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It blows my mind that the most effective way of getting a market level pay increase is to switch jobs. That makes no sense; successful companies will figure th

It blows my mind that the most effective way of getting a market level pay increase is to switch jobs. That makes no sense; successful companies will figure this out and unsuccessful companies will lose their talent. For companies that aren’t in tech it’ll probably not matter, but tech companies will have to adapt or die.

MoSattler 5y ago
This always confused me as well. Isn't it much more expensive to find my replacement, train them AND pay them the extra percentage points you didn't want to pay me?
TrackerFF 5y ago
But the constant job hopping among engineers can come at a cost: Higher expectations of productivity from the go. Less training. and similar. If you hire someone, knowing that they'll only stay for 1-2 years, you obviously want them to be as productive as possible for that time period. In traditional engineering firms, you'd probably spend the fist N months on training, and won't get to touch production in a long, long time. This culture kind of reinforces the "hire fast, fire fast" mantra that tech companies love.
ukoki 5y ago
> That makes no sense; successful companies will figure this out and unsuccessful companies will lose their talent I think there's a rational argument for it. Yes they will lose some talent by not raising wages to the market rate, and maybe they will lose a lot of talent this way. But they will also keep talent cheaply that: * finds job interviews exhausting * hates negotiating * has good relationships with colleagues they don't want to lose * has a comfortable commute or WFH arrangement they don't want to change * is proud of becoming an expert / go-to-person in some part of the business and doesn't want to lose that source of social capital * is proud of product or service they have made a big contribution to and wants to "see it through to the end" * is generally impresionable and does what management want without too much complaint
tuckerpo 5y ago
You've got to consider the fact that interviewing is kind of a nightmare process in tech that involves lots of ramp-up time off the clock and takes months to get through. Most people just want to do their 8 hours and then zone out - not do their 8 hours and then do 6 more hours of Leetcode and CTCI practice, despite the potential for comp increase that comes at the end.
downrightmike 5y ago
Right now is like the 1980's electronics, make it out of the cheapest possible parts and when it fails, they'll buy a new one! And then competitors spend one cent more on resistors, and their devices last longer and people buy those. Stupid companies haven't caught on to this. The ones that do are having a great time getting quality resources
mywittyname 5y ago
Not everyone is an ace hire and new people bring new ideas. So churn helps move the median developers out the door so the company has a chance with someone new. Plus, really good developers are taken care of.

MoSattler 5y ago

This always confused me as well. Isn't it much more expensive to find my replacement, train them AND pay them the extra percentage points you didn't want to pay me?

TrackerFF 5y ago

But the constant job hopping among engineers can come at a cost: Higher expectations of productivity from the go. Less training. and similar. If you hire someone, knowing that they'll only stay for 1-2 years, you obviously want them to be as productive as possible for that time period. In traditional engineering firms, you'd probably spend the fist N months on training, and won't get to touch production in a long, long time. This culture kind of reinforces the "hire fast, fire fast" mantra that tech companies love.

ukoki 5y ago

> That makes no sense; successful companies will figure this out and unsuccessful companies will lose their talent I think there's a rational argument for it. Yes they will lose some talent by not raising wages to the market rate, and maybe they will lose a lot of talent this way. But they will also keep talent cheaply that: * finds job interviews exhausting * hates negotiating * has good relationships with colleagues they don't want to lose * has a comfortable commute or WFH arrangement they don't want to change * is proud of becoming an expert / go-to-person in some part of the business and doesn't want to lose that source of social capital * is proud of product or service they have made a big contribution to and wants to "see it through to the end" * is generally impresionable and does what management want without too much complaint

tuckerpo 5y ago

You've got to consider the fact that interviewing is kind of a nightmare process in tech that involves lots of ramp-up time off the clock and takes months to get through. Most people just want to do their 8 hours and then zone out - not do their 8 hours and then do 6 more hours of Leetcode and CTCI practice, despite the potential for comp increase that comes at the end.

downrightmike 5y ago

Right now is like the 1980's electronics, make it out of the cheapest possible parts and when it fails, they'll buy a new one! And then competitors spend one cent more on resistors, and their devices last longer and people buy those. Stupid companies haven't caught on to this. The ones that do are having a great time getting quality resources

mywittyname 5y ago

Not everyone is an ace hire and new people bring new ideas. So churn helps move the median developers out the door so the company has a chance with someone new. Plus, really good developers are taken care of.