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Comment by spicybright | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely feel bad for talented people that get suckered into deals like this. Obviously some do if recruiters try and do this.

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I think talented people will not take it unless they're between a rock and a hard place. Sadly what this does is it attracts only the most junior or unqualified hires who (are great if you got time/budget but if not) will need to be trained by the few seniors left holding the place together.

I'm not surprised Intel does this and the telecommunications side I have seen from them in Europe was rotten to the core. I have several anecdotes here just one: A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job with great pay in a key role a lot of niche knowledge, they had to know how valuable he was, after the first week on the new job with Intel he got told that the department decided to reduce the headcount due to a restructuring and so he was the first to go.

If it sounds like "business as usual" let me add nobody else was fired, he had a 3 month long negotiation, 6 months notice period on the old job, 3 kids, and in his late 40ies in a specific market. What he was promised would have justified taking the risk. Later I heard they do this all the time from a guy who recruits for Intel. Also this was not in the enterprise market with lot of talent but telecommunications O&M (operations and maintenance plane). He eventually went to go beg to get his job back. He'll never have the same standing in the company tho.

It's not uncommon for those types of problems to be contract law violations. "Reliance" is a thing, random url: https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1778

I don't understand:

> A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job

> after the first week on the new job with Intel ... he was the first to go.

He got poached from Intel or should it be by Intel? Since his new job apparently was at Intel

> Later I heard they do this all the time

Why do they do that? Sounds like a waste of time for the recruiters (and him but apparently they don't care about that)

thanks yes should be by Intel.

Yeah, don't understand the story. He got poached from intel, or by intel? Where was he let go from? You need to.. maybe edit the story a bit.

It was by Intel, see this reply:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25872393

Being slightly underpaid is a great lifehack, but only if your bosses know it. Less stress, more work/life balance. Let people work themselves to the bone for 30% more money. That isn't for me.

This. Calculate your pay per hour of actual work. Include the hassle and costs require to recharge. Maximize total pay or pay per hour. Rarely are they the same.

Really?

If nothing else, making 30% more and saving it would allow you to retire 30 percent earlier. Is half assed slacking for 10+ extra years really that good a proposition when instead you can actually crush it now and then be fully free?

Also, to be honest I've never seen the "he's underpaid so we expect less" dynamic in management. What I see much more often is "this guy is bad, not quite so bad that we can fire him but almost. We can't justify raising his comp so let's give him shit work that others would rather not do." Maybe your situation is as you say but seems odd.

You'd be right if we aged like Benjamin Button.

But you're glossing over the downsides of trading your youth away for a hopeful payoff at a later date. Not all of us like that bargain.

I make a fraction of what people in this thread are saying they make. But what price do you put on being 30 and single on a beach in Mexico, happy, with a low stress job? You could look at it as if I paid half my salary to buy back my time.

We all value things differently, but notice that it's your youngest self that's most eager to bargain your youth away.

Money in the bank is a great lifehack. Money in the bank is the greatest stress reliever in our society. The ability to say "this ain't for me" and walk away free of consequences. And knowing that no matter what happens next your expenses are still covered is the best hack.

This is accurate, only if you're say underpaid by 20-30%. In my experience, a lot of high stress jobs pay way more than that. Otherwise attrition is a problem. Golden handcuffs aint cheap.

Some people don't care so much about the money. I'm barely over the six figure mark in the bay area. I could probably make a lot more money somewhere else, but I wouldn't get to do anything nearly as interesting as my current work.

I don't think is about not caring about the money... it seems to me that the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual, and thus a company that pays 1/3 of the industry average shows very little care for their engineers, at least in my book

The salary is the most tangible and measurable manifestation, but it's not necessarily complete. Companies can make efforts in other ways e.g. ensuring good work-life balance (which could entail hiring more people), providing allowances for mental health, parental care etc... . All these things can become relatively very valuable once the salary crosses a minimum threshold.

> the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual

My experience confirms this. The least paid jobs I had were also the most stressful.

What if I told you that, more often than not, you could do your current work and get much more money? People, especially tech people, are quite awful at extracting their full value.

Fully agree. For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment.

This is completely false.

You get paid more when the company values you more.

The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average.

Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions.

Thanks wikibob, somebody I know really needed to hear that.

> For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment.

> This is completely false.

I wouldn't say it's completely false. For example, I'm guessing many enterprise software developers make more than many CS professors. Said professors are obviously qualified to make CRUD apps but they would rather do research or teach curriculums based on their interests.

> The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average.

Yes, this is true. But your conclusion does not follow from that:

> Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions.

There is probably some correlation between interesting work for the engineer on the one hand and profitable work for the employer on the other, but it's not nearly as strong as you make it seem.

But would you rather work 40 hours per week for €100k or 4 hours a week for €50k?

Game studios pay their developers poorly, precisely because there is a flood of people who find that type of work interesting. I'm doing a "boring" job and I get paid more than a game developer.

You would be wrong. The number of places you can work where your code literally goes to the moon is very, very finite.

I would say I'm in a somewhat similar boat where I believe the work and problems I get to work on are very unexplored and super interesting but the company and industry doesn't "value" software engineers at the moment. Tbh, in a capitalist society, I cannot accept that and am looking for a change. Give me cash or give me stocks in the company, neither and you just take me for a fool. I am sincerely curious what your thoughts are on this, why would you accept a massive paycut to work on something interesting for a company that makes $$ off your work?

Some things can not be easily purchased with money. Getting paid twice as much may let me retire faster. But what if I don't want to retire? What about people, who actually love their jobs?

Intel engineers design chips, used by billions of people. There is a certain value, placed on such jobs. And it appears, that Intel management is happy to exploit that value.

People agree, talented people do not.

Underpaid people aren’t talented? That’s harsh.

It happens temporarily all the time of course such that there are plenty of talented people underpaid at a given time but long term most will not be. I along with friends went through bouts of shitty jobs, but it is rare to stay that way. Hiring from the pool of low rate workers is not a suitable standard practice at a place that isn’t a shithole.. as we see here with Intel.

People get paid what they ask for. No one is underpaid or overpaid.

Simply ask for more in salary and benefits. When they ask why, state all the reasons why the increase is warranted. If they deny the request, look for another job that pays the higher amount.

This I can get behind (note this has nothing to do with talent).

You're assuming that markets are perfect.

The markets are never perfect. That's why you have to ask for what you want.

A lot of people do not understand their worth and let get hired/exploited for peanuts.

When I was hired for my absolute first job, over two decades ago, I was asked how much I want. I did not know how much I can ask so I asked some minimum that I thought would pay for my expenses. The guy who interviewed me, who was to be my manager, said he shouldn't be telling this but I can ask twice as much.

Yes, your first job. Not your second. You need to be deeply unpleasant to work with for no one to tell you you've been exploited when you leave.

He probably told you that because that was the minimum salary range for that position.

Then that underpaid employee gets easily poached for x3 their pay a year in, when they have all the valuable knowledge and work responsibilities.

Sounds like what happened at Intel, from the top comments.

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