11 ms·

On the other hand, if you're an employee and not getting paid what you think you're worth, don't jump to the conclusion that you're being exploited or disrespec

• kadabra9 13y ago
  Agree that you should ASK...and many people overlook this simple step, but a founder that "loses sight" of something as critical as the comp of his so called critical employees is not someone I want to work for.
  • suyash 13y ago
    It's never as simple as just ASK. There are lot of concerns and things you need to think through you need to go over before you can just diplomatically raise the issue.
    • DominikR 13y ago
      While this is true you've got to ask yourself if you are not overly fearful considering the current market situation. At what demand/supply ratio for developers would you be willing to ask - 5:1? 10:1? never?
    • vinceguidry 13y ago
      Honestly, when you can pick the phone and have competing offers within days, it can be as simple as you want to make it.
• fecak 13y ago
  Regarding founders being busy, I think this is exactly why counteroffers work in many cases. Founders and managers that use a mea culpa defense along with the presentation of a counter are probably going to do better than those that just offer more money without explanation.
  • epynonymous 13y ago
    counter offers may work in the short term, but not in the long term, there's a level of trust that's lost as a result of going out to get another offer. this trust is really never replaced. the employee maybe happy initially with a counter offer and stay, but long term it's never the same as it used to be.
    • fecak 13y ago
      I don't know if there is reliable data to make a statement on the long-term effectiveness of counters due to the subject matter (best for both parties to keep silent).
    • blueskin_ 13y ago
      Most people who accept a counteroffer leave within 6-12 months. It's generally accepted at least within sysadmins (maybe not so much progammers or engineers) that a counteroffer makes a 'train your replacement' work situation.
• jader201 13y ago
  I generally disagree. I always feel that it sets a bad precedent by relieving those in charge of having to take the initiative to recognize and reward the efforts of their employees. If they are too busy to make sure I'm not having to question my value, I would rather find another employer that may not have this issue. Having said that, money is one of the last things that cause me to leave a job. If I enjoy what I'm doing and the people I work with, it usually doesn't matter (as much) what raises I receive. I also recognize everyone is different. This is just my preference and what works for me.
  • chasing 13y ago
    Huh. It's easier to go find an entirely new job than to just knock on your employer's office door and ask to have a quick chat about your compensation? If that kind of interaction makes you uncomfortable, I guess you probably should go find another job since you might not have a great relationship with your company.
    • johnnymonster 13y ago
      In my experience, the issue that I see is that after asking for a raise or more compensation the response is that "they will look into it". Weeks later, no one gets back to you. At which point its time to move on.
      • blueskin_ 13y ago
        A ll too common as a way of ripping people off, unfortunately. Sometimes they are actually trying, if the problem is internal politics preventing paying staff properly, but more often they're hoping you'll either forget about it or leave instead.
        • mcv 13y ago
          Both are good reasons to leave. It doesn't matter if your direct superiors disrespect you, or disrespect is more institutionalized higher up the chain.
• suyash 13y ago
  Totally disagree. If the managers and leaders aren't taking care of their employees pro-actively by effective 1-1's and compensation wise, there are plenty of companies who do in this market.
  • chrisbennet 13y ago
    I agree that there are plenty of places that will pay you market when you are hired. I've (almost) never worked at one that was proactive one you were hired. Only once in my career was I called in to my managers office and told I was getting a raise - and that was around 1991. Manager: "We're adjusting your salary." Me: "Um, up or down?" Manager: "Up."
• tn13 13y ago
  I don't think so. If founders don't care about their employee in the beginning they wont care about you later either. Your job security = value to you add to the company - what you are paid. Make sure it is 0 at all times. Or have some written assurance from the employer (such as stock options) that the meager pay now will be compensated for later.
  • tmoertel 13y ago
    I have a question about your job-security formula and your requirement that it balance out to "0 at all times." If you add value X to a company, and if (as you seem to require) the company must then pay you X in return, what profit does the company make from your employment? And, if a company cannot profit from hiring employees, why would any employees be hired?
    • DominikR 13y ago
      You are right even though I feel that you are nitpicking here, since you probably understood the basic point he was trying to make. But I disagree with tn13 too - I'd try to extract X^2.
