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Programming is not like being a cash register attendant at the supermarket (no offense to these workers intended). For programmers, getting into the workflow o

Programming is not like being a cash register attendant at the supermarket (no offense to these workers intended). For programmers, getting into the workflow of a company, their existing codebase, becoming efficient, it may take months. Shipping a product may (and typically does) take over a year. The lifetime of a product may be over a decade. And if a developer quits mid-way through a project, they may derail the entire project, while someone else has to spend the time, step into their shoes and continue their work. I honestly can't imagine the morality of someone who would just abandon their project, their baby, so to speak, and go work somewhere else at the first call from another company offering more money. Did they take the first job out of desperation? We're talking top-of-the-top companies here. I doubt so. Poaching employees like this is also very unfair to every company spending a lot of resources to find the right employees, to build the right teams from other channels, only to have the competition cold call them and take them away after the former company has done the hard work. There's also the problem of trade secrets. An employee who has spent some time at, say, Apple, learns a lot about their product plans, processes, methods, and so on. Getting those employees means that one way or another you get access to these carefully kept trade secrets implicitly, if not explicitly. Keeping wages down is bad, but employees who keep shifting jobs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them is also bad. How do we resolve both sides of the issue so everyone is happy?

Derander 13y ago
The standard argument is that people shift jobs so much because it's the most reliable way to get a large pay raise. If companies stopped making it necessary to hop jobs in order to make closer to what you're worth, then it might help retention.
sgustard 13y ago
Give me a contract with a guaranteed salary and no risk of being fired, for one thing. At-risk employment cuts both ways.
Curmudgel 13y ago
> I honestly can't imagine the morality of someone who would just abandon their project, their baby, so to speak, and go work somewhere else at the first call from another company offering more money. Employees (most of the time) don't own the work that they produce for the company, and they themselves are not property of the company. Unless they are contractually obligated to stay at a company for a certain amount of time, there is no reason for them to work for less than they are worth and reject an offer that would make them happier. Employees have good reasons for switching jobs. If they feel dedicated to their current job then they always have the option to stay. >Poaching employees like this is also very unfair to every company... Employees are human beings, not chattel. You started off by doubting the morality of people who switch jobs, but now you make it seem as the are powerless to choose where they work and must always leave for a company that offers more money. >spending a lot of resources to find the right employees, to build the right teams from other channels, only to have the competition cold call them and take them away after the former company has done the hard work. Not every employee will switch jobs because he or she received a better offer. And if finding another employee is so costly, then matching the new offer would probably save them money. >There's also the problem of trade secrets. An employee who has spent some time at, say, Apple, learns a lot about their product plans, processes, methods, and so on. Getting those employees means that one way or another you get access to these carefully kept trade secrets implicitly, if not explicitly. That's what the legal system is for. > Keeping wages down is bad, but employees who keep shifting jobs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them is also bad.How do we resolve both sides of the issue so everyone is happy? Pay the employees what they're worth.
gordaco 13y ago
> their project, their baby, so to speak Yeah, same thing, sure. You realize that for 90% people, even most at the hot companies, a job is above all something they do because they want or need the money, right? And there is such a thing as joining a company and realizing that thery weren't what you expected. People leaving companies not only is a reality, it's something that can be expected. They can leave for a better option, but it's also possible that they have some kind of accident that either incapacitates or kills them. Completely undesirable, sure, but it does happen, so not even the most faithful employee is guaranteed to stay indefinitely in the company. Companies know that, and this is why things like the "bus factor" are taken into account. A project can't rest on one single person's shoulders, and almost everyone is more or less replaceable. Stop the emotional blackmail rubbish, please. I'm tired of hearing that companies are not charities and they're in mainly for the money, so why would then be wrong for a person to maximize their income? And that's without starting to consider the many, many reasons to change job, including, by the way, working on a more interesting project. And if a company doesn't want their employees to voluntarily leave, they just need to work on employee retention as much as they do in hiring. It seems that a lot of companies understood this as "prevent them to find better jobs" instead of "make better jobs for them", and, well, many of us don't consider this acceptable, nor justifiable.
- mantrax3 13y ago
  > Yeah, same thing, sure. You realize that for 90% people, even most at the hot companies, a job is above all something they do because they want or need the money, right? I realize it, and that's extremely sad, because it doesn't have to be that way.
rspeer 13y ago
You're concerned that people can be immoral because their economic decisions are harmful to corporations? You're worried about whether both sides are "happy" when one side is a corporation incapable of experiencing feelings? I think you've lost track of what's important. Your argument isn't just about cold-calling; you seem to be saying it's "immoral" to consider switching jobs at all. But you are not in moral debt to your employer. It is entirely reasonable to want a higher salary, and we shouldn't cry for the corporations that have to pay it. Switching jobs comes at a cost to the person, too. It involves breaking professional connections and quite possibly relocating. It seems considerably more disruptive to the life of the person who's switching jobs than to the company who has to train someone else, so they're probably doing it for a good reason. Your life is more than your work. Your project is not your "baby". You might have a baby that's your baby. I'm not sure what it means to take a job "out of desperation" if it doesn't apply to basically everyone. Most people work because they need money. If these people didn't need money, they wouldn't work for Apple or Google. Maybe they'd start an unprofitable lifestyle business doing what they love. Maybe they'd do something very fulfilling and very unprofitable, like teaching. There is so much more that you can aspire to than advancing Google's bottom line. If your goals align with Google's, it's entirely because of the paycheck.
- mantrax3 13y ago
  > You're concerned that people can be immoral because their economic decisions are harmful to corporations? You're worried about whether both sides are "happy" when one side is a corporation incapable of experiencing feelings? I think you've lost track of what's important. I feel like your mind is playing a trick on you. Corporations don't exist as a standalone entity. They're an aggregate entity - one that's made of people. It's not corporations vs. people. It's people trying to be happy working with other people who also are trying to be happy. We're all trying to work together and build something that's bigger than any of us. A corporation can't "feel", but it also can't "think", or "decide". The people in it feel, think and decide. When people "harm the corporation", they hurt other people whose hard work gets diminished in the process. Maybe you think management is "incapable of feeling", well, then sure, you better leave that company. But I'm insulted by the implication that's the rule, rather than the exception. And also I'm insulted by the implication these companies are in it just for the money. While Google and Apple, the two biggest companies mired in this scandal are led by people with widely different world views, do you honestly think they're in it just for the money? Maybe you're letting your cynicism inform your opinions too much, or maybe you're working for a company that really is focused just on money. But don't speak for everyone.
Dewie 13y ago
I'm gonna assume that we're mainly talking about working in California here. Isn't that an at-will state? If an employee can be fired at any time, for any reason (maybe also illegal ones, as long as they are not obvious about it), why shouldn't they have all the mobility that they can get? There needs to be some level of symmetry here. If you have employees that can leave at the drop of the hat, and employees that can fire at the drop of the hat, both have the capacity of misusing it. Corporations could lose a lot of money in training and process secrets, but the employee has a lot less security (sure they might be very sought after workers, but let's not throw principles on the bonfire because of that). Both sides should certainly strive to be ethical. But no one should be loyal to anyone and just expect that they will hold up that code of honor when they have no obligation to. When we're talking about necessarily more impersonal billion dollar corporations, that is especially true.
jsudhams 13y ago
"Keeping wages down is bad, but employees who keep shifting jobs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them is also bad", Why? when a company can show million reasons to shutdown or decide not to do a project and all that. Also note that the "My Project is my baby" is pretty foolish. Company will go behind the money and you got to do the samething. I am not saying that go behind the money or don't have passion. But work for what you like and not for the company. I personally worked in a place were (manufacturing) people were (All workers ~200 of them were under age of 23) thinking the company is them and them is the company and has put countless hours to make it first high performance work system based company, taught to us by this person Deen[0]. The owner decided to sell company to the local country competitor and employees begged to sell the company to them at same price but they would not. So moral is that love your job not your company. The best way to solve the is where is everyone is happy is profit sharing so people will stick to the company till product makes money gets stabilized so you don't depend on couple of people for whole product. http://www.ceohrconsultancy.com/Deen.html http://www.ceohrconsultancy.com/Deen.html

