Spending more on retaining developers reduces the cost of hiring developers
blog.devgenius.io
blog.devgenius.io
I’ve been writing about this topic for months, including publishing how much companies in 2021 did one-off adjustments as discussed on HN [1] (a list of about 50 companies, between 5-30% as one-off increases outside annual raises) and suggesting to those in charge of budgets to do one-off adjustments ASAP to retain their engineers.
Although many CTOs and VPEs read and understood the rationale, the majority could not get meaningful budget increases. The reason? Their non-technical CEO and CFO.
This very hot market is only the case for tech and the rest of the business struggles to understand why tech should be any exception at annual budgeting.
I see it as the typical story of execs assuming tech leaders are crying wolf when there is no wolf. By the time the wolf takes away most the sheep, it’s too late.
The only exceptions I’ve seen are:
1. Companies seeing attrition impossible to ignore. In May 2021 a company in the UK announced no pay raises till Apr 2022 answering an all-hands question. 25% of senior engineers left the next 3 months, and the company did an emergency 15% raise across engineering in November.
2. Companies that collect, and act on market data. This is mostly Big Tech. It’s why Amazon has been decisive in increasing base salaries, and why Meta increased RSU refreshers by ~20-25% this year. They know the market better than any salary benchmarking company does (which companies’ data is outdated).
I still get messages of engineering managers asking how they can make their leadership understand their dire situation. I tell them that unless their company is in the #2 category, the only way is to put them in #1, and suggest these engineering managers lead by example in securing much higher offers, leaving, and after enough people leave, non-technical leadership might eventually act.
I'm not sure if you're suggesting interviewing and then using the offer to go to your boss and ask for a raise, or if you're suggesting actually changing job, but at a company that really doesn't understand the value of retaining staff going to your boss with an offer that's 30% more than you're on now is going to mean you end up changing job. Few companies are willing to match that sort of increase. They'll let you go and try to find a replacement.
This is the danger of using an offer to try to force your boss to give you a raise - a lot of bosses don't really understand the value you bring, so they'll say no.
That's not a particularly big loss - you still get a 30% raise by changing role, but if you really like your job you should be aware of the risk.
I get your last line, I really do. But what I and many others have found by going through this COL raise cycle several times is that leaving for a role that offers 30%+ total comp isn't much of a risk. Think of what that offer signals. It's not just money. Does anyone really think that a company willing to make an offer like that is going to be a worse place to work at compared with your previous company in terms of non-salary perks, benefits, and quality of projects?
Sometimes, the salary gap is literally there because the work is that much less interesting, and whether it’s attractive or not depends on your values.
i think of it like free agency in sports -- unsuccessful teams, teams in small/undesirable markets, and teams with unliked coaching/management will have to pay a premium to attract talent. why go to detroit, a basement dweller team with a coach who is universally reviled when you can go to los angeles and be on a winning team with a respected front office for a modest pay cut?
If you show it to your boss, it means you intend to leave if he does not match it or offer some other perks. It's not forcing anything, it's negotiating.
How successful is this "negotiation" typically? I've not heard great things about taking counteroffers.
I've seen these discussions a million times, and this is nearly always brought up in a 2nd/3rd hand way. I'm not criticizing you. But I think this is a big hole in our collective knowledge about effective strategy. e.g., how much truth is behind the meme?
I suspect it varies a lot based on individual factors both in the eng and the manger and the company. And I think you're more likely to just not get a counter offer, than to get one and things turn sour.
Are these "not great things" first-hand accounts?
I've done it and it was great. I've had colleagues who've done it with success. And I've hand manager who recommend it when I wasn't happy with my increase.
I feel like this kind of attitude is really damaging to peoples' careers and holds back wages. I have a friend who adores their job but refuses to accept a counter offer because they are afraid of being fired.
Nope, second hand accounts, mostly on slacks where I don't know the people talking. This is really useful to me, and I appreciate you sharing your first (and second) hand accounts.
If I am at the point where I am interviewing for a new position I am gone. There is no counter offer, no proposal to match, nothing like that. If they try to match I view that as an insult because before even looking for a new position I would have came to my boss several times expression displeasure with the current level of compensation, if they only respect me enough to pay me what I am worth after I threaten to leave then it is not a place I want to work at anyway
I think it may be healthier to see it as a game of sorts. Everyone knows the dance. No one really gets upsets ( and if they do, it is either for show or they just didn't see enough yet ).
My buddy from another group just left ( following a mass exodus from that team ). The company begrudgingly offered a match only to discover that the other company offered even more as a result and refused to match it again. The absolute additional match amount at that point was maybe $5k -- small amount given what they are now forced to spend on recruiting, training and so on, but they opted to not do it despite managers' protestations.
It is not a small company. They just posted near record profits. Executives just don't get the current market. Or they don't want to.
I am not sure why "playing games" would ever be viewed as the "healthier option"
healthier to what exactly, if you have to "play games" then it seems that would be very definition of unhealthily.
I am always up front and honest with my leadership, I dont "play games", they know exactly what my target salary is for 1, 3 and 5year pictures, what my target responsibilities are, what I will not do, etc. If they can meet them great, if not it is on me to seek out an employer that can.
in the reverse I want my leadership to direct and honest with me on what I need to do to improve, or what comprises I need to make to get my target, sometime that is some kind of educational plan, or taking on responsibilities I may not exactly want, or some other factor.
I do not want to treat my employment nor my income as "a game of sorts"
Things are what they are. I am not going to quit just to send a message regardless of how briefly satisfying it may feel. Even 'being honest' is a carefully calculated stance ( and I have employed it as well ) that is intended to show that when you say you don't bluff, people should listen.
Much better to just wish them luck at their new job, even if the replacement hire will be more expensive than giving in to the ultimatum (not excluding employees from wage market developments before they are tempted to try ultimatums might be even better)
If I go through the trouble to share an offer with a willingness to stay, how exactly is that an ultimatum? Seems there is no avenue for an employee to try and stay except silently turn down offer and eat lower pay?
This is an oft-repeated trope, but it has little basis in reality.
Engineering managers have trouble convincing their managers / HR to provide market raises, because most of them are stuck in their own little bubble where the current salaries are "market value." They buy salary information from companies who tell them what they want to hear, that the company's below market salaries are inline with the market.
Wanna prove HR wrong? The only way to do that is to walk in with an offer letter. At that point, HR will look at the reliable salary reports and determine if that's viable.
You aren't getting fired by negotiating for a market raise via offer letter. Also, good luck finding a replacement for less anyway.
