Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

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This this this. "Exceeds expectations" gets you the B+ treatment, at best. Meanwhile, slacking off and doing the bare minimum gets you a C rating. Every year that I bust my ass with proven results, there's always some excuse in store for me and "well maybe things will be better next year," and the same customary 2-5% raise as last year.

Eventually I got bored, stopped trying, and still walked out of reviews with average or above-average marks and same pay bump. This is after getting talks from my manager about upping my game and narrowly avoiding a PIP.

If an employer wants me to bust my ass for them they need to make it worthwhile. If my work unlocks significant value (verifiable 6 or more figures) for the company then I expect more than a token amount of that to be sent my way.

SWE pay may be high but they use that as a cudgel to keep you from claiming value proportional to your contributions, and don't even get me started on the trap that is equity compensation

This career really feels like interviewing skills are the real skill and everything else is just a mandatory socially enforced cooldown period.

bingo

It helps to perform well enough to get influence as to what you get to work on, as that ends up on your resume.

As an industry we have favored marketing of software over the quality of software. Promotion has been tied directly to that choice (expressed as "productivity" and "delivery") and then the people promoted by that system make hiring choice. It would be unexpected if the emergent outcome was not as you have described it.

Not as an industry, as a society! In "free market" liberalism, selfishness manifests as self-promotion, because money and success is tied to others perceiving how good job we are doing. In other words, the (supposedly objective) free market metric of selling service to others becomes a target and is being manipulated.

Last year (or financial year ends in summer) there were basically four numbers.

The minimum amount a promotion was worth. The impact on the base salary (and the slight impact on the bonus) if you were considered important talent.

The impact on the bonus (and only slight impact on the base salary) if you had outstanding contributions last year.

The overall base increase for everybody based on seniority (higher for more junior positions).

The latter more or less covered inflation. The others improved on that (sometimes by quite a margin).

I can see why outstanding contributions won't make a big dent in salary, but they absolutely have to make a huge difference in bonus. If I have an outstanding year my bonus should be at least an integer multiple of a more normal year.

SWE work can be super impactful depending on what you're working on (especially in startups), why can't we share in more of the glory? In some companies, if you run the numbers and divide that result by the total number of hands that have touched the project you can STILL come up with net revenue or even profit that is 100x+ what you're being paid. And not seeing more than a token piece of that is just wrong.

If I knew that performance could net me 2x or more of my salary, you can bet I'd be a lot more motivated to work hard.

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