    • saalweachter 13y ago
      I'd agree with the GP. Heck, target a negative value to the company. Realistically, you're going to end up with some small ROI. Let's suppose you end up with a 1.05 ROI for the company. For every dollar the company spends on you -- not just your salary and benefits, but also the cost of a desk for your butt and a manager for your ass and an HR department to cover their behinds when you start thinking too much about your coworkers' -- then they make a $1.05 back. If your company's owner has a hundred employees, he'll make five times as much as you, for doing nothing but owning it. If they employee ten thousand people, he takes home 500x your pay. Why do you think your employer deserves more? Why should he get a 2x or 10x ROI on your labor?
      • aragot 13y ago
        > Why do you think your employer deserves more? For all the years he ate pasta. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve your right pay too.
• programminggeek 13y ago
  It is a pretty well known fact that in many cases the only way to move up or get paid more is to move to a different department, team, or company. Hell, there are so many cases where people leave the company because they weren't getting paid well only to be replaced by people who cost the company more than what the person wanted in the first place. It's a silly thing, but sometimes you have to leave to get what you want, even if you shoudln't have to.
• Pxtl 13y ago
  What if he says no, and I don't have another job lined up? That's the advantage of looking elsewhere - if I'm rejected, i haven't screwed up my current position.
• mathattack 13y ago
  I find it very hard for founders (who approve the salary of every hire) to not know what their people are worth. Maybe they can't afford to pay it, but that's not a knowledge issue.
  • jbredizzle 13y ago
    An experienced engineer might be worth $x to one company, but $x*2 to another. A lot of companies that are used as a reference for market rates (Google, Facebook, etc.) have incredible leverage in the sense that their per-employee revenue and/or profit is very high. This isn't just a result of the talent of their people. It's a result of their business models, competitive moats, infrastructure and tooling, etc. In SF/SV it is entirely possible for an employee to state "I'm not being paid what I'm worth" when, to their current employer, they are actually being paid more than what they're worth. The fact that their value varies from employer to employer is something that I think a lot of employees miss. Employees who want the biggest bucks should go out and get them, but the idea that companies are undervaluing/underpaying their employees just because they're not paying what Company X, Y and Z pay is one of the worst delusions in SF/SV right now.
    • candybar 13y ago
      If a company is losing money from employing an engineer at a below-market rate, that means the company likely has a bad business model, not that the engineer is paid more than they're worth. One's worth, at least in this context, is determined by the market, not a a particular company's inability to make use of a valuable resource. And I'm not sure what this has to do with anything - within reason and all else equal, employees should go work in environments that maximize their value.
      • jbredizzle 13y ago
        "If a company is losing money from employing an engineer at a below-market rate, that means the company likely has a bad business model, not that the engineer is paid more than they're worth." I need to call BS. Just because your business model can't justify paying engineers two years out of college a $120,000/year salary doesn't mean that you don't have a profitable business. It's okay if your business model isn't as profitable as Google's. Heck, a lot of the companies that are paying market salaries have no meaningful revenue o even a business model. They're investor-subsidized. "employees should go work in environments that maximize their value." A lot of people work in "environments that maximize their value" and they're miserable. I have friends who make half of what they could make in SF/SV. You would say that their current employers aren't maximizing their value, but most of them own their own homes, live very comfortably and are home by 5-5:30. I don't know many $120,000/year+ engineers in SF/SV who can say that. A lot of the high-paying jobs in SF/SV that are compensating employees at their highest theoretical value aren't as glamorous as the people who have caught the grass-is-greener-bug would like to believe they are. A lot of the people in these jobs trade whining about salary to whining about the hours, the lack of interesting work, their crazy/incompetent boss, the fear of funding running out, etc. etc. etc. Pick your poison wisely.
• analyst74 13y ago
  Every engineer should get better at negotiations, not only will you get paid more, but it also opens a lot of new doors for your career.
• prostoalex 13y ago
  > Founders are crazy busy and, believe it or not, sometimes lose sight of "little" things like comp. It's actually one of the red flags of a poorly run company. Product might be great, team might be great, but a company is run poorly at that point. Compensation analysis and adjustment should be a clearly defined process, posted somewhere on internal wiki, not a one-off thing that gets initiated by an employee out of the blue.
