The last time I made my case for a promotion, the director said "Sorry, no promotions right now, there's nothing I can do."
A couple months later, a coworker gets a job offer elsewhere and threatens to leave, and he's immediately promoted. He happens to be the least experienced engineer, and now he's leading the team.
This sends everybody scrambling for job offers, since that's what gets rewarded. Half the engineers have left already, and with any luck, I'll be next out the door.
The best way to get a Promo is to get another job.
My theory is that in the last couple of years, the market is booming however for most people, salaries haven’t kept up with it. At Microsoft my rate of raise was lower than inflation (so in essence I was getting paid less every year). Jumping ship was a huge jump. I interviewed at a bunch of places and got an idea what the market would pay for me. I negotiated slightly above and been happy.
I experienced a similar situation just a few months ago. I'm now being asked to step in and take over the project from the very person who got the promotion because said individual never truly had the leadership skills to begin with, rather, they only had the leverage of walking out the door.
It's a very difficult pill to swallow when my manager turns this situation around on me, stating (I'm paraphrasing), "If you truly want to be a senior, you have to know when to swallow your pride and do right by the team."
For some reason raises suck these days. Where I’m currently employed the raise for a level jump almost doesn’t justify the amount of work to get there. So either I’ll jump through all these hoops to get a very modest raise or stay at the same level until the better parts of stocks vest and go find another job.
I always tell people that the best raises are the ones you get when you land a new job.
I never understood this mindset. Why would an employer pay someone that they have to train more than someone they already have?
I understand companies only being able to afford recent college graduates, but I don't understand the reasoning behind the larger companies paying a replacement more than the person who left.
I guess they're betting on higher performance from new employees trying to prove themselves?
I think there’s also something else at play. Most of my friends also don’t believe for a second that a corporation has their best interests at heart. It’s not just promotions — it’s work life balance, it’s top-down decision making and political empire building, re-orgs every 4-6 months. The growth at all costs style of building companies chews employees up and spits them out.
Absolutely. Even if you love where you work, the corporation is always going to look out for itself first and foremost. It’s a lesson that can be especially hard to learn if you’re an early employee that grows or at a startup that claims to be different, but as cynical as it may be, the sooner workers realize that they are expendable, the better.
>>a corporation has their best interests at heart.
A corporation isn't a living thing to think about you. Its basically one boss, or at best a few of them, who think about you. The good news is if they like you, they'll do something for you, or at least can be made to do something. The bad news is let alone hating you, if they as much as don't think much about you, there is nothing much you can do but to leave.
C'mon, does the DMV have your best interests at heart? Who really does, other than your close friends & family? It doesn't mean they're bad people, they're just people. Corporations and other organizations often are bound together by a common self interest.
Besides, much evil in the world has been done by people with good intentions who actually believe they are operating in your best interests. I'll decide what's in my best interests, thank you very much.
This is totally it. Engineers, in particular understand that they have options, they are highly in demand, and they have strong negotiating positions when they interview.
It's not uncommon for an engineer to get a boost of 10-25% when changing companies, and other than prepping for the grueling interview process, there really isn't a downside to feeling out what's out there.
Especially when your compensation isn't keeping up with the median due to lackluster annual increases.
Strongly agree that the 67% of workers are not quitting, they are leaving for a new job that pays more.
My observation is that the higher you are in the pay bracket, the easier you seem to be abel to get a new job as your skills/experience are also in high demand else where.
They may see themselves changing jobs for higher pay, but what happens if companies are holding tight on salaries?
I've been in the market for almost a year now and have had offers, but nothing higher than what I'm currently making. So I stay put.
Where is this magic expectation that job offers instantly come with a salary bump? That may have been true before, but at full employment the indicators have all gone weird.
One of the reasons I choose contracting over employment (I've been contracting for 4.5 years and was employed prior) is that moving from contract to contract is expected and usually comes with an income increase. If I were to change jobs as frequently as I change contracts, this would look bad on my resume.