This is not correct. Digital marketing skills are in super high demand over the last 18+ months and salaries have risen accordingly. I suspect this is true of other areas as well.
That is very much a regional thing, as most employment is. In my area most companies are having trouble filling less skilled position than they are filling skilled positions like IT. Granted filling skilled positions here has always been hard as there is not a huge talent pool in the first place, but I would not classify the market as any "hotter" or "colder" than a few years ago for tech workers.
However for production line workers, warehouse, and other non-skilled trades it is very hot.
As more and more companies start to Rescind their WFH rules I figure things are about to return to normal in that regard as well
I've had to knowingly let attrition happen to prove a point.
If you can't change your company, change your company I guess.
And what company prepared a budget during the first summer of Covid and expects it to still be viable today?
Its everything from how IT is still often viewed as a “them-and-us” resource drain similar to HR but less understood (and this less valued by the organisation) even though 95% of the people in every organisation now works with IT devices that wouldn’t operate without IT. To how development continues to live in the weird spectrum of the business that actually needs something more than excel, being under digitalisation (efficiency) and IT (operations and development are natural frenemies).
It’s having to live in a 2022 where the “standard” solutions, the “document libraries” the “data-warehousing”, the “data-management-systems”, the “enterprise-architecture”, the “data/ml/bi-architecture “ is still just a bunch of really shitty systems and drawings that can’t connect together and quickly become a nightmare for anyone trying to do any real work leading back to massive excel usage and a constant need for “connection-inhouse-solutions” to make things actually work.
Leading to developers still being one of the best paid resources inside organisations with almost limitless tolerance for their non-conformity and rolling eyes in management meetings because most of us simply don’t understand the organisation lingo or the internal political power plays (yes, the bullshit).
Anyway, I’ve seen no change in change management to suggest that developers are going to be more valued going forward. If anything I think the want and belief in “standard” solutions might just birth the opposite in the coming decade, until the money managers once again realise that developers are simply necessary in a world where every “standard” solution is just as shitty as it was 20 years ago.
Nothing is a "cost" center, everything is some form of value center.
If the value you get for the money you pay is not worth it, then that's fine, but it's not simply a cost.
I think Dan North says it better than I do: https://youtu.be/hZFShSjAhlQ?t=1814
> tolerance for their non-conformity
> non-conformity
It's an occupational hazard: hiring-mangers really do put their jobs on the line when they decide to start employing ASD folk.
And I salute them! (seriously)
But I think the spreadsheets show it's more than worthwhile: when utilized appropriately ASD people can be absolutely massive force-multipliers for a software project. The question is: will the stuffy east-coast elite be able to withstand the blood-pressure spike of learning that their most profitable employees come to the office to work while wearing what's known colloquially as a "kigurumi" instead of a suit-and-tie?
-----
(in case you're wondering, I own dozens - and I make it a sticking point whenever Amazon recruiters call me the three times a week like they do...).
...which at this point shares a kind-of-larger spectrum with ADHD too. We've come a long way from proscribed-comorbidity in the 1990s to routine comorbid diagnosis post-DSM-V.
I think some fast growing tech companies are causing many developers to leave their jobs for better pastures, and that's mostly because some tech companies are performing poorly hence not keeping up with decent salary increases.
Easy to get a job with a salary bump ? My recent attempts took well over 6 weeks each, with 3 to 5 interview rounds, mostly being screened by developers and managers having significant tech skills gaps, making the questioning a painful dissonance exercise.
But sure. The market is hot for developers and compensation are on the rise.
But I do feel like I'm missing out on power-trip fantasies of getting to say "no" to the CEO's face about returning to the office in a Zoom call and grinning while knowing they have zero leverage because I'm the only domain-expert in an incredibly niche field at the company and they'd be unable to replace me - and if they did, I'd be able to walk-in to a higher paying job within a few months besides.
Has anyone on the Internet recorded and shared their "negotiation" Zoom calls? Genuinely curious - not least for the entertainment factor...
doesnt sound like they refuse to show up for work. More like, is choosing to work from home.
software engineering does not need to be done in the office.
Perhaps my view is skewed but that seems like a very standard process at every large company? If they give me a raise after that without me having to negotiate, I’d definitely call that “easy”…
Some companies would hire who they consider the right candidate after the first or second interview. they recognise it won't be of much help to drill a candidate for 5h to 8h and make sure 5 or 6 people in the team all agree on that candidate to be a good fit, that this approach rather lead to hiring the wrong candidates. top performers may very well take another job in between since the process of 5 interviews takes obviously several weeks. Talented engineers may not even want to put down 5 to 10h scattered across 8 weeks for a job they may not even be offered due to a sudden hiring freeze or just being dislikes by that HR interviewed on the final round.
Very standard process at large companies. so what? the article relates to the great resignation. Well this standard process is a contributing to the great resignation in tech. I'm temporarily resigning. until I need to earn a living again. in other words I don't want the job, even at 200k/year job given what they generally expect us to go through prior to getting hired and then on the job.
It's also worth mentioning, you say that you won't follow rules about where you're supposed to work and you think everyone interviewing you is dumber than you. People pick up on that attitude and read it as a red flag. You're going to be doing their code reviews, you're going to be commenting on their designs; if you seem unpleasant in the interviews, they're not going to hire you.
Do be aware that this is a common symptom of burnout. If you're burned out, you're not going to be approaching the job hunt in a great state of mind, and it's going to hurt your chances. My recommendation is to heal on your current employer's time; look at new projects, taking a vacation, options for paid leave, ADA/FMLA allowances, etc.
Such as the scenario of providing feedback on how certain technical choices made by (supposedly technical) managers, in contradiction with senior architects and most senior developers, are going to cost a lot to reverse down the road, then when that's precisely what happens, and being explained the company isn't in a position to increase your salary, that manager gets promoted anyway, and 3 new hires joins in to help reverse the misguided technical direction, but of course new hires have no clue how anything was put together, so end up asking the long timers some help, help that is pretty much doing 80% of work to meet deadlines, and then of course the newer hires' manager ensures the credit goes to his new reports, so that he can at least give those a rise and retain them. and also control them since they still little exposure to the entire stack.
the bitterness is usually not about the money, it's about how a few bad apples know how to play power games and ultimately ruins all the hard work of long ago gone managers who somehow made meritocracy at the core of the company. Those managers weren't very technical either, but they worked more ethically and shined at their role.
note: this isn't my own anecdotal story. it's a theme I've started seeing more and more in the last 5y or so, plaguing mid size companies the most, those that reached a level of maturity.