Derander 13y ago

The standard argument is that people shift jobs so much because it's the most reliable way to get a large pay raise. If companies stopped making it necessary to hop jobs in order to make closer to what you're worth, then it might help retention.

sgustard 13y ago

Give me a contract with a guaranteed salary and no risk of being fired, for one thing. At-risk employment cuts both ways.

Curmudgel 13y ago

> I honestly can't imagine the morality of someone who would just abandon their project, their baby, so to speak, and go work somewhere else at the first call from another company offering more money. Employees (most of the time) don't own the work that they produce for the company, and they themselves are not property of the company. Unless they are contractually obligated to stay at a company for a certain amount of time, there is no reason for them to work for less than they are worth and reject an offer that would make them happier. Employees have good reasons for switching jobs. If they feel dedicated to their current job then they always have the option to stay. >Poaching employees like this is also very unfair to every company... Employees are human beings, not chattel. You started off by doubting the morality of people who switch jobs, but now you make it seem as the are powerless to choose where they work and must always leave for a company that offers more money. >spending a lot of resources to find the right employees, to build the right teams from other channels, only to have the competition cold call them and take them away after the former company has done the hard work. Not every employee will switch jobs because he or she received a better offer. And if finding another employee is so costly, then matching the new offer would probably save them money. >There's also the problem of trade secrets. An employee who has spent some time at, say, Apple, learns a lot about their product plans, processes, methods, and so on. Getting those employees means that one way or another you get access to these carefully kept trade secrets implicitly, if not explicitly. That's what the legal system is for. > Keeping wages down is bad, but employees who keep shifting jobs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them is also bad.How do we resolve both sides of the issue so everyone is happy? Pay the employees what they're worth.