This makes the contract market much more liquid than the job market, which has the consequence of arriving at my current valuation quicker.
Consulting is like building a castle and giving it away to someone else to rule and enjoy the fruits. I refuse to do it now. With each new contract, you start from scratch, again. After a while, you'll realize - you are just hitting a reset switch on your career, with each new contract that you pick up.
It’s simply the best way to get a pay raise if you’re a programmer in today’s job market. Want to make 30-50k more? Quit your job and find another.
You could ask your current manager for that kind of pay raise but if they do give you the increase, they’re going to expect you to work harder to “earn” it.
Of course, all this money being thrown around attracts frauds, and that’s why we have absurd technical interviews.
I've had 3 jobs in the past 6 years (5 in 10). So I spend about 2 years/gig on average. Reasons:
1. Learning. I find that I learn 80-90% of what I will learn at a company in the first 12-18 months. Staying at a job for too long is risky because I will miss out on new things happening in my area. In the long term this is the most important, because this is what will get me more money, and make me competitive/valuable. Example: it's hard for people in traditional data roles to do ML/DL without switching jobs.
2. I prefer dynamic equilibrium over static equilibrium. I very strongly prefer being able to go out and get a good job at any time over having a "cozy job". The only way to be good at getting a job is having practice at it.
3. Impact. I find that I deliver most of my impact on the job in the first 2 years, after that it levels off and I tend to do more maintenance stuff of all the things I've built (both systems and teams).
4. More money. This is almost a side-effect of 1-3. But also in itself: if I want to get more money in my current job, it's partially up to me, but it's also up to my manager and the company/culture. If I get unlucky with my manager/company, I'm not going to get it. Also, sometimes I hit a glass ceiling, and there's simply nowhere to go (eg. I'm already the Head/Director whatever, but the company isn't that successful and/or/but pay levels aren't that high). On the other hand, switching jobs is entirely up to me: if I am good at what I do and have a good track record to prove it, practice interviewing to be good at it, and play the numbers game (apply to lots of companies), I will succeed at finding a higher paying job.
Overall:
1. I have to be ruthless and watch out for my own interests. Nobody else will. The world doesn't owe me anything, I have to go out, work for it, make smart decisions and then pluck the rewards myself.
2. I don't think this is unfair towards companies. If a company/org is badly run, people leaving is valuable feedback. Assuming a company can hire good new people, those will deliver new impact, bring new knowledge, etc.
Having said that, there are companies where you can work and make more and more money (usually stock options play a big role here), and keep learn more and more (because the company is growing like crazy). These are the startups that are run well and are rocket ships (the FAANGs were like this).
In the past, giant stock grants could convince people to stay sans a raise/promotion, but with vesting periods increasing or being staggered and an understandable uncertainty in sustained stock growth (you could do really well or not, depending on when your shares are purchased), it’s totally understandable that someone would
leave for another company to get a pay raise or promotion.
Boomerang employment is super common too (you don’t get your promotion/level bump so you go to competitor X who hires you at s higher level and salary. You do your 2 years and then return to company Y at a higher level/better salary, in less time than it would take to earn a promotion using the system.).
I don’t know if this is sustainable — but I don’t fault anyone who does this or thinks about it. And because it’s so common, it’s not like it looks bad on a resume, because loyalty isn’t valued the same way anyway.
"The reason people are quitting today is because the labor market is so competitive that the only way they can get a significant increase in income is by quitting and going to another job."
Well, no, the opposite is true. Employees have to quit because companies stubbornly refuse to be competitive on salary.
The reason for that is mismanagement - managers and HR would be personally criticized for "being soft" if they offered raises, regardless of the benefits to the company of doing so.
I've seen this so much now that I feel like I must be missing a piece of the puzzle.