I am not available for the project unfortunately.”
Don’t be a chump.
If I appeared unpleasant to them, it isn't because I'm disrespectful or condescending, or even burnout. it's simply because they are red flags and being fortunate enough to be hired would probably turn out to become a curse.
I however appreciate your advice about being burned out. and that is precisely what I'm doing. I started new projects, mostly artistic, and also a bit of coding to stay up to speed with that kind of mental activity. I think doing that for a few months to heal is desirable to get ready to join a new environment. thank you.
Ironically, because the market is so hot for houses these days in the Boston area (and many others, I’m sure), there are many house sales with limited visits and waived inspections.
Thought you might enjoy this TikTok on the same topic: https://www.tiktok.com/@loewhaley/video/7061684115573067014?...
Almost sounds like they _want_ you to leave.
In the on-premise world, this would require all sorts of calculations outside the immediate considerations of the job itself - the commute, the parking, the new office amenities vs old office amenities, the degree with which you 'click' with colleagues - all of this is reduced or eliminated in the world of remote work. You will be sitting at the same (home) desk, at the same set up, probably using the same tech environment.
It will make switching easier, cos it means less.
This is less obvious in traditional entities, where they may care more about yearly checks and balances than long term consequences, but it eventually hits them still.
Not saying that there isn’t great and cheaper talent out there, but they aren’t usually fond of these big meat machines that are IT consulting companies.
The hard truth, is that most companies are like consumers that go routinely buy stuff from 1 euro shops.
Here in Spain I know a handful of devs working remotely for american companies. It's true none of them get +100k but they are about 70-80k and say it's pretty pleasant experience, so I guess they also have the typical EU holidays package + some other niceties.
So I guess that while they're cheaper for those american companies, it's not everything about cost, otherwise they could go somewhere else and pay 20k. It has to be, because AFAIK for american companies the attitude towards work here in europe is prety alien.
Every time an american company has tried to set up in Europe and manage their operations as in america it has failed.
The Portuguese company acts as gateway and code review (aka fixes) the deliveries, while ensures that the costs remain low.
The actual owning company then regularly threatens the Portugue one to fully move into offshore if they cannot keep up.
Actual scenario, I will refrain from naming which ones.
We're just embedded into normal US teams and communicate directly with American engineers, managers etc. Everyone works remote. Only difference is that I work 11-19 and turn off Slack at 21.
That scenario is a time bomb, and if the americans are the ones putting the money in the table they'll get bitten by it.
Anyway, nowadays with services like remote.com or similar ones, you can hire and manage your own talent without the outsourcing company overhead (not affiliated with then).
There are even companies that hire externals based on ticket budgets, e.g. "we have budget this quarter for 10 tickets, hire externals to handle them".
The world of companies whose main selling product isn't software is quite interesting in this regard. Anything related to computing is a cost center that has to be minimised.
We have between 20 and 30 vacation days depending on the country, plus national holidays that can be used to extend it even further on lucky years.
On some European countries unions actually matter, they affect the whole building across a specific industry domain, regardless if the devs think they should belong to one or not.
They'll do this and suffer. I was hired in my previous job specifically to fix a bunch of code coming out of a similar contract organization (I actually had to mostly toss it away). It might save money at first, but the result will be 10x worse at 2/3 the cost of a regular full time developer.
The last 2 contracts I negotiated with US clients went like this: - “My rate is X, good for you?” - “Let’s make it X +20%. What do you think? We want to be sure you’re available and keep work capacity for us.”
Which makes me realize I still have plenty of room to push the number even higher.
People here have fantastic connections and will share your contact around if they had a good experience working with you, or tell you when their friends are looking for some help.
Lot of new companies are looking for help to get started with their project and HN is one of the place where they advertise/create awareness, that makes it a great environment to get in contact with potential clients.
But don’t spam people, only contact when you feel you have a genuine interest for what they do.
Now, I have to do the hard maths of if I want to stick around with my comp being stuck for years, or head to greener pastures after my 1 year vesting cliff.
Let’s say I give you $100,000 in RSU over four years. Now the stock doubled at the end of the first year. Your stock is now worth $200,000
In the other scenarios they offer you $25,000 a year granted each year. You end up with $100,000 over the four years…
Essentially the company is not allowing you to realize the stock price gains on your entire grant.
Not a good deal if the stock price is going up.
There is the traditional 4 year grant on day of hire with a one year cliff and 25% vesting a year.
The second (which I describe above) is rather than granting stock that vests over four years, it’s a single year vest that vests every quarter.
In the second case you get stock over a shorter time frame but since you are getting a specific dollar amount each year but you miss out on the upside of a four year vest.
Example above: If stock is at $10 a share and you get $100,000 over four years you get 10,000 shares over the four years. The stock doubles you have 10,000 shares worth $20 each after 4 years.
In the second case you get $25,000 a year or 2500 shares the first year. Stock doubles. The second year you get $25k or 1250 shares. Year three.. Stock stays at $20 or 1250 shares. Year four stock at $20 or 1250 shares.
Scenario 1: 10,000 shares at $20
Scenario 2: 6125 shares at $20
You’re missing out on the upside. The four year grant is better if the stock goes up.
The yearly grant is better if the stock is going down.
Companies expect the stock to go up.
Just curious how this is misinformation?
Your price and share count gets set when you join the company. They offer you $X worth of shares when you join - say $100k. Price is $100/share then. They then set your grant to be 1,000 shares. That's it. That's it. You get 250 shares/yr or however your team wants to split it up. They DON'T change the amount of shares you get EVER.
You are clearly misinformed. Please stop spreading misinformation! Read an article about it ffs!
I'd like a new job doing full-stack development with some Go involved, but there's very few jobs like that, or their requirements are well beyond my abilities (despite 10+ years of experience in half a dozen languages across half a dozen domains).
I have a comfortable job at the moment; it's nothing exciting, but I earn well enough and I get to work from home (and the company says they'll keep this up, at most they'll go back to two days a week at the office, but they're thinking of moving to a more comfortable / fancy co-working space instead of dedicated office space). This means I get to be picky, and I don't need to accept lowball offers (below what I earn).
I rejected an offer two years ago that was 25% above what I earn now; it was going back into consultancy and I wasn't convinced I actually had the skillsets they needed for what they were offering, their tech interview was a take-home assignment and at most an hour of reviewing it. I didn't feel like I had earned it. While I haven't had an offer like that since, it did set me a benchmark. Unfortunately, nobody's made me an offer like that since.
