
How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers to Ensure They Stick Around? - engineertorque
https://builtin.com/employee-engagement/how-much-engineer-pay
======
dang
We've banned this site for using sockpuppet accounts, voting rings, and
astroturfed comments. Such abuses are extremely not ok, and this was an
egregious and repeated case.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

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vbtemp
I just want a straight answer from someone who knows more than me. How come
every time I switch jobs I get a 30-40% raise, but at any one company I never
get more than a 1-3% raise each year, no matter the growth of productivity and
responsibility.

There's obviously some kind of prisoner's dilemma-like iterated game that
reaches that Nash equilibrium, and I'm trying to figure out what it is
exactly.

I would have loved to stay at my first organization. Interesting work and
research. I was PI and PM for interesting projects by the time I left. Now I
make almost double. The thing is, my current salary at my original
organization isn't unheard of for that level of responsibility at all, the
problem is that getting that kind of adjustment is impossible. It's possible
to be hired in at that salary, though. I've noticed this is true for most
organizations I've worked at.

~~~
ed312
I can tell you as a manager the salary bands are generally set by HR for the
whole company. I was told point blank at a previous employer that we payed the
70th percentile. I asked how they knew what that was - apparently there are
companies that aggregate this data (legally?) and sell it back to HR orgs for
$xx,xxx+ a year. HR for some reason wouldn't deviate from this band for top
talent (discrimination maybe?)

~~~
blahbhthrow3748
Bands are usually per level - if someone is sufficiently good you bring them
in as a Principal/Staff/Magic Unicorn/whatever.

This leads to the same phenomenon where you need to work for 2 years to get
promoted but if you jump ship your new manager will set your level in line
with your salary expectations. And of course the levels are largely
meaningless outside of compensation and office politics.

~~~
ed312
This exact scenario happened to me - I was a "senior manager" by HR title but
I was actually just promoted to team lead in practice. I meant to illustrate
the setting of compensation happened almost entirely without engineering input
at a company level (in my experience, where I worked, etc.).

~~~
Aeolun
Damn! This explains why my company has so many senior managers. Sometimes with
just one report :P

------
zffr
The article's title is pure click-bait. It would be more accurate if it were
"How to Keep Your Engineers Interested in Sticking Around"

Very little of the article says anything about how much to pay engineers. I
only found 2 paragraphs about engineering compensation:

> The most comprehensive study, though, is Daniel H. Pink’s Drive, which is
> summarized in this animation from the RSA. Pink suggests that money isn’t
> the main driver for highly skilled workers who choose to stay in their jobs.
> Instead, he identifies a combination of three factors: the ability to be
> self-directed, getting better at the job, and having a purpose in one’s
> endeavors. In other words, once a person’s basic financial needs are met,
> money starts to become less and less relevant as a criterion for job
> satisfaction, especially compared to purpose, self-improvement and self-
> direction.

> Unsurprisingly, this conclusion mostly matches my own experience with
> engineers. Whether companies pay at market level or 20%-30% above market
> makes very little impact on staff retention. You might stretch retention
> slightly in the latter case, but the investment is often not worth the net
> result. Keeping your engineers engaged and motivated makes a much more
> substantial difference, so that’s what we’re going to look at next.

Even these paragraphs are primarily about how money is not the primary way to
keep engineers engaged and motivated.

~~~
js8
Be careful though. For example, I don't really care that much about money, but
I do care very strongly about fairness. So if you try to cheat me by paying me
unfairly (for example, compared to coworkers), even if I would be happy with
the money all things considered, I could be unhappy just because you're being
unfair.

~~~
Pfhreak
I'll even add that engineers should understand the value they bring to the
company and adjust their concept of fair not just against their peers but
against what the company is earning from their labor.

~~~
Domenic_S
This is one of those things that sounds reasonable but is impossible to
compute. Does the company earn more from the developer who makes the product,
or the infra engineer who keeps it online? Well, without either they're not
making anything...

Also, if the company makes a bit less money this year vs last year, are you
willing to take a pay cut?

~~~
js8
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937)

It might be impossible to compute, but we still want to compute it.

Or rather, get some agreement. I would say not only it is impossible to
compute, the question of relative human pay for different types of work is a
meaningless question, like asking, what is more important on a car, tires or
engine?

------
xkcd-sucks
In accordance with the standard hierarchy of needs, culture flows down from
compensation. When everyone's material needs and desires are well satisfied,
they interact genuinely and naturally. When people feel like good compensation
is difficult to achieve, they put more effort into zero-sum internal politics,
maintaining appearances, and so forth.