You work for a company for X amount of time, and you gain domain knowledge of the company, and general industry experience. Some other company looks at your CV, and without knowing you, and probably without caring about your specific company domain knowledge, decides you are worth say 20% more than you are earning.
You then go to your current company, and say 'my general skills are worth 20% more on the market, you know how well I work, and you know I have extra domain knowledge specific to this role, I would like more money' - and the company refuses.
They then spend time and money finding someone with similar skills to what you have, but without your domain knowledge, and probably at a similar amount you asked for since that's the market rate.
How is it not in the companies best interests to just keep you on and give you a raise? How do they justify all that wasted time and money every time? Do they just not measure it?
This is the real answer. Companies have been stubbornly refusing to grant raises in line with market rates.
It makes sense on the balance sheet. A large fraction of employees (33% if we take the article at face value) are unwilling to exercises their market options, and will stay at a company that underpays them.
The rest leave for greener pastures, and are replaced with new hires that are paid as much as a promoted position would be paid. But this way, companies can hold on to those 33% that never see a raise that exceeds inflation.
Large companies don't factor in things like loss of domain expertise, retraining, or loss of productivity due to hiring in their spreadsheets. So they will continue to do this and the only way to negotiate a true raise will be to leave; or threaten to leave.
My sister works in the advertising industry, where it seems few people spend more than 2-3 years [edit] in a firm before moving on. The big advertising firms tend to be in public ownership and and have apparently systemised the creation of advertising and marketing content, such that it doesn’t matter who is in the job or how long they are there for. I was pretty surprised by that - managers are well paid and grind creativity out of younger employees. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised - maybe those are just well run businesses, but I’m helluva glad I don’t work for one!
The average tenure of someone, particularly a junior person, at an ad or media agency is around 1.5 years.
The reality is that there's always opportunities at other agencies where they'll pay you a bit more than you're currently making (which is still less than paying someone there already more) and give you an inflated title.
Due in part to the nature of the industry, tasks are made to not be dependent on a given individual, and people float around because agency teams are never at equilibrium. They either have too few clients for the team and need to let people go, or too many/too big clients and need to staff up.
Source: worked agency side for most of my career and managed a bunch of people. I'm brand side now at a company with a significant percentage of employees at or over the 10yr mark. There's a reason I left the agency world.
One way to try to get a raise at a current job that I've done in the past is get an interview and see if you can get offers for a higher paid job and then use that as leverage for a counter offer.
I know there are already many threads about taking counter offers, but its not always a bad thing... in my experience, the manager just
needed better justification for the higher ups. It was too large a company for him to just give me a bump.
I was working in e-commerce when my company for acquired by a larger one. Since I was 100% remote and had zero face time with anyone I was one of the people to get canned. Actually, most of our company got canned.
At first I was furious and a bit depressed and that's when I said enough is enough, I will never let anyone else in a position over me, I'm done being an employee, I will never be let go ever again.
A year later I was working insane hours as a freelancer, just learning the ropes with enough pay to get by on. Fast forward to year 3 and I am a consultant making more than I did at the ecommerce company. I am my own boss. I can fire my clients instead of the other way around. Pay is great, hours are insanely good - I work just a couple of hours per week with occasional bursts of power sessions exceeding 3-4 hours. I get to spend most of my time with my kid.
The downside is having to always have business lined up but I have been fortunate to never really have any downtime. I'm slowly building out my marketing channels and once everything is in place I can pick and choose really carefully who I work with. Oh, and if I want a raise I just increase my weekly retainer.
"Fast forward to year 3..."
May I ask: are you e-commerce consulting?
Your comment suggests that you repositioned yourself purposefully, rather than the outcome simply eventuated. If so, was this based on a discovery you made in the market or client demand while you were freelancing?
Did this result in you "niching down" from a broader "catch all" offering as a freelancer? Are you clients higher ticket/larger SME's compared to freelancing (which is often outsourced agency work)?
Some would point out that you likely have your risk distributed across multiple clients now, whereas having a single full-time employer is like having all of your eggs in one basket.
