4 ms·

How about paying a market wage, instead of offering a "free lunch" to people that cannot negotiate. Who can't negotiate? It's your fault if you can't/won't ne

by jbooth 13y ago

How about paying a market wage, instead of offering a "free lunch" to people that cannot negotiate. Who can't negotiate? It's your fault if you can't/won't negotiate. I'd posit that the reason finance pays more for engineers than STEM is because most of us think that the atmosphere at a finance company will suck and as a result they have a smaller labor pool (I've literally never responded to a single financial recruiting email).

jcnnghm 13y ago
Who can't negotiate? It's your fault if you can't/won't negotiate. If there is a pool of labor willing to accept a free lunch and campus-like atmosphere, coupled with cheap imported labor, in lieu of perhaps $100,000 in pay, it depresses wages across the entire industry. I'd posit that the reason finance pays more for engineers than STEM is because most of us think that the atmosphere at a finance company will suck and as a result they have a smaller labor pool (I've literally never responded to a single financial recruiting email). And this is the funny part. Do you really believe working somewhere like EA is different than working somewhere like Goldman Sachs?
- jbooth 13y ago
  I'd never work at EA, either. Although they're the other side of the same economics, because young nerds who don't know any better and like video games will work there for less than an average tech firm, and less still than it would take to get them into finance. As far as people who take low salaries screwing up your salary: If they're willing to do the job for that and they're not appreciably worse than you at that particular job, maybe that's what you're worth for that role, too? Almost every industry out there has it much worse than software when it comes to the 'race to the bottom'.
  - jcnnghm 13y ago
    If they're willing to do the job for that and they're not appreciably worse than you at that particular job, maybe that's what you're worth for that role, too? Or there could be a collection of people that decide to enter different industries because of this, causing a labor shortage?
jwoah12 13y ago
The data doesn't support the conclusion that they pay more for engineers, just that they pay more per employee. I've been an engineer in financial services in NYC for 3.5 years, and I can fairly confidently say that those large salaries are going to the senior salespeople and traders who pull in hundreds of thousands or millions per year in commission. Maybe I've just been at the wrong places (I don't think so), but unless you're some kind of phenom quant engineer or you are in a very profitable and very small hedge fund, the offers are better at the Googles, Microsofts, and Amazons of the world than the Goldmans, JPMorgans, and Citigroups.
- jbooth 13y ago
  Good to know that I'm not missing out on anything :)
- jcnnghm 13y ago
  Quant engineers are exactly the people that all this clamoring is about. They are the star programmers that don't exist. Tech pay could go up a bit, and start attracting them with better working conditions, which would solve this bullshit crisis which is largely an excuse to import a bunch of cheap labor.

by jbooth 13y ago

jcnnghm 13y ago

Who can't negotiate? It's your fault if you can't/won't negotiate. If there is a pool of labor willing to accept a free lunch and campus-like atmosphere, coupled with cheap imported labor, in lieu of perhaps $100,000 in pay, it depresses wages across the entire industry. I'd posit that the reason finance pays more for engineers than STEM is because most of us think that the atmosphere at a finance company will suck and as a result they have a smaller labor pool (I've literally never responded to a single financial recruiting email). And this is the funny part. Do you really believe working somewhere like EA is different than working somewhere like Goldman Sachs?

jbooth 13y ago
I'd never work at EA, either. Although they're the other side of the same economics, because young nerds who don't know any better and like video games will work there for less than an average tech firm, and less still than it would take to get them into finance. As far as people who take low salaries screwing up your salary: If they're willing to do the job for that and they're not appreciably worse than you at that particular job, maybe that's what you're worth for that role, too? Almost every industry out there has it much worse than software when it comes to the 'race to the bottom'.
- jcnnghm 13y ago
  If they're willing to do the job for that and they're not appreciably worse than you at that particular job, maybe that's what you're worth for that role, too? Or there could be a collection of people that decide to enter different industries because of this, causing a labor shortage?

jwoah12 13y ago

The data doesn't support the conclusion that they pay more for engineers, just that they pay more per employee. I've been an engineer in financial services in NYC for 3.5 years, and I can fairly confidently say that those large salaries are going to the senior salespeople and traders who pull in hundreds of thousands or millions per year in commission. Maybe I've just been at the wrong places (I don't think so), but unless you're some kind of phenom quant engineer or you are in a very profitable and very small hedge fund, the offers are better at the Googles, Microsofts, and Amazons of the world than the Goldmans, JPMorgans, and Citigroups.

jbooth 13y ago
Good to know that I'm not missing out on anything :)
jcnnghm 13y ago
Quant engineers are exactly the people that all this clamoring is about. They are the star programmers that don't exist. Tech pay could go up a bit, and start attracting them with better working conditions, which would solve this bullshit crisis which is largely an excuse to import a bunch of cheap labor.