You see this in upper management all the time; execs are friendly and graceful
with each other because their material success is guaranteed, and promoting
collegiality among execs is usually an orgizational goal.

~~~
prepperpotts
Definitely agree with the latter part here about execs, but I feel like
anxiety around compensation doesn't tie back to material needs as much as to
the extent to which people measure their self-worth by compensation.

Years ago, these studies were going around saying that people are happier when
they make more money up to about $70k, at which point more money doesn't make
you happier anymore. I'm sure that has to be adjusted for inflation etc by
now, but very few devs make less money than they need to live comfortably by
most people's standards.

~~~
mrnook
Found the study:
[https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489](https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489)

It was conducted in 2010, so I wonder if anything would change if it was
conducted again today. The current tech industry was in its infancy 10 years
ago, and a lot of high paying jobs have been created since.

~~~
prepperpotts
True. Cost of living has spiked a lot in tech hubs, too, but devs are usually
on the upper tier of the income curve.

~~~
paulcole
It’s not like NYC wasn’t expensive compared to Kansas 10 years ago.

~~~
mrnook
Of course, but what about Austin or Denver? The tech industry has brought high
paying jobs to a lot of smaller cities that weren't accustomed to such high
salaries.

------
mywittyname
I left a job which paid in the 95+ percentile of my area for one that paid
right about the median wage (maybe a little less). My reason: I like to own
the software I write. We had an influx of people on our team who began to
rewrite sections of stuff I wrote a long time ago for no real reason.
Basically, some of them didn't like promise chains and decided to rewrite
every one they encountered. Things finally bubbled over when I ended up in
merge hell where I'd have the codebase drastically change while I was on my
branch and I'd be reimplimenting the same feature every time I tried to submit
a merge request, but all of these changes amounted to largely meaningless
"refactoring."

It's kind of petty on my part, but I'm not the type that wins arguments. So I
decided, despite loving the people I worked with, that I was not in the right
job. Now I design and develop software mostly individually and I'm infinitely
happier. Someone who is competitive and enjoys confrontation would thrive in
that role though.

Point is, people have lots of different reasons for changing jobs. And
something that makes one group happy may make another miserable. I also hate
traveling to conferences, but that's the nature of the job sometimes.

~~~
nurettin
I would've changed your code from promise chains to await statements (after
warning you, of course) because they just look awful. And I would then have
expected you to buy me a beer for getting rid of all that ugly code.

~~~
blyry
So you would've spent company time rewriting working code to match your
personal aesthetics?

Sounds like parent didn't have a reasonable structure in place to generate
consensus amongst the org about stylistic preferences vs tech debt, and where
developer priorities should lie.

There's some ego in both of your comments as well. Async is nicer looking that
promise chains, but there risk in changing working code, no? Growing with an
org means letting go of your old code but joining an org requires empathy and
understanding for the old timers and their code babies as well!

~~~
nurettin
I assume you are looking at things for a living. And from your corporate tone,
so are your coworkers.

We all want to look at good things. Promise chains were bad things. When I see
bad things, I am willing to make the change. So should you. And we should ask
before we change. GP was caught off-guard. That is not what we want.

We good?

~~~
blyry
We good

> corporate tone

oof, maybe not wrong though.

I don't look at things for a living, I trade time for money with the
expectation that my time has a multiplier on revenue, profit, and team
health/productivity. I guess I've seen enough legacy code at this point that I
don't have any desire to change it just because there's something better,
changing stuff that works has to be a reasonable balance between tech
debt/maintenance/quality of life things, vs features/uptime/performance. Of
all those things, features make the most money right? So why would I want to
spend time refactoring things when I could make measurable, incremental
improvements somewhere else? Spend all day in the same system? Sure. Drive by
refactorings? Absolutely not.

------
mcgrathpm11
I worked at Netflix for several years, where they actively practice paying
‘top of market.’

This is an oft misunderstood tactic, but in action means: 1) Yearly, employees
are asked to seek evidence for their top of market compensation. 2) employees
do two things as a follow up - They either interview elsewhere to get
competing offers to establish ‘top of market,’ or they feel fairly paid and do
nothing.

Having worked at a few large tech companies that practice the typical equity
grant and vesting structure designed to maximize retention, Ive never seen a
more effective tactic to completely remove the concern of ‘am I paid enough’
from the employee. As a result:

1) The really high impact people are paid extremely well, as Netflix always
overbids. 2) The average performers either go elsewhere or retain without
jockeying for greater comp and ownership.

The proactive seeking top of market is a good feedback loop to pay for/reward
impact and to build trust with your team, and is something I still practice
with my teams outside of Netflix.

This was back in 2015, so some things may have changed. Regardless, the net to
the business has compounding returns. At an average company:

1) Most employees do not pay for their salary in business impact. 2) Top
performers drive outsized impact relative to their compensation.

If you find a way to mitigate 1), you can pass the savings into 2), protecting
and retaining your highest value employees.

While other factors do obviously matter, and comp isn’t everything -
_removing_ comp from the hierarchy of needs entirely dramatically changes the
mindset towards ownership of work and outcome.

