11 ms·

You're not really making an independent measurement here. You see developers "stagnating" and moving on; how do you know that's not caused by lack of pay increa

You're not really making an independent measurement here. You see developers "stagnating" and moving on; how do you know that's not caused by lack of pay increases and other things you're doing (letting people pick new projects, for example, to keep them interested)? Maybe if you did "go out of your way to retain employees" you'd have employees who end up making your business even more successful during their longer tenure.

vsareto 5y ago
I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. Maybe picking projects will if the company has enough variety. The best cure for stagnation I've found is to take long breaks and get into something else.
- b3morales 5y ago
  Sure, and I don't really know either; my point was just that the parent is begging the question. :)
- reedjosh 5y ago
  > I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. No, but lack thereof can certainly cause it. When there's no real reward, what's the point of putting in the extra work and taking risks? Two things that quickly break stagnation.
- visarga 5y ago
  My cure for stagnation is to play more. Amazing how playing at a pet project will get your juices flowing.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  Agree. I've been at my place for 11 years now, and have had four very distinct roles over that time. Each change gave that revitalizing jolt of fresh challenges, technologies, etc, but with the benefit that I got to keep my seniority, influence, expertise with the in-house systems, and so on. Have I given up potential pay bumps by not going external? Sure, probably. But I have enough to be comfortable and my company has treated me well, both monetarily and in facilitating these kinds of changes when I've wanted them.
- karmasimida 5y ago
  That is really good advice I am in the same shoe of feeling stagnating this year and trying to figure out how to get out of it. The boringness and familiarness just drags along ...
errantspark 5y ago
Pretty much. Honestly if I can get a 20% pay raise by switching jobs, my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try? If I wanted to try I would go work somewhere else. There's just a complete mismatch in how much the company I work for values the experience and skill I gain over time and how much everyone else values it. Over time recruiters come to me with opportunities to make more money, they try to convince me to leave. It's such an obvious disparity I can't help but stop caring about the job I'm doing when it's only real utility to me is that I don't have to put in any effort to keep having it.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try?" Because it's a form of systematic corruption, maybe the biggest kind of corruption in the White Collar world. The objective is to 'do a good job' , not the minimum, in every endeavour. Doing the 'bare minimum' to keep a job is actually generally far under-performing, as most companies won't generally let people go. It's how entire industries stagnate and sink. When internal participants spend most of their time fighting over the surpluses, it's over. This applies to companies as whole as well of course, i.e. the $1B government contracts that should only be $500M etc. etc.. Do a good job. If there's a better fit elsewhere, that's fine too.
  - beiller 5y ago
    You have errors in you measurement, mostly in assuming employees only add a positive ROI when in fact their value can go negative. Thus doing the bare minimum is worth more than you think as long as the employee stays in the positive ROI (which I assume is the measure of bare minimum).
  - handrous 5y ago
    I have a really hard time distinguishing between the idea that companies are entitled to some maximum of an employee's work-quality and effort and the notion that an employee is entitled to compensation amounting to most or all of the marginal value they add to a company through their labor, not just what they can convince the company to give them. Like, I don't get how one can argue for the former and reject the latter, not regarding it also as a form of "corruption", as you put it. (I'm making an assumption here that you're not big on Marxism, I guess—maybe you do agree with both propositions)
pxue 5y ago
Output/performance shouldn't be determined by pay, ie pay is a lagging indicator of output/performance.
- b3morales 5y ago
  My experience has been that if it lags far enough, output starts dropping to realign with it.
- throwawaysleep 5y ago
  But pay determines whether I have a future at a company and if I have no future, my objective goes from getting a good performance review to avoiding termination.
- arp242 5y ago
  Especially in cases where people are being underpaid by quite a bit, it can be a hugely demotivational factor. It's not even about the money as such, but rather about the signal how much all your hard work and effort is appreciated: apparently not all that much if you're not being paid what you know you're worth. I really don't care all that much about how I'm being paid, I'm pretty easy about it. But it nonetheless played a direct factor in quitting two jobs because I felt I was being woefully underpaid (which I objectively was; although I guess you'll have to my word for it) and efforts to bring it up to a more standard level were being frustrated to such a degree I felt that a lot of "extra effort" I had put in to the job just wasn't being appreciated at all.