The only way to get a proper raise is changing companies.
Promotions tend to take years and are often more political than technical. I've seen often that a company prefers to hire someone techie from the outside rather than promoting internally. It is just the way it is.
When the already hired engineers see this kind of thing, it is not surprising that morale gets low and churn gets high.
It's so sad this is the case, but it is the case. In a job I've always gotten 1.5-3% raises, and 10% for promotions. Switching jobs I've gotten up to a 75% increase each time.
So what happens when you stay at your current job because you've just stopped caring for any of the software work out there? It's easier just to stay with your current company than to have to incur the costs of changing to a new environment and having to learn a new way of doing things.
I'm not sure if at this point in my career, it really makes a difference in the big picture of my life to get a 20% raise.
A cynic would assume it's just companies that produce low value, have low value (compared to cost) employees but are VC money pumped.
This cycle will continue until there's an economic down turn and a large portion of those companies will go bankrupt.
The big problem I have is that it’s rare to find a combination of strong leadership with fast stressful work in the corporate world. Historically either my work is slow and easy or my leadership is extremely weak.
The only times I have seen strong leadership and fast work is in agency/consultancy work and military.
Having worked at a large corporation I can say that I found the reward system completely random. It’s really difficult, if your not part of the team to figure out how much work and value people are adding. It makes it ripe for gaming the system.
[+] [-] icotyl|7 years ago|reply
A couple months later, a coworker gets a job offer elsewhere and threatens to leave, and he's immediately promoted. He happens to be the least experienced engineer, and now he's leading the team.
This sends everybody scrambling for job offers, since that's what gets rewarded. Half the engineers have left already, and with any luck, I'll be next out the door.
[+] [-] nojvek|7 years ago|reply
My theory is that in the last couple of years, the market is booming however for most people, salaries haven’t kept up with it. At Microsoft my rate of raise was lower than inflation (so in essence I was getting paid less every year). Jumping ship was a huge jump. I interviewed at a bunch of places and got an idea what the market would pay for me. I negotiated slightly above and been happy.
[+] [-] AllegedAlec|7 years ago|reply
http://dilbert.com/strip/1997-06-29
[+] [-] kamaal|7 years ago|reply
Interview game >>> Engineering game.
Also from Scott Adams himself: Your day job must be to find a better day job.
[+] [-] jsntrmn|7 years ago|reply
I experienced a similar situation just a few months ago. I'm now being asked to step in and take over the project from the very person who got the promotion because said individual never truly had the leadership skills to begin with, rather, they only had the leverage of walking out the door.
It's a very difficult pill to swallow when my manager turns this situation around on me, stating (I'm paraphrasing), "If you truly want to be a senior, you have to know when to swallow your pride and do right by the team."
Our industry is just plain bananas.
[+] [-] bitrrrate|7 years ago|reply
I always tell people that the best raises are the ones you get when you land a new job.
[+] [-] beatgammit|7 years ago|reply
I understand companies only being able to afford recent college graduates, but I don't understand the reasoning behind the larger companies paying a replacement more than the person who left.
I guess they're betting on higher performance from new employees trying to prove themselves?
[+] [-] physcab|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephengillie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|7 years ago|reply
A corporation isn't a living thing to think about you. Its basically one boss, or at best a few of them, who think about you. The good news is if they like you, they'll do something for you, or at least can be made to do something. The bad news is let alone hating you, if they as much as don't think much about you, there is nothing much you can do but to leave.
[+] [-] liquid153|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skookumchuck|7 years ago|reply
Besides, much evil in the world has been done by people with good intentions who actually believe they are operating in your best interests. I'll decide what's in my best interests, thank you very much.
[+] [-] aresant|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pfhreak|7 years ago|reply
It's not uncommon for an engineer to get a boost of 10-25% when changing companies, and other than prepping for the grueling interview process, there really isn't a downside to feeling out what's out there.
