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I've always wondered why companies don't take a kind of staircase approach to compensation with younger engineers. E.g., if the salary is $1000/week with a 4 we

I've always wondered why companies don't take a kind of staircase approach to compensation with younger engineers. E.g., if the salary is $1000/week with a 4 week staircase, then week 1 would be $250, week 2 would be $500, week 3 would be $750, and weeks 4 and onward would be at the usual salary. If the primary cost of younger engineers comes from helping them get on board with how things are done at a given shop, this seems like it offsets the initial learning curve quite well. You could argue that the learning curve takes a lot longer, but surely there's an 80/20 rule at play here where the most important 80% can be learned in the first 20% of one's tenure at a company.

idontwantthis 3y ago
That saves about $0 spread out over the career. Why would they learn better while getting paid less?
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  It's less about savings and more about incentivizing the hiring of juniors in the first place. Many early career engineers find it much more difficult to get that first job than the second one, because they are seen as a risk. If however you make it cheaper to take a risk, then firms will take more risks on net, and the end result will be more juniors being able to enter their careers sooner (and more junior figuring out quickly that such a career is not for them, which is also a good thing).
colechristensen 3y ago
This is just not reasonable though. The primary cost of hiring is the long onboarding process regardless of level. Especially the time cost of existing engineers. Underpaying a new engineer doesn't solve anything. It's honestly just shortsighted laziness or already having a staff of engineers who aren't good enough at their craft or communication to be good teachers. If you're paying someone $1000/week you're paying them $50k per year and by your staircase approach you save.... one weeks worth of salary or 2% of the first year which ends up just being an insult to the new engineer and unnecessarily making their lives harder taking money out of their pocket when they need it most (getting a new job having not had a job or having to switch with the gap in income)
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  >The primary cost of hitting is the long onboarding process regardless of level. Sure, but you would imagine the Nth week of onboarding to be more important to improving an engineer's productivity on average than the N+1th week. It may not always hold, but it's certainly what my personal experience has been. >Underpaying a new engineer doesn't solve anything. You could always take the money you would "save" during the staircase and offer it as an end of year bonus or some such to those who remain onboard. There's no law saying this has to result in lower pay over the long term. >unnecessarily making their lives harder taking money out of their pocket when they need it most It's true that such a plan incentivizes people to have some cash saved up so they can weather the first few weeks better, but even if they don't one would imagine a quality hire would be able to get a short term loan at a very good rate, considering the high likelihood that they would be able to pay it back quickly.
  - pedrosorio 3y ago
    > but even if they don't one would imagine a quality hire would be able to get a short term loan at a very good rate Instead of just accepting a job that doesn't have weird staircase salary structures? Good luck finding this unicorn quality hire.
    - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
      Unicorns aren't who benefit from such a structure. The marginal quality hire is - the person who would be good enough if they were offered the job, but who, for one reason or another, are deemed too risky to hire at current market prices. One only has to browse a place like r/cscareerquestions to get a sense that many people, early career especially, find themselves in this situation - stuck perhaps in the dreaded "can't get hired without experience, can't get experience without getting hired" catch 22.
      - pedrosorio 3y ago
        The natural solution to that problem that eventually develops from your line of thinking is extended unpaid internships. No thanks.
scottcodie 3y ago
Paying poorly would bias you to candidates who will accept poor wages. Good candidates, even if they are young and inexperienced, can have a high market rate.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  This isn't paying poorly for the long term. Firms would be willing to try out riskier hires on the margin, because there's less downside if someone turns out to be a bad fit and gets let go after a couple of weeks. Percieved risk is higher for people with less industry experience. So if you believe, as I do, that people systematically overestimate the risk they take on bringing juniors on board, and hence systematically underhire them, then this would likely end up being good on net for juniors, as more of them would then be offered a chance to prove the bias wrong.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    The main cost of juniors is the time it takes other people to get them going. Good onboarding and mentoring of juniors takes a ton of time creating structure and training material, then working with them once they’re on. If any of that’s messed up or gets derailed by execs pushing for MORE PRODUCTIVITY RIGHT NOW, and taking away time folks were using to train juniors, your onboarding will suck and more juniors will founder. Either way, we’re talking a few months, not weeks, and the junior’s salary isn’t the cost companies with any amount of sense are worried about.

idontwantthis 3y ago

That saves about $0 spread out over the career. Why would they learn better while getting paid less?