I’ve always been a little scared when starting a new role for this reason, but you always figure it out - or it’s a bad hire! Only one way to find out.
True, but many many Go jobs are in crypto or k8s-like nonsense. If you care about building something useful and fun then you need to easily skip >80% of jobs.
(no doubt people will comment that crypto and k8s aren't nonsense, but many people do think so: crypto has been widely discussed here already, and k8s maybe perhaps makes sense in a few scenarios, but for most it's just an overcomplicated mess; I've never seen it be employed even remotely smoothly).
Anyhow, I think I'll do something other than Go because of this.
I see that a lot when talking to folks. The salaries are higher, but so are the expectations.
"Feels like" is often be influenced by complexity. It was easy, but you expected it to be hard, so it must be wrong. It could be interpreted as a red flag, or it really could have been that simple. Keep an eye out for things that feel like they should be harder. Once you feel like you grasp the disconnect, ask questions to find out if it is an actual red flag, or, if bias was clouding.
No way to know for certain without making a decision, but the thought work to finding an answer will assist with the long-term confidence of the decision.
Be it because of geography, not having the right experience, or working on techs that don't pay well.
But.
But not if I'm going to hate the new job. Not if the people suck. Not if the company is hopelessly mired in bureaucratic process, not if they can't do continuous improvement and continuous delivery.
I would be looking for good experience with good engineering practices.
I would be looking for "autonomy, mastery, purpose" - look it up.
I would be looking for working for a company that builds something that I think the world is better off having.
In other words, I'm fortunate enough to be at a point where I can think of things besides only "need more money". If I'm in the market for "I can do better" then simply more cash is not the only factor for "better".
I am also not in my 20s anymore where I would be willing to move across the Ocean for more money.
I work at a small company that tried to do build their own Cloud product, but wasn't very successful at promoting it. So now it outstaffing me to one big name company that was previously tried to adopt our solution but now is building they own. Which i quite dissatisfied with as i completely lack any sense of ownership working on it. So i started to look into job market.
So i found cscareerquestionsEU sub on reddit. And literally the first post i saw from a fresh graduate who got offer at Amazon(in Germany) with base more than my base and first year bonus more than mine. On top of that he got RSU. And i have 7YoE, contributed to big projects in K8s eco and gave talks at conferences. Seeing this just destroyed my whole motivation to do anything at my job.
I don't suppose the same situation exists within Google, although I've heard freshly graduated ML hires can get up to $500k, which sounds crazy until you realize China is paying twice as much.
I think you're missing a key point of a lot of the discussion here.
None of us are moving for jobs. We're working from home.
Meanwhile CoL is increasing ever more (gas + housing), doubly so in the cities these employers eagerly move to trying to poach the local happy-go-lucky graduate with pizza fridays and a starting comp so low it makes you wonder if they enjoy living like a student for another 5 years.
At my current company I'm in touch with everything. From setting up servers, developing on every part of the stack, deploying and maintaining applications to working with clients on understanding their needs and business processes and then working out a solution for them. I get to argue about estimates and negotiate. I got to understand how manufacturing, sales, shipping, accounting, calculating employee payrolls and second incomes works. And as a bonus the people I work with are some of the best people I've ever met.
The amount of experience I'm getting here is definitely worth getting payed less.
You definitely see the big picture when you're an internal part of most of it.
I suck at interviewing though (nervous) and in my area of the world I'm quite well paid.
Translating to raw numbers a US developer could effectively get "paid" like $1,000 an hour for doing training. Over your career that snowballs into an order of magnitude more.
Amazing how times change. 15 years ago I left a company after 6 years and they were "really? why? we're just getting started with intresting things, honest."
They weren't.
I can't imagine the cost of a software company not being able to release quality releases because of brain drain. I can't imagine executives being so isolated from the ground that they don't realize this or don't care. US business seems so short sighted today. Perhaps that's necessary to make the quickest buck. I've noticed this trend in mostly larger corporations, so I stay away from them and usually work at smaller, fast growth companies when I can find them.
This made me giggle. Mostly because I recall a very similar experience.
That makes no sense; successful companies will figure this out and unsuccessful companies will lose their talent. For companies that aren’t in tech it’ll probably not matter, but tech companies will have to adapt or die.
Isn't it much more expensive to find my replacement, train them AND pay them the extra percentage points you didn't want to pay me?
If you hire someone, knowing that they'll only stay for 1-2 years, you obviously want them to be as productive as possible for that time period. In traditional engineering firms, you'd probably spend the fist N months on training, and won't get to touch production in a long, long time.
This culture kind of reinforces the "hire fast, fire fast" mantra that tech companies love.
I think there's a rational argument for it. Yes they will lose some talent by not raising wages to the market rate, and maybe they will lose a lot of talent this way. But they will also keep talent cheaply that:
* finds job interviews exhausting
* hates negotiating
* has good relationships with colleagues they don't want to lose
* has a comfortable commute or WFH arrangement they don't want to change
* is proud of becoming an expert / go-to-person in some part of the business and doesn't want to lose that source of social capital
* is proud of product or service they have made a big contribution to and wants to "see it through to the end"
* is generally impresionable and does what management want without too much complaint
Plus, really good developers are taken care of.
I imagine if most technical people don’t see a decent salary bump there will be a mass exodus, which is ironic given the increase seems to be in response to attrition.
If anything the constant growth of real-estate pricing (now driven by low interest rates and inflation fears) should impact developers much more.
CPI increases started way before Russia and the energy price instability - the things energy will immediately reflect in will not be a big % of your income so increases aren't that dramatic. If my heating bill goes up 300% that's still going to be less than 2% of my household monthly income and that's during winter when we keep the heating on the entire time.
For now, yes, if you happen own your own place. If you don't already own it, your rent or planned house purchase will go up as well from the increased demand from the 2.5 million of refugees already here and millions more on the way as the war goes on.
Whatever is left of the EU middle class who aren't real estate owners will be obliterated.
That is, in an effort to solve problem A, you introduce solution B, but solution B only makes A worse than it was.
ME: I got a work proposal from some company
MANAGER: That sounds awful! Don't you like here?
ME: I like the people.
MANAGER: Is there anything that can change your mind?
ME: It actually is.
MANAGER: It's money, isn't it?
ME: Well, yes. Inflation is 10%, I haven't got any raise. MANAGER: How much do you want?