~~~
jacques_chester
I'm probably taking the wrong lesson away here, because from an outside
perspective the message seems to be "don't waste time interviewing someone who
currently works for Netflix".

You'll either waste your time, or get buyer's remorse. Very little upside.

------
exabrial
It's only about 50% about pay for STEM fields. They have to be engaged, feel
like they have a voice or influence in the culture/business decisions, have
great equipment to use, and flexible time off.

~~~
throwaway4666
All of it can be dispensed with if you pay even more

~~~
iso1631
Indeed, pay me $1m a day and I'll stare at a wall for you.

Probably wouldn't do it for long, the first day would be amazing - that buys a
great house. The rest of the week and I'm set for a very comfortable
retirement.

~~~
nthj
This is part of why stock options are so valuable to organizations as an
incentive: the retention power of high pay without the calculus of “do I have
enough?” from liquid compensation

~~~
_jal
Huh? Everyone I've ever known who had significant options knew exactly what
they were worth.

I knew someone who changed their bash prompt to (price * unvested count / days
left). He said at the time it was the only thing that kept him from quitting
or punching his manager.

~~~
pjc50
Long ago companies only bothered issuing options when the stock was illiquid;
certainly my startup share options _never_ had a meaningful market value from
founding to acquisition.

Publicly-quoted companies issuing options is just a weird form of deferred
bonus with a favourable tax treatment.

~~~
ghaff
Well, they also come with the hope that they'll increase in value prior to
vesting. But, yes, RSUs in public companies are certainly more like getting
bonuses that vest over time than a stock market lottery ticket.

------
iso1631
The large UK broadcaster I work for is having to make large amounts of
savings. They've decided that they don't like paying for slack (for £10 per
user per month), and instead are going to force everyone to use MS Teams.

Since 95% of people have been working from home (and no plans for most to go
back this year), they won't allow people to take unused monitors back because
they might end up lost. These are £80 monitors.

It's these pathetic nickle-and-diming that is far more likely to make me look
for another job than not paying a £200 a year pay rise.

Someone sees "£80 times 20,000 staff, that's over £1m, we can't risk that!"

~~~
gamblor956
Saving £1.6 million/month isn't nickel-and-diming. That's almost £20
million/annually, which is more than many companies make.

As for the monitors, that may be COVID19 related. If the office is locked up,
there are almost always physical/security procedures that must be followed in
order to allow non-essential staff into the office...and that doesn't include
any cleaning or sanitation that might be required by any COVID19 rules. This
means that you need to have someone physically come to the office to open it
up. On top of that, you need someone knowledgeable about the hardware (i.e.,
IT) to come in to make sure any employee taking a monitor home doesn't mess up
anyone else's setup.

So you're risking exposing at least two lower-paid employees to COVID19 for
the convenience of one higher-paid employee who could just buy his own goddamn
monitor for £80 if he cares about the screen real estate that much.

~~~
iso1631
Our offices are still open, just with 10% of the staff in them.

And the "£1.6m a month" view is the problem -- if you are spending £5k a
month, or 40p a minute, on the costs of keeping an employee (probably more
with the cost of office space), an extra £10 a month is neither here nor
there. If it costs just 1 minute extra a day, you're losing.

------
paxys
100% agree with this article, but would also caution against any kind of
generalization. Different people want different things.