• jsoffer 13y ago
  Sometimes there is not a lot of money, the project is on a bad phase and the little you're being paid is somehow a good pay because you know for a fact things are getting better and everything else feels fine, as you say "happy with the team and with the work". Other times it's not as easy. Even if the low pay is because of a lack of money, if management keeps hiring cheap, and then you're surrounded by undergrads that have no sense of responsability, then the ship is clearly sinking, there will be no money in the future and your coworkers make your work less by not caring and leaving things half done. In that case, run away as fast as possible. Maybe you're not being intentionally disrespected, but any sense of respect for you, your talent and your work has faded away.
• mmanfrin 13y ago
  At my last startup, I was given the opportunity to begin as a junior and work my way up. I gave them a year of very hard work to the point that I feel I was proficient enough that I could talk development with people 3-4 years my senior and stay on level. I asked for a raise (as prior to that I was making an obscenely small amount, especially for San Francisco). The CTO, who was a generally amiable guy, said "No, no, I get it, America is a capitalist country, you guys don't value loyalty" (he was from another country). I have never been so thoroughly insulted by what was probably meant as an innocuous statement. He told me he had to talk to the CEO about it. They stalled and stalled and the HR guy told me I should 'worry about learning more, don't worry about your salary'. Finally I confronted the CEO about the delay. He told me he needed to run it past the board, and that I would need to go through a two month 'trial' period before they'd authorize it. Little did I know he was himself half the board. This entire time there were posters up in our kitchen offering $40k to people who could refer 4 developers. But my piddling little raise to market was being stonewalled because they felt they could get away with it. I am still angry with them because they essentially forced me to go looking for another job, despite my absolute devotion to the team. I almost instantly got an offer almost double. Disrespect and exploitation are absolutely prevalent. You can ask for a raise, but you'll never have leverage until you have an outside offer.
  • aragot 13y ago
    ...And when you have the outside offer and talk about it, you shatter any remaining trust your bosses have in you, so you'd better take the offer. I'm sorry for your story. I feel the same about the industry. When you're young, job hopping is pretty much the only way to get your value, and it will let you see many different places.
    • borplk 13y ago
      And when you have the outside offer and talk about it, you shatter any remaining trust your bosses have in you, so you'd better take the offer. This right there is the dilemma. Does anyone have any solutions to it?
      • 13y ago
• chongli 13y ago
  No employee is paid what they're worth at a capitalist company for very long. What is the point of employing someone if all the benefit they bring is being cancelled out by their salary?
  • aragot 13y ago
    Nicely said.
  • collyw 13y ago
    Nice idea, but I think on a macro level bankers have proven the opposite of economic value to society, and they get compensated outrageously for it. I am sure there are some people (I can think of a few people I know personally) who turn up, take the paycheck, and do as little as possible the rest of the time.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • chongli 13y ago
      Yeah, this is called control fraud [0]. I don't think it's fair to compare regular businesses that have to compete on merit with organized crime. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud
  • jhh 13y ago
    In order for your statement to be true you would pretty much have to buy into a Marxist value theory that virtually no economists today agree with, and which is highly implausible under scrutiny.
    • chongli 13y ago
      The difficulty of calculating the value of an employee has no bearing on the veracity of my statement.
    • ssdfsdf 13y ago
• lugg 13y ago
  I have to disagree if your not paying market, it should be on your priority list to keep the stars happy. And honestly if youre "too busy" and forget, that kind of is disrespect, and neglect. Also, comp isn't a "little thing" to your employee no matter how much they make - it defines your role both inside the company and outside, measuring a developers skill and throughput is an extremely hard thing to do, comp is often the only thing you can really use to define your worth. Correct me if im mistaken but that was sort of the intent of the post, to put at least as much effort into retaining staff as you do recruiting. Or did I misunderstand it? I see my self as pretty average but probably ahead of most the pack developer yet I still get a constant stream of recruiters "touching base". If I feel stagnant or neglected eventually one will say the right thing to get me out the door or at least start looking around for somewhere new to learn.
• blueskin_ 13y ago
  Great if it works. In my experience and having heard similar stories from friends, it doesn't.
• gadders 13y ago
  What would be higher on the founder's priorities than their staff?
  • GFischer 13y ago
    I can think of several things (mostly trying to create a sustainable business and adding value, without which employees won't have salaries for long), but I agree it should be close to the top.