ME: The other company is offering me +25%, so that's the amount.
MANAGER: I will try to speak to the higher ups, but there's already an order from above not to raise wages.
ME: Please do. How much do you think it will take?
MANAGER: speak to me in one week.
Two weeks after.
ME: Hey, did you speak with the higher ups?
MANAGER: Yes, and they said we shouldn't raise your wage.
ME: Ok then, we should talk about my resignation.
MANAGER: But couldn't you still not leave? You don't have a small salary after all.
ME: The prices are crazy, next year there is a prognosed high inflation too, and I have kids to take care of. So, regretfully, I will have to say good bye.
I wasn't the only one who resigned and for three seniors who left, they only found a junior to joined them now. I don't feel sorry for the company, I feel sorry for my former colleagues who have to endure a higher workload, because business people don't care there is a smaller number of people to do the same jobs.
Does your CEO need to invoke inflation to justify his multi-million pay package?
If other companies are offering you +25%, then that's your current market value. You do not have to justify or apologize for it, no more than your CEO apologizes for the far higher pay package required to hire and retain them.
If you in general want to stay, just with a higher compensation, it's good idea to help them rationalize your salary. Especially if your manager will have to argue for you with his boss.
If you simply want a raise and don't care where, indeed that will not benefit you.
If you can point to where you went above and beyond, which improved the company's bottom line by $X, that will never hurt you in salary negotiations. In that sense, being able to justify your raise strengthens your position.
But you don't have to defend yourself against accusations of sinful greed, or justify why you should earn 3x what teachers or nurses earn. You're talking to someone who is paid more than you, not speaking at a college anarchists' debate about fat cat bosses. You don't need any special justification in that sense.
The market for me is $X, you are paying $X*0.5 - that is unsustainable
"The salary and benefits package I'm given is a direct measure of how much I'm valued as an employee. This other company values me 25% higher".
I went to my CTO with a similar conversation and his response was "totally understand, leave it with me" - 6 hours later he had spoken with whoever it was he needed to speak with, and my ~20% raise was formalised. I was not expecting that response and the way it was handled made me even more happy to stay.
The company I work for even improved their benefits in some ways which do not directly affect the salary spend (added unlimited paid leave) to further sweeten the deal for everyone.
At the time I assumed they wouldn't want/be able to match it so I was very regretfully ready to go.
These conversations sometimes go differently to the way you expect!
Make sure to use at least 20 days a year
Take a whole week off per quarter and set that expectation
and the Christmas to New Years time doesnt count so double it in Q4
I don’t consider france a productive environment that has struck a balance for doing business reliably, with a hostile sentiment that permeates down to seemingly everyone and so I don’t really put much stock in their particular labor advances
The only time this works is when the company's in early-days stages, when you'll be severely underpaid in cash and paid in equity instead, that the VCs have added a tolerance for crash-out-time to their spreadsheets.
I've never worked for a company that put "unlimited paid leave" in their job-ads, let alone the actual contract, so I'm curious how those things are spelled out.
Under at-will employment, the company can fire you for any (legal) reason, but if you bunk-off work all the time, but your contract says "unlimited paid leave", what case do they actually have? Has it been tested in court?
However, this presupposes that most (all) employment is at-will, which obviously isn't true, especially globally.
It really does need to come with a top-down culture of taking vacation which a senior former Netflix person told me was the case there. (Though I've also heard it varies by team.) It also isn't great if you want to switch around jobs a lot because you won't get any payout when you leave.
Though you do have issues with people taking vacation even in a more traditional system. In a prior job I took some month long vacations and there were some coworkers who were incredulous that "I could do that."
All holiday is subject to approval here, whether it's under your allowance or not.
In New York, a compliance officer was fired for reporting compliance violations and this former employee challeneged that and lost, and lost on appeal, helping people realize that its a check-the-box job filling a seat.
https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/new-york-...
So, as these will always be at state levels and will remain unresolved for all states within your lifetime, you have to make assumptions for how to achieve and maintain standing in society. Best to just assume its the same everywhere. As this extends to nearly anything regarding employment, there is no reason to elevate "using paid time off" as any higher reason you'll get fired than anything else. If you are intimidated and feel there will be a disruption in your ability to exchange time for food and shelter, then there is no assurance that US employment can offer you.
You have to try to make in-office leverage yourself, and then rely on the assumption that you have it.
I like unlimited PTO because it doesn't "accrue". I don't stay at places long enough to accrue PTO.
having "unlimited leave" where you can't cash it out if you don't use it seems pretty bogus.
It's very disheartening to not be even given the chance to fight for more money for my team.
Be kind to your manager. If you're seriously interviewing around at least drop hints in your 1:1s so your manager can start the ball rolling about your raise internally.
If that happens multiple years in a row, it's not just possible, it's likely.
A manager going to HR with "cost of living increase please" vs "I have a valued member of my team who is dropping hints theyre unhappy about pay" are very different things.
You're presuming all employees are like yourself. Not everybody is motivated by money. I have team members who are well paid, know it, and turn down large increases elsewhere due to the projects they have excite them, etc.
Like, your manager in their mid-30s might value steady employment, a good salary and good benefits, whereas their low-mid 20s report might value fast promotion, salary growth and relocation potential. So if their request to move from London to Seattle got denied, the manager might think it's not a big deal, while for the report it's a complete deal-breaker
Of course, it's your manager's job to make sure you are more comfortable talking to this about them than you are interviewing with strangers, which honestly is not a high bar to clear.
What is stopping my manager from doing a 20% raise today, then replacing me in 3-6 months with a lower cost person? How do you build trust or guarantee a 2-5 year timeline attached to that raise?
I thought I had trust with my manager, but when I converted from contract to FTE (required), they rejected my request for a small raise and tried to lowball me. They eventually settled on the same pay rate, so 2 years with no raise. Only to "adjust" my salary up in year 3 because 2 people quit. I'm still looking at an easy 15% increase and less stress by jumping.
I prefer what my employer offers: 30 days paid holiday plus the ability to sell days back to the company.
That can be very helpful when your pay dates don't line up right due to how different companies handle pay.
That’s the challenge this aims to solve. There’s nothing wrong with either approach, and “shaming people into not taking vacation” works either way.
Plus, there are other benefits to the employer, like not having to pay out banked PTO to employees who leave.
Unless it comes with a mandatory minimum, unlimited PTO is a negative for me.
1) Having a set number of PTO days can also often come with pressure to not take them. When I worked at Morgan Stanley, you got vacation, but taking it made you look bad.
