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That is a rather silly argument: Are you saying that excellent engineer A who is being paid $100K won't be paid $300K because that will attract the "wrong kind

by eshvk 14y ago

That is a rather silly argument: Are you saying that excellent engineer A who is being paid $100K won't be paid $300K because that will attract the "wrong kind of people". Why not just make sure you have interesting work and have a process that filters in the kind of people you want instead of artificially depressing the market...

panabee 14y ago
because one way of filtering is by not offering $300K and giving only $100K instead. if the candidate wants more cash upfront, go to wall street. google is testing how much you want to work there. put another way, google attracts engineers who feel that working at google and working on world-changing products is part of the compensation. cash is another part. writing bank software and working in an org where engineers are second class citizens will appeal to fewer developers than writing world-changing software in an org where engineers are first class citizens. banks must pay more to attract engineers of comparable quality as a result.
- evgen 14y ago
  Absolute bullshit. Let me give you a direct counter-example. Want to know where you rank in the Google pecking order? Tell your manager that you are considering an offer from Facebook. Expect to see a raise and/or equity refresher and your choice of interesting projects to transfer to, if not then you are just a drone and should either count yourself lucky to even be there or start looking for a better gig. Google attracts engineers who want to work on interesting things _and be paid extremely well for doing so_. Period.
  - panabee 14y ago
    your argument is sound, but i'm not sure how this contradicts my statement. my point is this: they want people who want to be at google, and offering a lower salary (or not the highest salary) is one way of filtering for those people -- because they are willing to take less compensation to work at google. working at google and working at citibank are like two products on the market. if you value one more than the other, you're willing to pay more -- that is, accept lower compensation. of course, they will pay more for engineers they deem valuable (as in your example) and even mercenary exceptions who are supremely talented and well-suited for a strategic task. but this doesn't invalidate the notion that a lower base salary helps filter out people who assign little value to working at google.
- eshvk 14y ago
  I am sorry, I don't know you from heck. However, I must ask you this: Have you worked at Google in the past two years? No offense but Google has thousands and thousands of engineers. Long gone are the days where each and every engineer used to work on world-changing stuff. These days, there are enough people who work at Google and are still cogs in the wheel. This doesn't necessarily mean that Google itself doesn't do interesting work or there aren't people (who have wikipedia entries to themselves) working at Google on the most cutting edge problems. Frankly, the fact of the matter is that a non celebrity who just graduated from school is not going to be paid to work on the next game changing search/social algorithm at Google. On the other hand, he or she might be a quality engineer and deserves to be paid commensurate with the market's needs.
  - panabee 14y ago
    you're right, sorry for the confusion. i didn't mean to suggest that every google employee works on world-changing software. what i meant to say is that engineers "price" google employment much like they price any product on the market. if they value google employment more than citibank employment, they're willing to pay more, that is accept lower compensation. beyond world-changing projects, there are benefits to google employment that attract developers -- things like free restaurant-grade food, the google stamp on a resume, and bright, motivated co-workers. if these intangibles diminish in value and cannot any longer offset the lower cash compensation, people leave.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

by eshvk 14y ago

panabee 14y ago

because one way of filtering is by not offering $300K and giving only $100K instead. if the candidate wants more cash upfront, go to wall street. google is testing how much you want to work there. put another way, google attracts engineers who feel that working at google and working on world-changing products is part of the compensation. cash is another part. writing bank software and working in an org where engineers are second class citizens will appeal to fewer developers than writing world-changing software in an org where engineers are first class citizens. banks must pay more to attract engineers of comparable quality as a result.

evgen 14y ago
Absolute bullshit. Let me give you a direct counter-example. Want to know where you rank in the Google pecking order? Tell your manager that you are considering an offer from Facebook. Expect to see a raise and/or equity refresher and your choice of interesting projects to transfer to, if not then you are just a drone and should either count yourself lucky to even be there or start looking for a better gig. Google attracts engineers who want to work on interesting things _and be paid extremely well for doing so_. Period.
- panabee 14y ago
  your argument is sound, but i'm not sure how this contradicts my statement. my point is this: they want people who want to be at google, and offering a lower salary (or not the highest salary) is one way of filtering for those people -- because they are willing to take less compensation to work at google. working at google and working at citibank are like two products on the market. if you value one more than the other, you're willing to pay more -- that is, accept lower compensation. of course, they will pay more for engineers they deem valuable (as in your example) and even mercenary exceptions who are supremely talented and well-suited for a strategic task. but this doesn't invalidate the notion that a lower base salary helps filter out people who assign little value to working at google.
eshvk 14y ago
I am sorry, I don't know you from heck. However, I must ask you this: Have you worked at Google in the past two years? No offense but Google has thousands and thousands of engineers. Long gone are the days where each and every engineer used to work on world-changing stuff. These days, there are enough people who work at Google and are still cogs in the wheel. This doesn't necessarily mean that Google itself doesn't do interesting work or there aren't people (who have wikipedia entries to themselves) working at Google on the most cutting edge problems. Frankly, the fact of the matter is that a non celebrity who just graduated from school is not going to be paid to work on the next game changing search/social algorithm at Google. On the other hand, he or she might be a quality engineer and deserves to be paid commensurate with the market's needs.
- panabee 14y ago
  you're right, sorry for the confusion. i didn't mean to suggest that every google employee works on world-changing software. what i meant to say is that engineers "price" google employment much like they price any product on the market. if they value google employment more than citibank employment, they're willing to pay more, that is accept lower compensation. beyond world-changing projects, there are benefits to google employment that attract developers -- things like free restaurant-grade food, the google stamp on a resume, and bright, motivated co-workers. if these intangibles diminish in value and cannot any longer offset the lower cash compensation, people leave.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]