Especially when your compensation isn't keeping up with the median due to lackluster annual increases.
[+] [-] dba7dba|7 years ago|reply
My observation is that the higher you are in the pay bracket, the easier you seem to be abel to get a new job as your skills/experience are also in high demand else where.
[+] [-] joezydeco|7 years ago|reply
I've been in the market for almost a year now and have had offers, but nothing higher than what I'm currently making. So I stay put.
Where is this magic expectation that job offers instantly come with a salary bump? That may have been true before, but at full employment the indicators have all gone weird.
[+] [-] jameslk|7 years ago|reply
This makes the contract market much more liquid than the job market, which has the consequence of arriving at my current valuation quicker.
[+] [-] mandeepj|7 years ago|reply
I'm glad I share my thoughts with this very smart man - https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI?t=908
[+] [-] booleandilemma|7 years ago|reply
You could ask your current manager for that kind of pay raise but if they do give you the increase, they’re going to expect you to work harder to “earn” it.
Of course, all this money being thrown around attracts frauds, and that’s why we have absurd technical interviews.
[+] [-] commandlinefan|7 years ago|reply
Not necessarily in that order, though...
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Maro|7 years ago|reply
1. Learning. I find that I learn 80-90% of what I will learn at a company in the first 12-18 months. Staying at a job for too long is risky because I will miss out on new things happening in my area. In the long term this is the most important, because this is what will get me more money, and make me competitive/valuable. Example: it's hard for people in traditional data roles to do ML/DL without switching jobs.
2. I prefer dynamic equilibrium over static equilibrium. I very strongly prefer being able to go out and get a good job at any time over having a "cozy job". The only way to be good at getting a job is having practice at it.
3. Impact. I find that I deliver most of my impact on the job in the first 2 years, after that it levels off and I tend to do more maintenance stuff of all the things I've built (both systems and teams).
4. More money. This is almost a side-effect of 1-3. But also in itself: if I want to get more money in my current job, it's partially up to me, but it's also up to my manager and the company/culture. If I get unlucky with my manager/company, I'm not going to get it. Also, sometimes I hit a glass ceiling, and there's simply nowhere to go (eg. I'm already the Head/Director whatever, but the company isn't that successful and/or/but pay levels aren't that high). On the other hand, switching jobs is entirely up to me: if I am good at what I do and have a good track record to prove it, practice interviewing to be good at it, and play the numbers game (apply to lots of companies), I will succeed at finding a higher paying job.
Overall:
1. I have to be ruthless and watch out for my own interests. Nobody else will. The world doesn't owe me anything, I have to go out, work for it, make smart decisions and then pluck the rewards myself.
2. I don't think this is unfair towards companies. If a company/org is badly run, people leaving is valuable feedback. Assuming a company can hire good new people, those will deliver new impact, bring new knowledge, etc.
Having said that, there are companies where you can work and make more and more money (usually stock options play a big role here), and keep learn more and more (because the company is growing like crazy). These are the startups that are run well and are rocket ships (the FAANGs were like this).
[+] [-] notyouravgdoge|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|7 years ago|reply
Boomerang employment is super common too (you don’t get your promotion/level bump so you go to competitor X who hires you at s higher level and salary. You do your 2 years and then return to company Y at a higher level/better salary, in less time than it would take to earn a promotion using the system.).
I don’t know if this is sustainable — but I don’t fault anyone who does this or thinks about it. And because it’s so common, it’s not like it looks bad on a resume, because loyalty isn’t valued the same way anyway.
[+] [-] captain_perl|7 years ago|reply
Well, no, the opposite is true. Employees have to quit because companies stubbornly refuse to be competitive on salary.
The reason for that is mismanagement - managers and HR would be personally criticized for "being soft" if they offered raises, regardless of the benefits to the company of doing so.