2) Plenty of HR systems support unlimited vacation; ADP and Gusto both do, at a minimum. My company used Gusto, and the acquirer used ADP; both had unlimited.
3) Mandatory minimums are a fantastic idea, and it's something we implemented as well. Agreed there.
Whether PTO usage drops dramatically when unlimited is entirely dependent on how the company treats unlimited vacation; if they encourage it, that isn't true. Also, the flexibility of being able to 'not run out of sick days' and take a longer vacation during the holidays, etc., is something that all of our employees greatly appreciated.
Point is: just like anything else, it can be done poorly, but that's not as a result of it being unlimited.
I'm currently on a TC of £130k and I've been offered roles with a TC of £470k (this is UK remote)
Never seen £470k TC though!
FAANG in London is around £150-300k (for L4-6), very senior could be £500k+ though I suppose
Because no-one else is saying it, I will:
Bitcoin, random cryptos, NFTs, etc, don't count as TC.
I hear that they capture your soul in a banker's box now, but in the 1990s it used to be a 3-ring binder, is that still true?
…no?
Look, anyone who admits they’re working for fintech is fair-game for punch-upwards jokes, regardless of their total-comp. I’d be cracking jokes about their soulessness even if they said they were working for a minimum-wage job in the sector.
It’s only slightly less disgusting than admitting you work for the Trump Organisation or Scientology.
Arbitrarily and hypocritically. This is the internet, after all.
> minimum-wage job in the sector
I don't think that means what you think it means.
I'd love to take a few cracks at you! Nothing better than a good insult.
> punch-upwards jokes
> It’s only slightly less disgusting than admitting you work for the Trump Organisation or Scientology
Ah, damn, sorry. I understand your situation now. I won't make any jokes as that would be punching down. Morally, I simply can't.
Ironically I’d count crypto towards TC more than what you actually see more often which is counting ISO or private RSU as TC. Mostly since I think there is much more risk they will never be liquid. And even if they go liquid they are tough to evaluate exact dollar value unlike something being actively traded. For example many private companies got valuations before bear market that would be worth a lot less if actively traded but doubt the recruiters at those companies admit that.
With RPI at 7%, this is actually fairly understandable, it's essentially no raise in real terms.
UK market is extremely hot right now.
No-one can promise future-growth: if they don't offer an immediate equity grant in lieu of cash then just walk.
MANAGER: your salary was just raised by 25%.
SWE: wait, why?
MANAGER: that's the new market salary for you.
SWE: ok...
Why is offering even a small raise so unpalatable?
As a manager it's your job to wheel and deal within that constraint. Eg turn a vacant role into a less senior position to free up budget for keeping a valued team member.
Instead of telling your employees "no" you can tell them "ask again in 6 months" because of the "budget process" or "headcount approval" or "appraisal process" or "salary bands" or "fixed pool for raises" or some other nonsense, as a soft way of refusing their request. Junior managers will be able to deliver that message sincerely, because they genuinely believe it. Maybe the company finds there's a good chance the employees stay around.
Of course, if the job market favours workers this tactic doesn't work any more. But how many companies are agile enough to respond quickly to changing employment market conditions?
Two examples to illustrate this. Back in the 2000s, I got an offer from a larger corporation, for 25% more than what I was making at the time. Told my then manager and his counter was a 5% raise, plus a not quite moving “we are all a family here” speech. It wasn’t only me though, at least ten other engineers left in a few months, all were offered between 3% and 7% raises. The team was eventually disbanded and people were reassigned to other projects. After some years, someone told me that they simply didn’t have the budget.
In the late 2010s, while working at a large multinational, I asked for a raise. At the time, I was repeatedly told that the project I was leading was, by far, the most impactful of the whole division, so I thought I would deserve it. Manager went to HR they recommended that I shouldn’t get a raise, since I was doing “well” already, according to their salary charts. Now, my manager could have fought it harder, but the disconnection and power over budget HR and higher ups have, made it so difficult and dragged for so long, I ended up leaving.
I've been through so many cycles of: work 1-2 years on the same domain (or product), finally achieve mastery of all its components: infrastructure, dependencies, dependents, product vision, to the point where I can give detailed and relevant assessments on the future planning of whatever I'm working with.
Whenever I get to that point my salary stagnates, I need to change teams or domain, or company, to get a decent bump (10-20%), if not I will be stuck on the forever cycle of either aiming for a promotion or getting 2-5% raises/year.
It looks so stupid from the factory floor side, when I'm finally a master of what I'm working with I get devalued. When we hire a new senior+ engineer they will get a similar or higher salary than I have. That will naturally push me to search for something else.
I simply cannot understand on an organisational level how can not giving raises but paying premiums for new hires is sustainable or even in the best interests of said organisation... I have never got a good answer from CTOs (or other C-level executives).
I have spoken to more former colleagues just today (well, yesterday) who did not get meaningful raises this year while the new hires got 30% more.
It seems "all dev can do everything, all manager can manage everything" means "we can replace any cog by any other cog since they're all the same". Yeah, well, no. I don't understand why, when they have a good fit, they don't fight for it. I even have seen some senior replace by out of school grad "because that's we can find".
If you have to actually code, some devs are going to 10x other ones. But if you stack in as many dependencies as you can to the point where everyone is just reading documentation trying to get caught up, and the entire measure of productivity is whether you've used a library before so you come into a project with it's API pre-memorised, all devs look the same. Any dipshit can look at a few code examples and copy the basic patterns out of them.
It's literally impossible to gain any real expertise in these codebases. I've been using React since 2015. I've got more specific experience in React front-ends than basically anyone I've ever worked with. I've run into virtually every NPM library in the ecosystem at least once over that time. It doesn't matter. I've forgotten 90% of the interesting details in all of them except for a small handful that I truly believe are quality. I can write some basic code using whatever from memory, but as soon as you hit anything with any real complexity it's back to the docs and back to trawling Github issues for everything that's not in the docs. You're in the same boat as everyone else, grinding out a scrap of knowledge just to abandon it at the start of the next project when you find out that there's a new set of fad dependencies you need to learn the internals of because their abstractions leak like a sieve.
This works for big companies because they can afford the severe productivity hit with their momentum and market dominance. It's a death sentence for startups though. That's why everyone hires 20 year olds to run their startups. You might leave a ton of great experienced candidates on the table, but you dodge all their colleagues that have spent 20 years learning how to fuck everything up and get away with it because their individual contribution has always been indistinguishable in the company's revenue.
