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Comment by porpoisemonkey | Hacker News Reader

> 1. Don't work your ass off.

> Especially, don't work your ass off expecting to be rewarded. It never happens.

I think this might be an over-generalization and that this is might only hold true for people who are farther along in their careers. I'm currently in year six of mine and I've been given a lot of great projects and early promotions (with subsequent pay jumps) from having been in the minority of people on a team that is working their ass off. These returns have, however, diminished with time.

If I had to hazard a guess I think this is probably because a more junior engineer working their ass off can show quick and obvious improvements to the quality of your work and time management skills, which start off as near excrement and iterate to "ok" over time.

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I bet you would get wayyyy faster and higher promotions by leaving the company rather than staying.

The world is full of people waiting, hopefully, for their 10% yearly raise, repeated over many years. They'll only realize after 5 years that they could have done the same progression by changing company after 2 years.

>>> If I had to hazard a guess I think this is probably because a more junior engineer working their ass off can show quick and obvious improvements to the quality of your work and time management skills, which start off as near excrement and iterate to "ok" over time.

Lemme tell you how it usually goes. The people at your company around you probably:

1) wont notice your improvements (determining good is hard and they ll forever remember you as the junior who just joined)

2) have zero management support (depends on politics

3) have the organization turned against you (typical raise blocked at X% per year top and only once a year).

If one wants to get his progression noticed, one should go interview at other places and tell his achievements in front of interviewers who wants to listen to just that ;)

An early stage career is handled by moving early and often, to the next opportunities: https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

My experience has been that it all comes down to who you're working for - some people make good on promises of a reward, most people do not.

Importantly also - nearly all people will not offer a substantial reward unprompted. If you want something for working your ass of, you need to explicitly demand it, in specific terms (ex., don't ask for "a bonus", get a firm number).

A great many managers (arguably, most managers) are in the habit of making promises for rewards that they are either unable or unwilling to keep. My suggestion for people is to figure out which kind of people you're dealing with early on in a job - observe carefully how casually they promise things, and how frequently they live up to these promises. Calibrate your expectations accordingly.

> Importantly also - nearly all people will not offer a substantial reward unprompted. If you want something for working your ass of, you need to explicitly demand it, in specific terms (ex., don't ask for "a bonus", get a firm number).

This is a really good point.

This may be controversial to say but I suspect that this sort of assertive and open negotiation for future reward is part of the reason for the gender pay gap in software. For better or worse, I find that in most cases my male colleagues tend to layout more detailed expectations for compensation in advance of any salary renegotiation (promotion, raise, bonus, etc.) and to make themselves heard when they're not satisfied.

In the interest of full disclosure I am male so it could also just be that I am inexperienced with other biases relating to gender.

Where is Elon Musk and A P J Abdul Kalam?

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