vsareto 5y ago

I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. Maybe picking projects will if the company has enough variety. The best cure for stagnation I've found is to take long breaks and get into something else.

b3morales 5y ago
Sure, and I don't really know either; my point was just that the parent is begging the question. :)
reedjosh 5y ago
> I don't think pay increase will help stagnation. No, but lack thereof can certainly cause it. When there's no real reward, what's the point of putting in the extra work and taking risks? Two things that quickly break stagnation.
visarga 5y ago
My cure for stagnation is to play more. Amazing how playing at a pet project will get your juices flowing.
mikepurvis 5y ago
Agree. I've been at my place for 11 years now, and have had four very distinct roles over that time. Each change gave that revitalizing jolt of fresh challenges, technologies, etc, but with the benefit that I got to keep my seniority, influence, expertise with the in-house systems, and so on. Have I given up potential pay bumps by not going external? Sure, probably. But I have enough to be comfortable and my company has treated me well, both monetarily and in facilitating these kinds of changes when I've wanted them.
karmasimida 5y ago
That is really good advice I am in the same shoe of feeling stagnating this year and trying to figure out how to get out of it. The boringness and familiarness just drags along ...

errantspark 5y ago

Pretty much. Honestly if I can get a 20% pay raise by switching jobs, my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try? If I wanted to try I would go work somewhere else. There's just a complete mismatch in how much the company I work for values the experience and skill I gain over time and how much everyone else values it. Over time recruiters come to me with opportunities to make more money, they try to convince me to leave. It's such an obvious disparity I can't help but stop caring about the job I'm doing when it's only real utility to me is that I don't have to put in any effort to keep having it.

jollybean 5y ago
"my job is to do the absolute minimum amount I can do to stay under the radar, why would I try?" Because it's a form of systematic corruption, maybe the biggest kind of corruption in the White Collar world. The objective is to 'do a good job' , not the minimum, in every endeavour. Doing the 'bare minimum' to keep a job is actually generally far under-performing, as most companies won't generally let people go. It's how entire industries stagnate and sink. When internal participants spend most of their time fighting over the surpluses, it's over. This applies to companies as whole as well of course, i.e. the $1B government contracts that should only be $500M etc. etc.. Do a good job. If there's a better fit elsewhere, that's fine too.
- beiller 5y ago
  You have errors in you measurement, mostly in assuming employees only add a positive ROI when in fact their value can go negative. Thus doing the bare minimum is worth more than you think as long as the employee stays in the positive ROI (which I assume is the measure of bare minimum).
- handrous 5y ago
  I have a really hard time distinguishing between the idea that companies are entitled to some maximum of an employee's work-quality and effort and the notion that an employee is entitled to compensation amounting to most or all of the marginal value they add to a company through their labor, not just what they can convince the company to give them. Like, I don't get how one can argue for the former and reject the latter, not regarding it also as a form of "corruption", as you put it. (I'm making an assumption here that you're not big on Marxism, I guess—maybe you do agree with both propositions)

pxue 5y ago

Output/performance shouldn't be determined by pay, ie pay is a lagging indicator of output/performance.

b3morales 5y ago
My experience has been that if it lags far enough, output starts dropping to realign with it.
throwawaysleep 5y ago
But pay determines whether I have a future at a company and if I have no future, my objective goes from getting a good performance review to avoiding termination.
arp242 5y ago
Especially in cases where people are being underpaid by quite a bit, it can be a hugely demotivational factor. It's not even about the money as such, but rather about the signal how much all your hard work and effort is appreciated: apparently not all that much if you're not being paid what you know you're worth. I really don't care all that much about how I'm being paid, I'm pretty easy about it. But it nonetheless played a direct factor in quitting two jobs because I felt I was being woefully underpaid (which I objectively was; although I guess you'll have to my word for it) and efforts to bring it up to a more standard level were being frustrated to such a degree I felt that a lot of "extra effort" I had put in to the job just wasn't being appreciated at all.