A large number of big tech companies have had unusual retention initiatives, including Robinhood issuing ad-hoc stock grants after a stock drop, Apple issuing $180k stock grants out of cycle and others.
Apple was considered on the lower end of FAANG-tier salaries, so the grants which were outside of the normal process are unusual.
This isn't an isolated incident. Even companies that pay mid-tier salaries ($300-350k for a senior in the Bay Area) are experiencing above normal attrition.
Attrition is a real problem right now. Hiring is fierce. If you're a senior or staff level engineer, it's a buyer's market.
Most Fortune 500 companies do not even have a procedure to pay that much.
As for the "leveled employees" thing, being at terminal level in any FAANG or similar company isn't exactly rocket science. Do you think these people are working on rocket trajectories all day? Nope, they're copy/pasting protobuf specifications and writing a few test suites. Just like working for Verizon or another non-FAANG.
https://www.levels.fyi/offer.html?id=b5f5f5ac-9949-516b-bae1...
https://www.levels.fyi/offer.html?id=b0d24426-d95b-57c8-a0f8...
It’s not for AmEx either: https://www.levels.fyi/company/American-Express/salaries/Sof...
>real maximum
Clearly the real maximum isn't the real maximum if $300k offers are possible. In Arizona, no less.
Sure, it might be hard to believe people who are just like me make this much for the same type of work, but just 3 years ago I didn't believe people made as much as I do now (in a small startup).
I believe that should be seller's market, I am selling my services?
Sure we can easily switch jobs but it’s really tiring, especially when you are in a great place. You have to weight the money against the comfort and it’s a shame because it have an enormous impact on the whole team motivation.
I think this is what is going on. "Switch jobs to increase income" _is_ the folk wisdom, but not enough people actually "walk the walk" for it to be worth it for companies to change their strategy. As I mentioned in replying to another comment, this way companies get to retain for very cheap talent that:
* finds job interviews exhausting
* hates negotiating
* has good relationships with colleagues they don't want to lose
* has a comfortable commute or WFH arrangement they don't want to change
* is proud of becoming an expert / go-to-person in some part of the business and doesn't want to lose that source of social capital
* is proud of product or service they have made a big contribution to and wants to "see it through to the end"
* is generally impresionable and does what management want without too much complaint
Companies wont pay till people are out the door; by then its too late, too little or it goes to the incoming hire.
I'm not sure it's going to be easy to find a job soon.
To my mind that only enforces the replacable cogs mindset.
I was talking not just about terms or words, but new organizational concepts as well.
This (IMNSHO) has led to many, many problems, like project architectures, designed to compensate for many engineers of mixed skill levels, working on the code, instead of a smaller number, with consistent skills, shepherding the project from start to finish. This is opposed to designs for deliverable-focused Quality and market fit.
It’s nice to think about making lots of money, but I prefer writing and delivering projects that make me proud, and that I design and implement from napkin sketch to shrink-wrap. I don’t find it attractive at all, to contemplate an industry that is totally focused on keeping developers happy, because it won’t keep all developers happy; just ones that “play the game.”
Some packages are great, but others drop maintnentece completely after a year of support. Then you have to move off of them because they are tied to old versions of react or other core packages.
Indeed. I would consider it one of the key skills for a JavaScript developer to be able to differentiate between packages that will be maintained and those that won't. Luckily JavaScript itself is quite straightforward, so JS devs should have plenty of time for learning this stuff.
I've tried to come to terms with TypeScript during the last two months, but I am sorry, it is still too messy and does not give me enough guarantees about my code.
What I would love is a Swift to TypeScript / JavaScript compiler.
It made me switch to Thunderbird. I had to sift through tons of mails to unsubscribe, without the Promotions/Social/Updates tabs.
The ones that kept sending me mail go to spam now.
Well yes, anticipating future developments is one of the main things a software developer does. And IMO one of the main differentiators between junior and senior developers. A library that has a history of regular maintenance is unlikely to get suddenly dropped. And a library that has a large user base will have its maintenance picked up by others if the original maintainer(s) do step down. If the library doesn't meet these criteria then you probably shouldn't be using it.}
I don't think you can realistically use Swift client-side. But Rust is an increasingly viable option (for browsers that support WASM). WASM compilation is built in to the official toolchain, and the js/ts-interop story is quite good too at this point (modulo some overhead when calling between JS and wasm).
I beg to differ. I've been using it client-side for years. I do not like the hybrid offerings.
Rust seems like an excellent server language, and I look forward to seeing it get more mindshare. Swift smells a lot like Rust.
But I’ve used PHP for my backend work. I’m not really a backend engineer, and I am sure it could be done better; even with PHP.
One of the reasons for my choosing PHP, is because it is so widely known, and is a perfectly good language, as long as it is written well.
There was that study that was done recently, where they showed what I call “the fishtank graph.”
This was the graph that showed which server languages were in use.
PHP was this fairly steady line along the top, and every other language looked like gravel in a fishtank, along the bottom.
I have been thinking about Rust, but it has too much stuff like ownership I rather don't want to think about on top of the already complicated things my code does.
A compiler from Swift (or a subset of Swift) to TypeScript would make it a viable option for me. Maybe I write it myself.
There's a couple of other heuristics for whether or not something is worth using on a project (like complexity of learning, and context within a larger stack), but suffice to say it's about looking past a specific problem and on to subsequent problems down the line.
Projects die all the time or start being very lazy with the maintenance. Not that I expect anything more, there is literally no money in them.
The criteria I like to use is "Will I be able to fork it and fix it when it goes unmaintained"?
I think I've just come to a point where I don't want to split my attention between formalisms for reasons that have nothing to do with the formalism, and just its ecosystem.
I feel like Dart gets me reasonably close to the kind of elegant, intuitive code I can write in Python...but with static typing.
What I like about Swift is its "protocol oriented programming", which is basically pragmatic Haskell type classes. There is just so much done right in Swift, that I have a hard time going back to any language that doesn't have it:
* protocols, integrated with struct/enum/class
* dot-syntax when the context is known (like .blue instead of Color.blue)
* immutable data structures via copy-on-write, nicely integrated into the language
* best integration of optional type (like Int?) I've ever seen in a language
* (optional) named function parameters (in the beginning I was annoyed, but now I am a big fan)
* the way exceptions work
* cheap garbage collection (kinda; ARC is working like garbage collection for most of the code I write)
* great package system
* great IDE (Xcode)
Also, a core policy of any development company, using any languages/frameworks/etc but more so if using JS currently due to the exceptionally high churn, is monitoring dependencies for liveliness so a transition to something else when they inevitably fade can be planned in advance and not implemented in a mad rush (leading to bad decisions) when deprecation notices start to arrive or, worse, after deprecation when security issues become apparent but not fixed upstream.