For the first ~7-10 years of my career I strongly believed that everything was
about salary. I picked jobs solely based on the comp package, and the work I
did was motivated by bonuses and promotions. I'm sure that's still the case
for a large chunk of engineers, but for me, with more experience under my
belt, I now think more and more about stuff like fulfillment, ownership, real
world impact of my work etc.

~~~
wccrawford
I took my first programming job with the intent of staying 3 years and then
getting a new job that would pay me what I was worth.

I got very lucky and they kept pace with what I could have gotten elsewhere
for about 5 years. At that point, I stopped getting raises and about a year
later, switched jobs for that 40% raise.

It's pretty much the norm for IT until you get to your pay level. It's
complex, but I think it's mainly that it's hard to justify pay raises beyond
what a job is worth and actual promotions are hard to swallow for management,
especially if they don't need someone at that level.

When you left each job, they probably filled it with someone making about what
you were when you left, but the new job you got was more demanding and better-
paying.

I think for the first part of your career, aiming for pay is the right choice.
After a while, the pay is fairly settled and you can look for other
compensation instead.

------
nisten
I find the reasoning of this article pretty obnoxious to be honest.

They start off with a valid argument, that if you treat engineers better than
everyone else it creates resentment in other parts of the company and that
makes sense.

 _If that weren’t enough, all of this “special treatment” towards engineers
can create resentment throughout the rest of the company. Such negativity
hurts performance and retention in other business units where employees might
feel that they’re treated unfairly._

I've actually experienced this myself as the new guy, even within the
engineering department. Then 5 paragraphs later this is what they write:

 _Maybe instead of offering free lunches on Fridays, you can provide funding
to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC, once that’s hosted in
real life again) or a Coursera subscription. If you’re in the mobile apps
space, you might offer to buy the newest iPhone or Android device for your
engineers annually on a “yours to keep” basis._

I'm sorry for the negativity, I just don't think I can trust the judgement of
the author on this issue after reading that. Also as a mobile developer,
shouldn't you be aiming for your app to perform well on low to midrange
devices first, thus targeting the largest ammount of potential users? If
you're styling for the iphone x/11 notch you're gonna be doing that in the
simulator first regardless.

------
travisgriggs
Pay me enough so I can feed my family and have comfortable shelter.

Don't create a culture where I am a doer but not allowed to be a decider. I
will eventually walk away from asymmetric power structures.

If you don't/can't trust me, I probably won't trust you. I prefer
relationships of trust.

I want to learn and improve. Use your extra money to do that and act is if it
matters to you.

If you must use pay as your sole means of appeasing me, pay me LOTS. So very
much that I'm willing to put up with the bureaucratic shitshow that is your
company, spending all my drone-ish non-innovative 9 to 5 day thinking about
the rush I'm going to experience doing cool things with all of the excess cash
you're giving me.

------
wuliwong
I changed jobs in the past year and only received a slight pay increase. For
the first time in my engineering career, I really enjoy my job. There are a
lot of factors but the thing that stands out the most is the senior leadership
here. They actively seek to engage the entire organization in strategy and
planning and are really working towards a more transparent and realistic
process of growth and advancement. My experience previous to this had been
leadership only paying lip service to these ideas at best. I am not sure what
increase in compensation would be required for me to leave and I honestly hope
I don't find out.

------
DoofusOfDeath
It probably depends quite a bit on the engineer's life outside of work.

For much of my career, I was the only income earner in a family of 6. Making
ends meet was sometimes a challenge, which made me very salary-sensitive _and_
averse to the risk of income disruption.

My family finances have somewhat improved in recent years, letting me unclinch
a little regarding money. This lets me put more weight on other factors
relating to job satisfaction and feeling of purpose.

~~~
tj0
"Making ends meet was sometimes a challenge, which made me very salary-
sensitive and averse to the risk of income disruption."

This. I think a large chunk of society forgets that after you get past 25 and
actually have a life and responsibilities, that a meager $100k in a particular
region is barely enough to cover base expenses, childcare, car/home loans,
etc.

Out of curiosity, how long were you the sole earner before getting to a better
state of financial security?

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
A little over 20 years.

------
awat
Not directly a compensation component but organizations can make sure they
have a technical leader supporting software organizations.

Consulting with companies on productivity I can’t express how much devs not
feeling like they have representation/a voice at the exec level negates comp
effectiveness.

~~~
thanatropism
Question is, can this be faked?

What we're saying is that coders are often willing to pay for "a seat at the
table". But maybe management can sell them a placebo.

It's not clear-cut that management ignoring coders will _always_ turn out for
the worse, even though management that _always ignores_ coders probably has,
historically. Maybe sometimes their voice matters and sometimes not.

