I've never seen bonuses lead to poor work environments. Can you elaborate on some of your experiences?
An external recruiter talks to an engineer who graduated uni last year and has been a one-man show at a nonprofit. The engineer is looking for a place with mentorship and code review. Recruiter says he can get $120k total comp.
He goes to the company and tells them about a dev whom he’s known for years that a brilliant senior-level engineer who’s led the technical team of a nonprofit startup accelerator. Company interviews the engineer. Gives him an offer for $95k.
Recruiter negotiates for $25k of bonus opportunity and the contract is signed. Engineer joins and spends his first month trying to figure out what team he should be on. He bounces around a few different projects with a mix of success, package management bugs, and utter confusion. Gets some of the bonus. After a year, he learns of how the recruiter sold him in the final conversation with HR.