It needs to be policy, with someone who is responsible (or hands out responsibility but is where the buck stops), or it won't get done reliably. It isn't an interesting task, at least not for most people.
Not one comment to be found, short, inscrutable variable names, no indenting, and having been stepped on by dozens of junior devs before me.
It was "Voodoo bug fixing." I had to close my eyes, and throw a dart, hoping I got it.
It taught me, very early on, to write good code.
It was an email system; before what's-his-name-The-Nanny's-husband "invented" it.
It's made me rethink the supposed "skill reset" that happens in software which leads to software developers leaving for other roles more often than other engineering disciplines.
Ultimately, if companies truly valued this, they would've done more to keep talent. Instead the majority keeps looking for the fine line between "they will quit" and "they will stay", even going so far as disregarding the basic premise of "a happy, stress-free employee produces more valuable output".
>I’m not sure that things are sustainable.
Of course things aren't sustainable. Nothing points towards most companies aiming for sustainability in the first place.
The output is certainly more costly, but does it bring in more income for the company?
Are there any studies published about this? I imagine Big Tech would keep it as a closely-guarded secret.
Depends. A Mercedes is a lot more expensive than a Honda, but Honda's a bigger company.
Both are quite successful, though. It depends on the metrics and targets.
However, even HR at small tech companies in Europe follow the basic idea of "if employees are happier, they will produce more output!". Assuming this isn't a pretty lie, we know people are generally happier not having to live paycheck to paycheck by force. We know people are generally happier not having to sit in traffic jams because of a 9-5, at the office mentality. Even modern hiring practices are based on distrust and making things more tedious for both sides of the equation, when there are solutions which would at least help the employer out. There's plenty of room for them to actually follow their own advice, and we have plenty of studies at least suggesting benefits of remote work, less hours, different work hours, etc.
Too bad. I could have been an awesome hire, for a number of these companies; especially the smaller ones. I'm not "behind the times," at all, and would have been happy with far less compensation than most.
It was funny, these little shops were doing the same kinds of interviews as major-league FAANGs, even though their workflows and requirements (and pay) were drastically different. I guess it's a case of "Monkey see; monkey do."
If you lose 10 software engineers due to the bus factor, the fact that you already are treating engineers fungibly gives you resilience on that front.
The business community wants everybody and everything as replaceable and fungible as possible, to its long-term detriment. That so many see short-term "success" and call it that should be far more appalling than it seems to be.
Take Circuit City, for example, which, when it was already struggling, let go all of its senior sales people on the floor and replaced them with minimum wage. The knowledgeable salespeople was pretty much the only thing going for Circuit City at the time. Customers noticed, responded, and the business fell off a cliff
that’s just capitalism
Human capital has value and appreciates over the long-term
A couple of times I've landed at a good company, where I figured I could stay for a long time and build something resembling a traditional career. But something invariably changes - the company gets acquired by some MegaCorp, a leadership changeover, your awesome team gets disbanded and scattered, etc... c'est la vie.
Really great team, great project, great codebase, loved a lot of things about it.
Then a leadership change happened. I've got a new job, gave my notice, and hopefully will keep in touch with the people I like here. Very bittersweet time.
But then some of our projects turned into production systems, and the place started to take on a more "traditional" software shop feel with terms like SDLC and CMMI being thrown around. Then we got bought by a bigger company - that was the last straw for me. Oh well, was nice while it lasted :(
Sorry, I'm old and jaded.
Inflation is "solving" this problem. No way are companies going to give across-the-board 8-10% (or more) cost of living adjustments this year. And it's a safe bet inflation will still be high next year.
The problem it seems it that to get candidates that are willing to complete your insane process not the lack of qualified people.
I have had almost no luck getting that information from recruiters without hopping on a call. None have ever provided that information upfront.
I only managed to get that info from an Amazon recruiter after pushing the issue pretty hard. At first he bragged that Amazon had upped their bands, without mentioning any numbers. When I asked how much, he pointed to a reddit thread and levels.fyi, still not mentioning any numbers. I finally straight-up asked him to stop being coy and just name the range, after all it's law in California and I'm going to keep asking until I get an answer. It took him a couple of days to respond, then I never heard from him again.
And this is the only recruiter that has ever actually given me an answer. Ever.
(350-475k total for "L6" in California FWIW)
I don't think HR departments realize just how much money this costs them in the long run. They are just enforcing a policy and that policy is never in the best interests of the people (including the managers).
I suppose maybe they will get the memo when teams are too small to function, people are being over-promoted for retention reasons out of desperation, and then they use that leverage to get what was wanted at the beginning; autonomy.
Being robbed of years of life, facing death and disruption on a daily basis has long term effects. It brings home mortality and makes one focus on the more important things in life, like spending time with family and looking after your health.
After WW2 we entered a period of extraordinary economic growth. Most of "modern America" was built in this time.
But something is different about COVID, climate emergency and the emerging Ukraine crisis. While they are all similar types of stressor in creating societal trauma, the upshot is a withdrawal toward slower economy, low growth and even regression in some areas. We all know the "party is over", at least until fusion is here. It's not just an aging population either, I hear this from 19 year old kids.
What's the solution? William James wrote a fascinating long-essay/booklet called the "Moral equivalent of war". Some people read it as a call for something simplistic like "National Service", but it's actually a psychologically astute account of human (and he claims especially male) need to feel "useful and part of something".
Technological capitalism is failing to deliver that. On the contrary it is making us weak and dependent.
Resignation means two things.
One is quitting a job.
The other is "surrender in the face of despair"
Make of that what you will about our societal disposition in 2022.
Many people seem to forget that talent always comes at a cost.
We aren't talking about top surgeons or airline pilots who need access to rare equipment, simulators, and hands-on training. We are talking about people who need to train by leetcoding on a 12 year-old laptop in a dank basement with a 3G phone hotspot
I'm not a recruiter but even I have made a number of placements lately. People literally have written to me out of the blue on LinkedIn, and when I tell them I've recently moved they ask if I have friends who are looking. I certainly do.
Particularly if you're remote, it's super easy just to schedule interviews during your day.
I.e. who would argue the contrary and why would they think that?