~~~
rkangel
It can be faked to the engineers, it can't be faked to reality.

Companies for whom engineering is key need to (at least to some extent)
organise themselves around engineering. The strategic decisions need to take
into account the needs and capabilities of engineering and engineers. If they
don't then they won't be good at it. They'll be staffed with mediocre people
who generate mediocre output very slowly.

------
InfiniteRand
"As an engineer, I experienced firsthand the dual relationship most of us have
with the rest of the business. One day you’re a hero for delivering something
“magical,” then the next you’re a jerk for not delivering something “so
simple” in a short amount of time, or refusing to make certain “easy” changes,
even if those requests carry a hidden but critical risk of destabilizing the
whole software."

That part of the article really struck a cord with me. From my experience, I
think that a big factor in whether engineers start looking for another job is
how much the manager acts as a filter for the unrealistic expectations of the
rest of the company. Engineers should not be too isolated, after all some
interaction is good to get feedback and it feels good to directly see people
benefit from your work, but managers have to be able to shield their engineers
from the mood swings of the CEO or the pie-in-the-sky promises from marketing.
I think this is a big component of a "good working environment" and is often
worth more than pay or promotions.

------
cableshaft
Keep them too stressed out and busy with work that they don't have the time
and energy to really look for something new and grind dozens of LeetCode
problems to get them through the grueling technical interview gauntlet? Seems
to be working with my company to keep me there, at least.

------
the_jeremy
IMO, the only reason above-market pay doesn't raise retention as much as
people want is that it's possible to have above-market pay _and_ a job people
enjoy doing.

And on the other hand, you can offer enough above-market and people will do
any job, as evidenced by the other thread I saw yesterday where people were
making crazy salaries to implement unethical, deceptive practices against
their users.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Link the thread?

------
laurentdc
A nice, laid-back, zero-bs team is all I need. I value that much much higher
than money. I have no interest in workplace drama. I've always considered
career and competition to be quite pointless: if I had a good idea I'd build
the product myself and keep all the margins in my pocket. It's computer stuff
afterall.

Often I have no interest in the work itself either, but if the team is good
I'm happy. They could make us shovel snow all day, I'd still come to work.

------
mjayhn
There's a style of management I encounter still that is very unsupportive of
it's employees. Untrusting, thinking they're always out to leave just to make
more money. It's interesting because the engineers I know tend to be pretty
altruistic people and I won't say they don't care about money but it's not
their leading factor in employment (I definitely know the other spectrum as
well so don't think I'm ignoring that).

I've worked at places specifically didn't want to send employees to
conferences because they think everyone uses them as farming tools (whether
that's true or not, some engineers just want to go learn and it's pretty
upsetting if you have a SME in some subject and don't allow them to attend a
con while plenty of other $leaders go).

I've also worked for tech places where a boss would come in and fire you on
Monday then call you up and offer you $1k to return on Tuesday, me being about
21 at my first sysadmin job kept me around for that abuse.

