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There's an opportunity cost question. If your output is worth more to the company than your costs, but it would be easy for them to hire someone at the same co

There's an opportunity cost question. If your output is worth more to the company than your costs, but it would be easy for them to hire someone at the same cost who has more output, then you're at risk.

bluefishinit 3y ago
> but it would be easy for them to hire someone at the same cost who has more output History has shown that it's not easy at all to replace someone. It's difficult to find good people and convince them to join you and it can take a long time. If you can write code, you should always have the upper hand on your employer especially if your co-workers also realize that.
munk-a 3y ago
People are not replaceable parts. HR would absolutely love it if all developer 3s were the same - and it should be the case that one developer 3 is more like another developer 3 than a developer 2 - but people are different and have their own quirks and strengths. And, of course, you're ignoring training costs which are usually a big factor in companies that aren't incompetent. That Senior Dev that's 15% above marketing asking rate but who knows your system inside and out... do you really want to spend six years training a (potentially highly proficient) newbies on all your systems and the subtle intricacies. And how long will it be until you, the manager, trust that new Senior Dev like you did the old? How many fires will you both need to walk through until you see an availability alert and just trust the Senior Dev either is dealing with it or would be ringing your phone if they need extra resources? It can take quite a while to get a new employee (again, even a highly proficient one) to that place where in a meet your product team can be going over a proposal and your Senior Dev raises there hand and proceeds to calmly explain the incompatibility with the current system and how much it will cost to overcome those incompatibilities - and if they remain silent then you know they've done those calculations and consider it in hand. Hiring a replacement is an extremely complicated calculations that most companies just punt on - for good reason.
- krapp 3y ago
  The vast majority of people have been replaceable parts since the days of Henry Ford. If you're not one of those people, congratulations on your privilege, but I bet you're not as irreplaceable as you might believe.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    It's a spectrum. You can replace someone to operate a cash register in a week. You can't replace a surgeon in a year, depending on how specialized and renowned. But sure, the majority of lower income work is more replaceable. >but I bet you're not as irreplaceable as you might believe. Given all the tech layoffs, maybe. But I think that has more to do with lacking either the money or interest to invest in certain products given economic forecasts. The fact that your typical tech interview is a month+ and at least 3 (usually 5 or more) rounds of interviews suggest that it's not trivial to replace a dev. Tech is probably middle of the road to train, which is why they'd rather grab interns from college instead of setting up apprenticeships that can fine tailor towards the exact business needs.
skeeter2020 3y ago
[flagged]

bluefishinit 3y ago

> but it would be easy for them to hire someone at the same cost who has more output History has shown that it's not easy at all to replace someone. It's difficult to find good people and convince them to join you and it can take a long time. If you can write code, you should always have the upper hand on your employer especially if your co-workers also realize that.

munk-a 3y ago

People are not replaceable parts. HR would absolutely love it if all developer 3s were the same - and it should be the case that one developer 3 is more like another developer 3 than a developer 2 - but people are different and have their own quirks and strengths. And, of course, you're ignoring training costs which are usually a big factor in companies that aren't incompetent. That Senior Dev that's 15% above marketing asking rate but who knows your system inside and out... do you really want to spend six years training a (potentially highly proficient) newbies on all your systems and the subtle intricacies. And how long will it be until you, the manager, trust that new Senior Dev like you did the old? How many fires will you both need to walk through until you see an availability alert and just trust the Senior Dev either is dealing with it or would be ringing your phone if they need extra resources? It can take quite a while to get a new employee (again, even a highly proficient one) to that place where in a meet your product team can be going over a proposal and your Senior Dev raises there hand and proceeds to calmly explain the incompatibility with the current system and how much it will cost to overcome those incompatibilities - and if they remain silent then you know they've done those calculations and consider it in hand. Hiring a replacement is an extremely complicated calculations that most companies just punt on - for good reason.

krapp 3y ago
The vast majority of people have been replaceable parts since the days of Henry Ford. If you're not one of those people, congratulations on your privilege, but I bet you're not as irreplaceable as you might believe.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  It's a spectrum. You can replace someone to operate a cash register in a week. You can't replace a surgeon in a year, depending on how specialized and renowned. But sure, the majority of lower income work is more replaceable. >but I bet you're not as irreplaceable as you might believe. Given all the tech layoffs, maybe. But I think that has more to do with lacking either the money or interest to invest in certain products given economic forecasts. The fact that your typical tech interview is a month+ and at least 3 (usually 5 or more) rounds of interviews suggest that it's not trivial to replace a dev. Tech is probably middle of the road to train, which is why they'd rather grab interns from college instead of setting up apprenticeships that can fine tailor towards the exact business needs.

skeeter2020 3y ago

[flagged]