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This entire piece starts from the conclusion that engineers leave because they aren't paid enough then works backwards from there. This is wrong from my experie

• linotype 2y ago
  This. If you leave every 3-5 years you get to flush all that frustration down the toilet to make room for new, hopefully better frustrations.
• yieldcrv 2y ago
  > It was for other reasons that usually included frustrations with management. and here I am thinking this was a meme by HR myself and all my competition leave jobs due to - and for - money. if you're sticking around to stay in graces of your comfortable management you are contributing to the wage gap for your respective gender in the wrong direction.
  • BadHumans 2y ago
    > if you're sticking around to stay in graces of your comfortable management you are contributing to the wage gap for your respective gender in the wrong direction. I have no idea why I should care about this.
    • yieldcrv 2y ago
      privileged take
      • ipaddr 2y ago
        Wage gap for gender? There are a lot of things in life to fight for. But to fight for a meaningless stat that doesn't take into account pregnancy is probably not the best use of my limited power.
      • david38 2y ago
        [flagged]
  • _yb2s 2y ago
    A job with good management and a good work environment is hard to find… that is worth lower pay to a lot of people. I’m a person with tech skills in academia… myself and most of my coworkers and colleagues could make at least 2x in industry yet we’re still here because we like the job better. I have however lost a lot of colleagues.
    • BirAdam 2y ago
      I make “okay” pay at a non-profit, and I could make more if I left. However, I would then have more hours, more stress, and less freedom. Why do that?
  • wsc981 2y ago
    For me it's the same. I'd be ok if management is crappy, but the pay is good. I actually left a company this year, because I was looking for (what I thought) was a very reasonable raise, but the company made negotiations very hard and annoying: - first meeting with direct manager: I was offered a very meager immediate increase and offered a "personal improvement plan" for proper raise end of the year (I declined - I hate this nonsense and I know I'm already a senior, no need to work towards "senior"). - then 2 times a meeting was planned with the CEO, but CEO wouldn't show up. He stated both times something came up, apparently more important. When I announced my decision to leave, at that point suddenly more was possible. I could get the raise I wanted, CEO excused himself for his behavior, etc... But at that point, too much harm was done, from my point of view. I would have stayed easily 1 or 2 more years if the pay was decent and I didn't have to deal with the nonsense for salary negotiations.
• bionicthrowaway 2y ago
  I haven’t left many jobs because they paid poorly, but I’ve definitely stayed at jobs because they paid very well. For many people working in the tech industry for the past ~15 years, they could easily find a new job with comparable or better pay. That’s no longer a guarantee for most people.
• alberth 2y ago
  > included frustrations with management Which I presume this is another way to say “your direct boss”. Because 99% of an employees view of a company, and opinions about their employer, is actually just a reflection of their like/dislike of their direct boss.
  • kccqzy 2y ago
    Not in my case. I left Google but it wasn't because of my direct manager. It was because of Google-wide issues that are outside of my or my manager's or my director's control.
    • bb88 2y ago
      Usually front line managers are kind of hamstrung. Yes they can fight for their people, but the reality is, that if the C-Suite only wants to give you a %2 raise because well, they have an off-site meeting in Maui -- well tough. The modern management model has been to reduce the power of the front line manager to the point he can only maybe hire and fire, but then he is the one to give the employee bad news.
      • brazzy 2y ago
        There was never a management model where front line managers could freely decide on raises. There's always a budget, and you playing favourites causes drama.
  • BurningFrog 2y ago
    Red Pill: The boss/employee relationship depends equally on both people. If you always "have a terrible boss" that really means your relationship with your boss is bad, which depends on both people. You were warned. The Red Pill is near: To spell it out: If you consistently have a terrible relationship with your boss, with several bosses... I'm sorry, but the common factor is you. You're probably a shitty employee.
    • mistercheph 2y ago
• greenthrow 2y ago
  Anecdotally in multiple decades of jobs every single time I left it was for money. Sometimes as much as a 50% increase.
• steelframe 2y ago
  You should try leaving a company for money sometime. Financial independence really is life-changing, and you can get there surprisingly quickly in the tech industry by putting yourself on the market more often. Anecdotally, at my current company nearly everyone I know who left did so within a few months of hitting the 4-year cliff on their signing equity. I've left 3 companies in my career primarily because the next company doubled my comp. I've only left 1 company for reasons other than pay.
  • BadHumans 2y ago
    I make low six figures in a low to medium cost of living area. I don't think even doubling my income would change my life too much.
    • bb88 2y ago
      I've had my income more than doubled now, nearly tripled in the past decade. Just because I was willing to move where I would be paid market rate. There's a lot of companies in high cost of living areas that may be willing to split the difference in salary.
    • fragmede 2y ago
      What's your FIRE number? When are you going to retire? Doubling your income shouldn't change your current lifestyle but it should change your trajectory towards retirement. Why retire at 65 when you could retire at 55, or even 45?