It's really, really not a good feeling to feel untrusted or like you're
constantly being tested by your employer.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Hah. Seems like this is not as uncommon as I thought. My senior had her
convention request denied by company while multiple leadership folk were flown
over there. She got pissed and paid for her own access/flight. She clearly met
a lot of people there. Maybe that is what management is most scared of. She
already almost left once.

~~~
mjayhn
It's very common if you're not at some big FAANG or group that is in all the
partner groups (CNCF, etc) and pays to get tickets every year.

I do this a lot for a few foss projects I contribute to because even though
I'm always hired as the SME for my niche leadership will only give me
tickets/flights to conferences if they have extras and none of their drinking
buddies want to go. Typically what happens is I'll start at a company, ask
about going to $mybigcon when a training budget is brought up, that training
budget is always slashed, not real or goes somewhere else then I'll never ask
again and I'll find my own way to get tickets (from conf partners, etc).

The funny thing, when I have to do this not only am I really bothered that my
company wouldn't spend the $1000 ($200 plane, $800 ticket) but I go out of my
way to not focus on ANYTHING that will benefit my company but instead I have a
good time and learn things I'm interested in and mingle with every other
company/partner I can.

I've actually had companies expect me to get tickets myself from the projects
or from gold partners that I know. I don't have that much clout by any means
and even asking partners for tickets makes me feel terrible because they're
limited too.

------
motohagiography
Good article on an important topic. I would like to address what I perceive as
assumptions in the perspective. We really need to get away from this idea that
salaries are these paternalistic expressions of fairness. We earn money from
providing value.

If you want people to stay, your options are to give them money, prestige, or
stability.

\- Money includes salary, bonus, commissions and contingent comp, stock
options and perks and even vacation time.

\- Prestige is conferences, publications, exposure to high profile brand
clients and stakeholders, airline points hotel and travel rewards, charity
sponsorship and matching, committee memberships, media and public facing
representation, and leadership options.

\- Stability includes things like investing in training, giving them
headcount, bringing them into the strategic fold, partnerships, responsibility
for key client or stakeholder relationships, etc.

Evaluate your total comp using the triad of Money, Stability, Prestige.
Chances are you are weighted toward one, and there is a role out there with a
different balance. I think HR salary bands are a wishfull opposite of market
rates, and personally I think they're stupid for any company that is still
growing and not just optimizing an established long term revenue stream. If
you are a bank or institution, sure, but your entire business is an
optimization problem not a growth problem. If there is any upside volatility
in your revenue and you are making something new that people want, pay for
value, because I'd argue you can't afford not to.

I've watched companies lose key engineers that delayed major product releases
over a $10-20k salary bump while flying their marginalized director of special
projects around in business class, and my conclusion is that compensation is
arbitrary and a negotiations power game. Don't spend too much time reasoning
about it.

The companies that retain people are the ones who figure out the Stability and
Prestige elements of the triad.

------
neilwilson
In Herzberg's theory, Money is merely a hygiene factor, not a motivating
factor.

Generally by the time engineers start thinking about money you've already lost
them.

My rule of thumb has always been that when I start thinking "I'm not getting
paid enough to put up with this", it's time to move on whatever happens.

~~~
losten
I am a big fan of Herzberg's dual factor theory. I find it much more practical
and actionable than the ubiqitous Maslow's hierarchy.

In one of my previous jobs, I asked people in my team to make a survey to
identify their motivational and hygienic factors. The surprising result for me
was how much variation there was among different people. (e. g. for somebody
salary was a motivational factor, for anybody hygienic one). Anyway,
understanding these factors for individual team members made me much more
effective manager.

------
pascalxus
I've worked for about 7 different companies over 15 years and at each of those
places I've seen a ton of engineers come and go. Most of the time, the reason
they leave is one of three things: got fired, got laid off, or was pushed out.
So, if you want your engineers to stick around, you gotta find out why so many
of them are being laid off or pushed out and prevent that from happening.
That's where you'll get the most bang for your buck.

Engineers don't just leave for no reason. They leave because they're either
forced out or there's something that really sucks about the company: most of
the time it's the work life balance that really sucks.

------
Invictus0
The trick to retaining engineers, besides paying them fairly, is to hire good
managers that understand engineering. A huge component of workplace
satisfaction can be traced back to how much an employee likes their boss.

------
mylons
For whatever reason this is making me think about the narrative from a lot of
VC’s, Paul Graham, Tyler Cowen, and many more that remote work will
commoditize software engineering and destroy wages there.

And articles like this make me think about institutional knowledge and how
there are no standards what so ever in software, and so long as new
frameworks, languages, and not invented here syndrome persist there will
always be a need to keep your engineering staff around.

/end ramble thoughts

------
sys_64738
Needs V Wants.

I need shelter but it only costs so much to full-fill need. Then if I'm get
paid sufficient salary to cover all my needs then wants decides the utility of
the next marginal dollar. If the value doesn't align with my want then I don't
care. As you get older you realize your time is finite and you want to enjoy
what you do if you have the opportunity to make such a decision.

So if a job pays 20% more but requires more overtime or more stress then I'll
pass.

------
centimeter
> When it comes to engineers, the key to employee retention isn't just about
> pay.

Maybe I’m atypical, but at a certain point all the other factors just don’t
cut it. If you’re trying to pay me $400k/yr total comp and I can get $600k/yr
elsewhere, the disparities in culture or whatever have to be pretty
significant to dominate.

~~~
ghaff
At those levels, you're probably talking about at least some stock-based comp
and that's harder to factor in.

But that aside, a lot of people would care less about the delta between $400K
and $600K than the delta between $50K and $75K.

~~~
iabacu
400K to 600K is still qualitatively significant.

