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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

I've seen some friends some do this. The time it took to go through, the size of the raise and the headache involved in convincing everybody (like pulling teeth), still, IME, essentially made it a losing proposition for them compared to just hopping jobs.

Still others have thrown out raises without being pushed but they were critical organizational lynchpins getting 10% raises when the market would bump them 50% minimum. That's even worse.

Fundamentally, I think the surplus value from these tech workers who hate interviewing and get "stuck" with cost of inflation raises are often a lot more profitable than we'd give them credit for, and a lot of companies are happy to risk losing a high performer if it meant keeping 3 profitable grumbling malcontents on lower pay.

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> IME, essentially made it a losing proposition for them compared to just hopping jobs.

I think it's weird how hard it is to convince your colleagues and your management that you're worth 50% more than you were yesterday by continuing to work, yet how easy it is to convince the same people of the same thing by quitting.

I also think most companies realize how disadvantaged they are in salary negotiations in this job market, but it's favored employers for so long that very few of them have any idea what to do about it.

I think it's partly that when you ask for a 50% pay raise a year in theyre probably afraid you may tell all your colleagues who are your friends and who know your productivity and then everybody's asking for a pay raise.

Less risk of that happening if you are a fresh face starting out with 50% more. You probably wont share and plus, who knows what kind of hot shot you are?

Plus, your leverage at the point where you decide to take the job or not is at its highest. They'll infer that walking away is much easier for you than it is when you've spent 2 years somewhere and you're settled.

essentially made it a losing proposition for them compared to just hopping jobs.

I've done this as well, but I actually liked my current job and wanted to stay. I had a potentially new job lined up which would have paid much better, but it also had many downsides. Primarily a much long commute and a pretty boring industry that didn't interest me. So I was happy to split the difference between my current salary and the new offer and keep doing the job that I liked.

A friend of mine also at some point disliked his job and convinced everybody to give him better equipment, more responsibility and a significant raise. From what he told it was really justified since they lagged behind tech-wise and then he stayed 1 or 2 years more. But it seemed they've put so much pressure on him that he needed a 1 year break from everything afterwards.

These tech workers who hate interviewing and get "stuck" with cost of inflation raises

This is why you should keep your Leetcode chops up as well as your whiteboarding and interview skills. Don't let hating interviews stop you from fielding another offer.

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