get some job offers for higher salaries and then decline them all. Come back to your manager after some time has passed and mention that you had recently validated your value in the market and know what you are worth and that though this time you weren’t interested you can’t know what the future will hold. They may see that you can still be retained and make an effort to keep you.

twblalock 9y ago
The better approach is to get other job offers but don't decline them. If your company wants to keep you, they will find a way. Otherwise, take another offer.
avh02 9y ago
I can't do full on job seeking if I know I'll not take the job. The amount of people's time you waste is significant. If there's even a slimmer of chance I could accept it, yeah, I could go for it.
- twblalock 9y ago
  There is also the risk that your manager might not believe that you did not intend to leave. The whole plan sounds fishy. I don't know if I would believe someone who told me they were only interviewing to find out their market-rate salary. So, the whole thing could end up being tantamount to giving notice anyway.
scaryclam 9y ago
I think you need to be careful doing that. If the companies you interview at ever figure out you wasted their time and money, you may get blacklisted. Worse, the HR workers or hiring managers may let others know about it as well.

akilism 9y ago

i've only left 2 jobs in the last 12 years but both gave me counters.

tptacek 9y ago

In addition to 'jasode's line of thought about employers not countering because giving notice means you've checked out, you should also understand the corollary, which is that even if you're retained through a counter, you might still be "damaged goods" and excluded from promotion, incentive compensation, and the most important projects. There was, a dozen or so years ago, a notion that you should never accept a counteroffer for exactly this reason. Your employer would be buying optionality on retaining you. What they want isn't you, but the right to decide when to replace you and a longer grace period to do that in. This definitely does happen; it happened explicitly to me in a previous job (I was told a few years after I left, a year or so after accepting a counter and then being marginalized).

sidcool 9y ago

Very very common. One could be asking for a raise, promotion, project change etc for months. Then when a resignation is tendered, counteroffers start to trickle in. Upon enquiring why so, they grin like the Grinch. I also believe that developer availability is going to soon outspeed demand. Revel while we get the importance.

jaimex2 9y ago
Its a shame it has to come down to those games. Generally when asked what I was offered I quote something stupid to not get a counteroffer or pull off the biggest hustle of my life. I don't think you should ever take counter offers if you previously asked for a raise and got no where.

tomkinson 9y ago

One shouldn't give notice then negotiate. One should say 'I am considering giving notice', then negotiate.

zde 9y ago

It is common, and you will probably get 2 or 3 counteroffers, but (unless you bluffed) none will make you stay.

contingencies 9y ago

I had one in 2009/2010. They made it too good to refuse. I accepted.

pjdemers 9y ago

If the outside offer is for a similar role, just more money, then a counter offer is common. That's because if employees leave for the same job somewhere else, then you are not paying enough. If the outside offer has a different role, or a different level of responsibility, then, it is difficult to make a counter offer. I've had more than a few developers leave for less money, sometimes allot less, because they wanted to do something different.

CyanLite3 9y ago

I'd take a counter under the following scenarios: 1) Company knows they are going to eliminate a team within XX months. I'd take a huge counter (3x salary) to stay on to help shutdown a project or sell the company. 2-3x salary in these cases are fairly normal when a company gets sold and they just need help transitioning to the new parent company. 2) Company offers a severance package along with it. E.g., we'll give you a salary bump and a 12-month severance if we let you go without cause, within one year. However, I've been on both sides, and I've offered a counteroffer to anyone who is leaving and I wanted to keep. Any company who doesn't do that probably doesn't have good developers who are constantly getting recruited on LinkedIn.

fuzzygroup 9y ago

I've hired a lot of engineers and I've seen this a number of times. In my experience once someone gets to the point of interviewing and considering another job, well, they're on the way out. I've done the counter offer and tried to get them to stay a number of times and it just never tends to work out -- they take the offer and then within six months they are out anyway. What I always do though is try and keep a good relationship with all departing staff so if there's a critical need for knowledge that only they have, they can be brought back on a consulting basis for specific problems. That way people can leave and organizationally you're not stuck in a bind.

egamirorrim 9y ago

Anecdotally, i've always been counter offered - and i've left 4 jobs as a developer. Usually around 10% more, assuming you say your primary reason for leaving is monetary and 'advancement' of course. If you say you're unhappy because of behaviour x and y they'll probably think they can retain you just by changing those. You have to be up front. Edit: 2 of these were 'big companies', 2 were small (small business and a startup)

shaftway 9y ago

On the flip side I've had a manager tell me to never accept a counter-offer. It's basically a dead-end path for you, especially at smaller companies. If you take it then management resents you, and you're likely to be passed over for promotion/raises in the future. And that's just if they're not vindictive. If they are they'll just get a brain dump, wait for your offers to expire then lay you off. He wasn't very happy when I gave notice and rejected his counter-offer.

gdfer 9y ago

I have left 3 jobs and for all have asked/told not to bother with a counter offer because my decisions were not based on $. Looking back on my career thus far im sure i could have made more money but not sure i would have been better off.