For example, it can mean whether your spouse has the option to stay home to
spend more quality time with the children, without having to sacrifice
expenses due to income reduction; or it can mean how well (or not) you can
take care of aging parents.

~~~
ghaff
Of course. And I don't mean to imply it isn't. $200K is a lot of money to most
people and may be enough to make a significant lifestyle choice that wouldn't
otherwise be possible.

But _in general_ percentage salary increments affect lifestyle more at the low
end than they do at the high end. (And, of course, the absolute differences
matter _far_ more at the low end.

------
leonardteo
Honestly I have given up trying to “keep” engineers because it’s a losing
battle. It’s impossible to compete with big tech. From the offers I’ve seen,
if FAANG/Big Tech really wants one of your team members, they will get them
and there is nothing you can do.

My employees stay because they want to. They enjoy the work, domain,
colleagues. The salary is competitive and fair. They can thrive in this
environment.

But I am under no illusions about creating some special environment that can
prevent them from getting poached. You can throw cash, stocks, options all you
want but if Big Tech wants them, they will outbid you.

Just assume that at any moment they can and will get poached and ensure that
the business can continue if people leave. Keep the stack simple, stick to
standards, minimize NIH etc.

~~~
jlokier
> From the offers I’ve seen, if FAANG/Big Tech really wants one of your team
> members, they will get them and there is nothing you can do.

True, but your team members aren't getting any offers from FAANG/Big Tech
unless the team members put in some effort. At least, they have to do a series
of interviews.

FAANG positions are notoriously coveted, at least here on HN, and most people
have to work hard, including preparation, to get into them.

So the question comes, what does it take to make your engineers comfortable
enough they don't think it's worth going through the process to get those
other offers.

------
mishftw
Pay is not everything. But it also depends on the engineer as well. I've taken
pay cuts to work on interesting and engaging work in the past. But then again
my lifestyle is pretty simple and minimalistic and for me the trade-off was
worth it.

------
chapium
When I worked somewhere 100% for the money, my motivation declined and I ended
up in such a rut I was one of the worst performers on the team.

Compensation is important but if they are golden handcuffs, your organization
(and employee) will suffer.

------
TheRealPomax
Enough to take the issue of money off the table, given how much life costs
wherever they live. And not by applying a "rent index" or "cost of living"
factor to whatever people get paid in SF.

------
tidenly
My job gives me no bonus or raise after a year and a half, despite obvious
vast increases in my responsibilities and the assumption of another engineer
who lefts' tasks too.. I just don't know how to approach asking because I hate
confrontation and those kinds of situations. I basically always change jobs
because of this reason - I'm just avoiding a conversation I don't want to have
and the raise is bigger by quitting haha

~~~
edmundsauto
If you'd like some unsolicited advice - the job hunt is tricky, because you
should be optimizing for the best outcome for yourself. However, if you think
of it as materializing your leverage -- just go out and get an offer that is
better than what you have. Use that to approach your boss, it won't be a
confrontation if you approach it with "I like it here, but it's clear that I'm
underpaid. Can you help me find a way where it makes sense for me to stay?"

------
thanatropism
An interesting question is whether paying enough (imagining an unlimited
budget) won't end up selecting for coders who care more about the money than
the work.

A further question is whether these coders are actually better for the org --
the Henry Ford efficiency wage-type incentive may keep them at consistent pace
and quality, whereas rockstars with physics PhD may have parallel agendas to
make the project more fun to work with.

~~~
Kinrany
Consistent quality requires accurate measurement. If you can't accurately
measure quality and there's only external motivation, you get Goodhart's law.

~~~
thanatropism
But Goodhart's law applies to anything that's measured at all (it originates
from the world monetary policy), even if it can be measured vey accurately.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

OTOH maybe quality exists as a qualitative concept but can't be measured --
then you just do pass/fail (like colleges have dropped letter-grades during
the Zoomdemic).

What I'm saying is that "shallower" coders, who are motivated by the extra
pay, may be more willing to align their concept of quality with the interests
of the organization, while self-motivated coders will have their idiosyncratic
or fashionable ideas.

When shopping around for a team to make a web app for my startup -- no
technical requirements, we were feeling the market for price first -- we got a
$$$ proposal for using PHP and Laravel, and a $ proposal for using AngularJS.
I regret that decision; it cost us at least a year of time-to-market.

The original team quit (they worked for a trusted friend of our "business
cofounder") because they weren't really experienced in web dev and their
opportunity cost was off the roof - they were crack coders that did all kinds
of different projects. Then we decided to hire someone (with good references)
as a consultant and manage him ourselves. Dude was apparently capable but
couldn't be screamed into using off-the-shelf components rather than rewriting
and refactoring constantly. He eventually flaked on us, got too many projects
and we weren't fun anymore I guess. Finally we found a small company online.
By all appearances the new team hates being around computers but can be
managed by Trello and feature branches. Web dev is a bore, but it's a living,
and not everyone manages to make a living out of their surfing passion.

