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Comment by harryf | Hacker News Reader

It's a nice idea to things like this _in theory_. Medium has something similar they called Snowflake - https://github.com/Medium/snowflake ... but note the disclaimer...

> Heads up: Medium isn’t using this tool anymore, but you’re welcome to!

The problem with things like this is the typical engineering mindset, when shown a graphical or numerical analysis of their performance will zoom into analyse every detail and in the end it's just backed by the managers impressions and judgement.

For similar reasons I have a strong opinion that engineers shouldn't be paid performance related bonuses, because no matter what happens, it's just going to upset them - the best case - maximum bonus - just equates to a "meh". Better to pay a good base salary upfront ...

Anyway use tools like this with caution IMO.

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> Better to pay a good base salary upfront ...

Bonuses that are variable with company performance are a common way to manage the reality for many businesses of “some years we have more money than others”. It seems better to pay bonuses that vary than to set high base salaries and lay people off in cyclical lean years.

That can work, if the scheme is (a) fair, and (b) transparent. I.e. something like "this is the formula we apply to the quarterly report to get everyone's bonuses".

Anything else just ends up being a lottery that helps no-one.

> Anything else just ends up being a lottery that helps no-one.

I've seen several occasions when corporate bureaucracy has prevented or delayed raises and promotions because of policy or budget wrangling, but not bonuses or stock grants. Bonuses are a tool for managers to reward and retain their high performers when those other options are not available during that fiscal year.

Oh it's not usually "fair" per se, but it's not like some people would get more than others (if done well), it's more like you don't always control all of the factors that get used to determine your bonus.

Like a QA engineer probably isn't directly tied to overall revenue, but it is a topline number that can be applied to everyone generally, so it can get used (in a general sense, I'm sure there are lots of specifics and nuances here).

Profit sharing is a great idea, and a lot more equitable than a "bonus" for individual performance.

> The problem with things like this is the typical engineering mindset, when shown a graphical or numerical analysis of their performance will zoom into analyse every detail and in the end it's just backed by the managers impressions and judgement.

The point of leveling frameworks is not to magically make everything objective and quantifiable—though I agree that is what many smart young people want and expect (after a decade+ in our Victorian education system)—it's to channel and provide a rubric that many different engineering leaders' (both EMs and ICs) impressions can be compared and contrasted in a structured and relatively fair way. The last thing you want to do is remove expert judgement from the equation, but in a medium to large org it shouldn't be one person.

> the best case - maximum bonus - just equates to a "meh"

Can you elaborate on this? I find it surprising since bonus pays are very commonly used in many industries (and, in fact, relied on very heavily in e.g. finance)

I remember going through performnace-related bonuses. If somebody tried super-hard and got a "level 5", they got a £5K bonus. Somebody ticking along without being outstanding got £3K. Most people realised the extra £2K wasn't worth the extra effort required to get it.

A raise of even a small amount makes a big difference over time because raises continue and even compound a little. Consequently, a cheap company will try to make the near certain portion of a bonus feel like part of your negotiated salary and extract effort with bonuses as ephemeral raises.

It doesn’t compound at all. If the going rate is $200k and I switch jobs my previous salary doesn’t matter, and therefore compounding doesn’t matter.

in what industry does your previous salary not matter? (Not a snarky ask btw.) I have never entertained an offer blow my current salary, so personally find them highly correlated (sw eng).

Nobody is talking about previous salary, the $3k/$5k thing was about yearly performance bonuses.

My argument is general enough to cover that case too. Performance bonuses don't compound long term for the same reason.

Previous salary can’t affect future salary unless you let the previous salary be known.

There is a bit of a bias to this.

Higher salaries will get disclosed more, because if I get an offer below my current salary, then I can disclose and at the very least get a match or refuse the offer. At a lower salary, there is a higher probability that the offer is higher, and my current salary does not matter.

I believe that people more rarely accept a downgrade in salary, so the probably of acceptance is also conditioned on the current salary. What this means is that the effect is biased and probably non-linear, but I wouldn't qualify it as non effect.

Raises that are a percentage will compound over multiple iterations, that's what he meant.

Only given the following conditions:

* You stay at the same company

* They are happy to pay above market rates and keep giving you raises even if you are paid over market rates.

This would be the exception, and probably for some real specialist stuff.

If I get a 10% raise today, it will have no impact on my 2030 salary. Getting more stock might be a different thing if you are very lucky and the ducks line up.

We're not talking about raises, we're talking about one-time performance bonuses.

We are talking about performance bonuses, a trick to avoid permanent raises.

The bonuses where I am now are a % of the employee's base salary. A mid-level "meets" engineer can expect something like $20-25k during an average year for the company. Up to twice that for a strong year.

It's different in finance because a finance guy can go to his boss with hard proof and say "I made your company 10 million last year" and ask for 500k bonus.

But developers do not have hard proof and they will be getting 10k bonus instead.