gordaco 13y ago

> their project, their baby, so to speak Yeah, same thing, sure. You realize that for 90% people, even most at the hot companies, a job is above all something they do because they want or need the money, right? And there is such a thing as joining a company and realizing that thery weren't what you expected. People leaving companies not only is a reality, it's something that can be expected. They can leave for a better option, but it's also possible that they have some kind of accident that either incapacitates or kills them. Completely undesirable, sure, but it does happen, so not even the most faithful employee is guaranteed to stay indefinitely in the company. Companies know that, and this is why things like the "bus factor" are taken into account. A project can't rest on one single person's shoulders, and almost everyone is more or less replaceable. Stop the emotional blackmail rubbish, please. I'm tired of hearing that companies are not charities and they're in mainly for the money, so why would then be wrong for a person to maximize their income? And that's without starting to consider the many, many reasons to change job, including, by the way, working on a more interesting project. And if a company doesn't want their employees to voluntarily leave, they just need to work on employee retention as much as they do in hiring. It seems that a lot of companies understood this as "prevent them to find better jobs" instead of "make better jobs for them", and, well, many of us don't consider this acceptable, nor justifiable.

mantrax3 13y ago
> Yeah, same thing, sure. You realize that for 90% people, even most at the hot companies, a job is above all something they do because they want or need the money, right? I realize it, and that's extremely sad, because it doesn't have to be that way.

rspeer 13y ago

You're concerned that people can be immoral because their economic decisions are harmful to corporations? You're worried about whether both sides are "happy" when one side is a corporation incapable of experiencing feelings? I think you've lost track of what's important. Your argument isn't just about cold-calling; you seem to be saying it's "immoral" to consider switching jobs at all. But you are not in moral debt to your employer. It is entirely reasonable to want a higher salary, and we shouldn't cry for the corporations that have to pay it. Switching jobs comes at a cost to the person, too. It involves breaking professional connections and quite possibly relocating. It seems considerably more disruptive to the life of the person who's switching jobs than to the company who has to train someone else, so they're probably doing it for a good reason. Your life is more than your work. Your project is not your "baby". You might have a baby that's your baby. I'm not sure what it means to take a job "out of desperation" if it doesn't apply to basically everyone. Most people work because they need money. If these people didn't need money, they wouldn't work for Apple or Google. Maybe they'd start an unprofitable lifestyle business doing what they love. Maybe they'd do something very fulfilling and very unprofitable, like teaching. There is so much more that you can aspire to than advancing Google's bottom line. If your goals align with Google's, it's entirely because of the paycheck.

mantrax3 13y ago
> You're concerned that people can be immoral because their economic decisions are harmful to corporations? You're worried about whether both sides are "happy" when one side is a corporation incapable of experiencing feelings? I think you've lost track of what's important. I feel like your mind is playing a trick on you. Corporations don't exist as a standalone entity. They're an aggregate entity - one that's made of people. It's not corporations vs. people. It's people trying to be happy working with other people who also are trying to be happy. We're all trying to work together and build something that's bigger than any of us. A corporation can't "feel", but it also can't "think", or "decide". The people in it feel, think and decide. When people "harm the corporation", they hurt other people whose hard work gets diminished in the process. Maybe you think management is "incapable of feeling", well, then sure, you better leave that company. But I'm insulted by the implication that's the rule, rather than the exception. And also I'm insulted by the implication these companies are in it just for the money. While Google and Apple, the two biggest companies mired in this scandal are led by people with widely different world views, do you honestly think they're in it just for the money? Maybe you're letting your cynicism inform your opinions too much, or maybe you're working for a company that really is focused just on money. But don't speak for everyone.

Dewie 13y ago

I'm gonna assume that we're mainly talking about working in California here. Isn't that an at-will state? If an employee can be fired at any time, for any reason (maybe also illegal ones, as long as they are not obvious about it), why shouldn't they have all the mobility that they can get? There needs to be some level of symmetry here. If you have employees that can leave at the drop of the hat, and employees that can fire at the drop of the hat, both have the capacity of misusing it. Corporations could lose a lot of money in training and process secrets, but the employee has a lot less security (sure they might be very sought after workers, but let's not throw principles on the bonfire because of that). Both sides should certainly strive to be ethical. But no one should be loyal to anyone and just expect that they will hold up that code of honor when they have no obligation to. When we're talking about necessarily more impersonal billion dollar corporations, that is especially true.

jsudhams 13y ago

"Keeping wages down is bad, but employees who keep shifting jobs, leaving a trail of destruction behind them is also bad", Why? when a company can show million reasons to shutdown or decide not to do a project and all that. Also note that the "My Project is my baby" is pretty foolish. Company will go behind the money and you got to do the samething. I am not saying that go behind the money or don't have passion. But work for what you like and not for the company. I personally worked in a place were (manufacturing) people were (All workers ~200 of them were under age of 23) thinking the company is them and them is the company and has put countless hours to make it first high performance work system based company, taught to us by this person Deen[0]. The owner decided to sell company to the local country competitor and employees begged to sell the company to them at same price but they would not. So moral is that love your job not your company. The best way to solve the is where is everyone is happy is profit sharing so people will stick to the company till product makes money gets stabilized so you don't depend on couple of people for whole product. http://www.ceohrconsultancy.com/Deen.html http://www.ceohrconsultancy.com/Deen.html