[+] [-] kraftman|7 years ago|reply
You work for a company for X amount of time, and you gain domain knowledge of the company, and general industry experience. Some other company looks at your CV, and without knowing you, and probably without caring about your specific company domain knowledge, decides you are worth say 20% more than you are earning. You then go to your current company, and say 'my general skills are worth 20% more on the market, you know how well I work, and you know I have extra domain knowledge specific to this role, I would like more money' - and the company refuses.
They then spend time and money finding someone with similar skills to what you have, but without your domain knowledge, and probably at a similar amount you asked for since that's the market rate.
How is it not in the companies best interests to just keep you on and give you a raise? How do they justify all that wasted time and money every time? Do they just not measure it?
[+] [-] swagasaurus-rex|7 years ago|reply
It makes sense on the balance sheet. A large fraction of employees (33% if we take the article at face value) are unwilling to exercises their market options, and will stay at a company that underpays them.
The rest leave for greener pastures, and are replaced with new hires that are paid as much as a promoted position would be paid. But this way, companies can hold on to those 33% that never see a raise that exceeds inflation.
Large companies don't factor in things like loss of domain expertise, retraining, or loss of productivity due to hiring in their spreadsheets. So they will continue to do this and the only way to negotiate a true raise will be to leave; or threaten to leave.
They hope you'll just be passive.
[+] [-] GreeniFi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shostack|7 years ago|reply
The reality is that there's always opportunities at other agencies where they'll pay you a bit more than you're currently making (which is still less than paying someone there already more) and give you an inflated title.
Due in part to the nature of the industry, tasks are made to not be dependent on a given individual, and people float around because agency teams are never at equilibrium. They either have too few clients for the team and need to let people go, or too many/too big clients and need to staff up.
Source: worked agency side for most of my career and managed a bunch of people. I'm brand side now at a company with a significant percentage of employees at or over the 10yr mark. There's a reason I left the agency world.
[+] [-] samspenc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dlhavema|7 years ago|reply
One way to try to get a raise at a current job that I've done in the past is get an interview and see if you can get offers for a higher paid job and then use that as leverage for a counter offer.
I know there are already many threads about taking counter offers, but its not always a bad thing... in my experience, the manager just needed better justification for the higher ups. It was too large a company for him to just give me a bump.
[+] [-] mrhappyunhappy|7 years ago|reply
At first I was furious and a bit depressed and that's when I said enough is enough, I will never let anyone else in a position over me, I'm done being an employee, I will never be let go ever again.
A year later I was working insane hours as a freelancer, just learning the ropes with enough pay to get by on. Fast forward to year 3 and I am a consultant making more than I did at the ecommerce company. I am my own boss. I can fire my clients instead of the other way around. Pay is great, hours are insanely good - I work just a couple of hours per week with occasional bursts of power sessions exceeding 3-4 hours. I get to spend most of my time with my kid.
The downside is having to always have business lined up but I have been fortunate to never really have any downtime. I'm slowly building out my marketing channels and once everything is in place I can pick and choose really carefully who I work with. Oh, and if I want a raise I just increase my weekly retainer.
[+] [-] lurcio|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arwhatever|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|7 years ago|reply
Do you mean per day?
[+] [-] nunobrito|7 years ago|reply
Promotions tend to take years and are often more political than technical. I've seen often that a company prefers to hire someone techie from the outside rather than promoting internally. It is just the way it is.
When the already hired engineers see this kind of thing, it is not surprising that morale gets low and churn gets high.
[+] [-] wordpressdev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hateful|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogerdickey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eecsninja|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if at this point in my career, it really makes a difference in the big picture of my life to get a 20% raise.
[+] [-] Gravityloss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] menor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austincheney|7 years ago|reply
The only times I have seen strong leadership and fast work is in agency/consultancy work and military.
[+] [-] Pfhreak|7 years ago|reply
It was amazing. Then we re-org'd, and I'm still looking for that combination somewhere.
[+] [-] baby23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]