~~~
Kinrany
Goodhart's law doesn't apply when your measurement is perfectly aligned with
your goal.

------
mrnook
If you pay me a lot but my job makes me miserable, I'll just use that salary
as leverage to negotiate a high salary at a company I want to work for.

------
enriquto
I hope sooner than later there will be some kind of union of engineers and
salaries will be public and standarized (and the median value of the salary
for each position will be higher than today, due to the power of collective
bargaining). It is shameful that some senior software engineers earn so much
less than others, due to out-of-band reasons.

------
j45
Money alone doesn't keep many problem solvers around.

Problem solving is as important as the compensation.

A great environment to solve problems, and to be able to work with other
smart, conscientious people, while pursuing new levels of mastery is a really
good sell.

People who are driven solely, or primarily by money can't be paid enough and
will on that mindset, tend to move on.

------
flerchin
You should pay them market rates to replace them (ie, much higher than you
currently are). Yes, you should also foster their need for growth and
learning, but that's because it's an investment in their productivity.

Investing in engineer's productivity, and paying them what they're worth,
turns out that's all it takes.

------
KoftaBob
This question would be much easier to answer if salary transparency from
employers was the norm, or even required.

If every job listing on Indeed had a salary/compensation range, it would be
very straightforward to see what the going rate is for that particular
skillset, and it would push employers to be competitive on salary.

------
C1sc0cat
Ah a management consultant producing arguments for lower pay for Hr/Accounting
to justify cost cutting.

I am Shocked Shocked I tell you, can you smell gas :-)

Whilst pay isn't every thing people do tend to lie when asked about what
important to them - the same way you slowdown when the time and motion team
are monitoring you

------
_zachs
My experience is very anecdotal, but there's a point where the pay/stock
options are definitely enough to keep people around. I have a few friends in
this exact position now, where the golden handcuffs are too sweet for them to
walk.

------
droobles
At my company, I think engineers are more concerned with feeling comfortable
and having the flexibility to take care of the demands of their lives and
families over high pay.

Midwest company so YMMV.

------
the_arun
* functional requirements - great pay

* non-functional requirements - great culture.

"great" \- is a variable here. People define it to their own understanding and
advantage.

------
phtevus
If the matter of pay is the only thing keeping the engineers there, this feels
more like a problem with the business model or company culture.

------
gdsdfe
Well let's flip it around : you! yes you reading this, why are you staying in
your current position ?

~~~
sk0g
Pay is probably pretty good (especially if current rise materialises) for my
level of experience, and I have lots of autonomy in how I do things, as I'm
the main technical decision maker on non-frontend tasks.

I'm also doing uni part time, and taking half a day off every week is a tough
proposition for employees. Despite the chaos, I do like the work I do, and as
it's a Greenfield project, I want to see it reach some level of exposure to
core clients before I can consider it a job well done.

What about you?

------
danbmil99
Pay them with the experience of building a product somebody wants to use

------
snicker7
tl;dr: Engineers prefer a "positive" work environment over competitive
salaries.

Couldn't disagree more. Pay me.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I agree... and I don't. I work primarily for money, but not totally.

My job probably doesn't pay me absolutely the maximum that I could make
anywhere. If the work environment turns sour, I can hopefully make an
approximately lateral move - not significantly more or less money, but a
better environment.

I once worked for a medical device manufacturer. We failed an FDA audit. As a
result, our procedures became much more stringent, and life turned into a huge
amount of paperwork. I couldn't take it. It didn't take a raise to get me out
of there.

~~~
Aperocky
The problem with a stressful job is that part of that stress invariably become
intertwined with the prospect of losing the said job, hence an expected loss
of salary. This means that even if you primarily work for money you'd have
priced in the positive environment.

Anecdotally, the place where people are uncertain of their future are highly
stressful, even when the work is not heavy.

------
kemitchell
Ask them.

------
ebgraham
Our industry's asinine interview practices keep people from job seeking and
getting their fair value. The sooner engineers refuse to give leetcode
interviews, the sooner we'll see a natural bump in average engineering salary,
and we'll have more power in the job market to demand better working
conditions.

