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> A senior engineer says “I want a 40% raise or I’m leaving,” and the company’s ability to respond depends entirely on what their alternatives look like. Excep
by lukeify 5mo ago
> A senior engineer says “I want a 40% raise or I’m leaving,” and the company’s ability to respond depends entirely on what their alternatives look like.
Except where I live there's a glut of people wanting any job they can find—for a variety of reasons ranging from high levels of immigration to layoffs in the last two years—and willing to accept discount rates because the alternative is being unemployed for another 3 months (New Zealand).
Both the employer and employee know this. So the employee is either foolish or risky enough for asking and gets turned down, or they do actually leave and the employer can hire a new senior engineer at below market rates to accommodate the specific learning they have to do for their new role.
End of story.
- awakeasleep 5mo agoSeems like you’re only imagining interchangeable people who dont have bargaining power?
- lukeify 5mo agoThat's probably the bulk of senior developers. We're not all inverting custom proprietary binary trees.
- iugtmkbdfil834 5mo agoBy the same logic, most CEOs are interchangeable. After all, not all of them are creating new markets, shepherding new and exciting business ventures or changing the way we do X.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- SR2Z 5mo ago> and the employer can hire a new senior engineer at below market rates to accommodate the specific learning they have to do It sounds like what you're saying is actually that the last engineer was being paid above-market, because the price that employers are paying new employees is literally the market rate, seeing as it's the rate in the literal market.
- lukeify 5mo agoThis is pretty much what's occurring in New Zealand right now, yes. 2020–2023 had pretty much zero international movement due to closed borders with COVID-19, with a low official cash rate which caused business to be in desperate need of development resource; so salaries were high. Market rate for developers has either stagnated generally or depending on the role dropped as hundreds of applicants are willing to undercut each other on what constitutes an acceptable pay check. But most employers don't go around reducing previously-hired people's salaries for a variety of reasons.
- Negitivefrags 5mo ago> But most employers don't go around reducing previously-hired people's salaries for a variety of reasons. The main reason being that it's illegal in NZ. The employee would have to agree.
- SR2Z 5mo agoThe main reason is that employees will quit. It's not illegal in the US, but it still almost never happens. Companies would rather lay off than risk alienating employees like that.
- jjmarr 5mo ago> the price that employers are paying new employees is literally the market rate, seeing as it's the rate in the literal market. I want to drill this into anyone that throws the word "below market" or "above market" around. If a company pays below-market, it won't be able to hire anyone. Either the role will remain unfilled, or the employer will have to compromise on experience. If someone is claiming to be paid below-market but the company can hire their replacement, then they're not being truthful.
- cjbgkagh 5mo agoPoeple are not fungible, who’s to say that the individual replacing them is of equal value.
- Quarrelsome 5mo ago> the employer can hire a new senior engineer at below market rates to accommodate the specific learning they have to do for their new role. Money doesn't cleanly convert into time. Having juniors and mid-levels is about being able to promote an existing mid-level that knows the team and the system, with zero downtime. It's much easier to replace a junior than a senior because of the lower expectations and risk. Furthermore, a lot of companies are struggling to hire right now because the market conditions creates a flood of applications and its quite hard to discern who's a waste of time or not which leads to hiring processes taking longer.
- lukeify 5mo ago> Having juniors and mid-levels is about being able to promote an existing mid-level that knows the team and the system, with zero downtime. It's much easier to replace a junior than a senior. Yeah but the point of this post is that it makes an assumption that your company doesn't have mid-levels or juniors.
- Quarrelsome 5mo agoAye, its assuming the org tossed them away when LLMs turned up or stopped recruiting at that level.
- carlosjobim 5mo ago> Furthermore, a lot of companies are struggling to hire right now because the market conditions creates a flood of applications and its quite hard to discern who's a waste of time or not which leads to hiring processes taking longer. Hiring is the most important function in any company, full stop. If they aren't good at hiring, well then they shouldn't be running a company. There are no excuses. If HR aren't up to the task, then they should be replaced, and so on up to the level of the CEO, until whatever incompetence has been flushed out. Shareholders have to demand this. A company not being able to hire is just as ridiculous as a restaurant not being able to serve food. If they are receiving a flood of applications which is hard to sift through, they are already doing everything wrong. Shareholders have to nuke these kind of people.
- ajmurmann 5mo agoKnowledge and tacit knowledge of the system and company around it makes a huge difference.