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
It's less about savings and more about incentivizing the hiring of juniors in the first place. Many early career engineers find it much more difficult to get that first job than the second one, because they are seen as a risk. If however you make it cheaper to take a risk, then firms will take more risks on net, and the end result will be more juniors being able to enter their careers sooner (and more junior figuring out quickly that such a career is not for them, which is also a good thing).

colechristensen 3y ago

This is just not reasonable though. The primary cost of hiring is the long onboarding process regardless of level. Especially the time cost of existing engineers. Underpaying a new engineer doesn't solve anything. It's honestly just shortsighted laziness or already having a staff of engineers who aren't good enough at their craft or communication to be good teachers. If you're paying someone $1000/week you're paying them $50k per year and by your staircase approach you save.... one weeks worth of salary or 2% of the first year which ends up just being an insult to the new engineer and unnecessarily making their lives harder taking money out of their pocket when they need it most (getting a new job having not had a job or having to switch with the gap in income)

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
>The primary cost of hitting is the long onboarding process regardless of level. Sure, but you would imagine the Nth week of onboarding to be more important to improving an engineer's productivity on average than the N+1th week. It may not always hold, but it's certainly what my personal experience has been. >Underpaying a new engineer doesn't solve anything. You could always take the money you would "save" during the staircase and offer it as an end of year bonus or some such to those who remain onboard. There's no law saying this has to result in lower pay over the long term. >unnecessarily making their lives harder taking money out of their pocket when they need it most It's true that such a plan incentivizes people to have some cash saved up so they can weather the first few weeks better, but even if they don't one would imagine a quality hire would be able to get a short term loan at a very good rate, considering the high likelihood that they would be able to pay it back quickly.
- pedrosorio 3y ago
  > but even if they don't one would imagine a quality hire would be able to get a short term loan at a very good rate Instead of just accepting a job that doesn't have weird staircase salary structures? Good luck finding this unicorn quality hire.
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    Unicorns aren't who benefit from such a structure. The marginal quality hire is - the person who would be good enough if they were offered the job, but who, for one reason or another, are deemed too risky to hire at current market prices. One only has to browse a place like r/cscareerquestions to get a sense that many people, early career especially, find themselves in this situation - stuck perhaps in the dreaded "can't get hired without experience, can't get experience without getting hired" catch 22.
    - pedrosorio 3y ago
      The natural solution to that problem that eventually develops from your line of thinking is extended unpaid internships. No thanks.

scottcodie 3y ago

Paying poorly would bias you to candidates who will accept poor wages. Good candidates, even if they are young and inexperienced, can have a high market rate.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
This isn't paying poorly for the long term. Firms would be willing to try out riskier hires on the margin, because there's less downside if someone turns out to be a bad fit and gets let go after a couple of weeks. Percieved risk is higher for people with less industry experience. So if you believe, as I do, that people systematically overestimate the risk they take on bringing juniors on board, and hence systematically underhire them, then this would likely end up being good on net for juniors, as more of them would then be offered a chance to prove the bias wrong.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  The main cost of juniors is the time it takes other people to get them going. Good onboarding and mentoring of juniors takes a ton of time creating structure and training material, then working with them once they’re on. If any of that’s messed up or gets derailed by execs pushing for MORE PRODUCTIVITY RIGHT NOW, and taking away time folks were using to train juniors, your onboarding will suck and more juniors will founder. Either way, we’re talking a few months, not weeks, and the junior’s salary isn’t the cost companies with any amount of sense are worried about.