    • sokoloff 2y ago
      Money isn’t everything, but the math behind retirement saving is compelling. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
      • maxlamb 2y ago
        Right but what if you enjoy your job and don’t want to retire?
• notepad0x90 2y ago
  HR has a saying "employees don't leave jobs, they leave managers". Pay has motivated me to look for other jobs, but only after I was already worn out and frustrated with my current job. Switching jobs isn't like getting a new car or moving to a new apartment. It's traumatic, kind of like going through a break-up. You work with the same people for years and then suddenly you will never see them again. That isn't pleasant. If the pay is bad enough, I like to think I would leave anyways. But I think most people are given better reasons to leave their jobs and onto greener pastures. I wonder if LLMs would do a better job as managers, if they can make up for cognitive biases in humans. Managers treat new employees with lesser experience, with higher regard and respect than existing employees with longer experience that remained at that company for a long time. Switching jobs is also the best way to get a raise, due to managers being heavily biased towards obtaining new hires. On one hand, they're supposed to keep good performers, but on the other hand they're supposed to keep talent flowing in. Employees should then also try to keep their jobs best they can, while also searching for better jobs and not getting more attached to their employer than their employer is to them? Humans in general are too biased and faulty in their thinking. Sure, LLMs hallucinate and propagate existing bias in society, but at least they can maybe (in the future) evaluate employees and form more objective opinions towards existing staff and new hires? sounds better than humans winging it based on "vibes"?
  • ljlolel 2y ago
    Still traumatic with remote?
    • notepad0x90 2y ago
      When leaving jobs? For me it's even more traumatic. In-person working tends to come with a lot more drama, so leaving can be a relief in part. Remote working, at least for someone of my personality and slight obsession with technical matters, I could get more attached to like minded co-workers; with WFH I encounter minimal drama. But on this topic, pay is much less of an issue as well for WFH. I think I would put up with a lot more of undesirable work conditions remotely than in-person.
    • kortilla 2y ago
• marssaxman 2y ago
  Not only have I never left a job simply to get more money, I have on more than one occasion left a job for one offering less money - and considered it an upgrade. Sometimes you have to ask: how, exactly, is the extra money I might earn here going to buy enough extra happiness to make up for the crap I'd have to put up with in the process of earning it? And sometimes there is no good answer.
• icedchai 2y ago
  Same. Over the past ~25 years, I've had 10 jobs, everything from junior engineer to a (failed) startup CTO. I've never left a job due to compensation. Poor morale, stubborn leadership, dysfunctional teams, uninteresting work, obviously bad business models, managerial incompetence and nepotism, have all been reasons. I even left jobs to take a pay cut to get out of these bad situations.
  • YZF 2y ago
    Same.
  • goalieca 2y ago
    It’s because you’ve never stayed lo my enough for your salary to get stale. Around year 5-7 you’ll get tired of the less than inflation amounts of raise if you even get that. Every time I’ve switched jobs I get a title bump and a big raise.
    • icedchai 2y ago
      That is true, to some extent. The longest I ever held a job was 6 years. Shortest, 6 months.
• dataflow 2y ago
  > This is wrong from my experience. Anecdotally, I have never left a job because of money. Leaving because of money isn't the same thing as leaving because they didn't pay you enough to stay. For most frustrations people encounter at work (or elsewhere for that matter) that causes them to want to leave, there is a price at which they would put up with it and stay. The price is often much higher than management would consider paying, and higher than the income they'd have at their new job, but it does exist. So the question of why don't they pay you enough to stay isn't really based on the assumption that you were going to leave because of money.
• BobbyTables2 2y ago
  I find it pretty soul crushing to work hard and have a successful engineering team, only to have bonuses withheld because sales/marketing couldn’t hit lofty goals… Followed by the company spending huge amounts of cash on acquisitions in the same year… Too many companies are eager to invest in everything except their own employees.
• somerandomqaguy 2y ago
  Kind of depends. I live in Canada, most companies don't pay software related jobs like dev or SDET particularly well. When I left my QA / SDET position at 9 years of experience my salary was $52,000 Canadian a year. To give you an idea, it would've been like living in Denver, Colorado on a $35,000 USD salary in 2020-ish or so. Not every engineer is going to be making six figures. You just don't see those folks talking about it too much.
  • YZF 2y ago
    I would say that's a very low total comp for an SDET in Canada in any major metro area (e.g. Toronto or Vancouver). New grads with a CS degree that can code can find an entry position for double that compensation. Startups or big co.
    • somerandomqaguy 2y ago
      Low but it wasn't exactly unheard of either. There were full time positions publicly offering only $20,000 a year right on the listing itself. Not sure how publicly offering below minimum wage makes any sense though. Highest offer I've heard specifically for a mid level SDET position was $72,000 for 4 to 5 YOE but it was with a big company out of Vancouver. AFAIK they had no problem filling that opening within a few weeks.
• metabagel 2y ago
  I’ve left two jobs, because I was dissatisfied with my compensation.