Given the fight we’ve seen over WFH, I’m very inclined to believe that this is intentional by the industry. By focusing on paying top dollar for FTEs and demanding incredible amounts of time and energy from them, companies maintain a level of control that they wouldn’t have by working with a fractional engineering team.
* I wanted to add that I am referring to software developers. Creative types like the author of this article are always shit upon by corporate types unfortunately
My performance reviews are always "exceeds expectations", but I haven't seen how this benefits anyone other than the company so far.
Maybe I should just take it more easy but I feel like I'd float under the radar for possible promotion then.
Few companies have sane compensation policies. by all means put in extra work when you have an opportunity to learn some new skill from it. but once you get to a pint where your skills are valuable, either jump ship to a another company that pays commisserate to your new skill level or start or join a startup where you get enough equity to eat at the adult's table when the ipo or acquisition happens
Basically, you're most likely being taken advantage of and will never be properly rewarded for what you're doing, IME.
Another is to find organizations that have individual contributor (IC) promotion tracks that are at least as lucrative as the management track. (Of the highest-paid, most respected people at my company, most of them are not in management and are simply really good at what they do.)
Schmoozing is not the way.
I stopped caring about getting promoted and doing things just for visibility. If I see something that needs to be done, I make sure it gets taken care of. I ask intelligent questions in meetings and have almost always put way more thought into anything we're working on than anyone else so I'm able to have good questions and concerns. I focus on delivering for the business and not impressing other software engineers.
The key, and this is the one piece of bullshit unfortunately, is to make sure your manager and ideally your manager's manager know about what you are doing. I mostly accomplish this during my one-on-one and by speaking up in various meetings we are in. I also work for a company where talking directly to senior management and even executives is truly accepted.
The thing is, most people are followers and need to be told what to do. Become the person that knows what needs to be done and makes sure things don't fall through the cracks. Unless you are looking to go into management, focus on the technical and driving projects to completion, but avoid trying to manage other people. Eventually if you build enough respect from the team you can get them to do what is needed and your can build enough trust with your manager that you can direct them to deal with problem employees.
The downside to all of this is that I'm pulled into absolutely everything because everyone wants my opinion and I'll actually make decisions for everyone instead of meeting about it 15 times. I end up doing very little actual development these days, but I'm paid extremely well and don't have to manage people. In the end this doesn't bother me that much because I see corporate software development as a different activity from the one I actually enjoy.
I went from "lucky to get hired" application support engineer peon to being groomed for CTO by stepping out of my lane. My supervisor had a sign on his wall: "Stay in your lane." I did not (he ended up sacked by the CFO). I found that even pissing off some key executives (CEO/CFO) a few times just helped my profile. I got lucky but it was all deliberate.
One of the executives I inflamed (CFO) had to sign off on two record setting raises/promotions for me. All brought before the board of directors/investors by the then/current CTO.
To be fair, I was also super productive/knowledgeable and a high-performer. Everyone else was used to working at big companies, I had been sitting at home the previous ten years playing on my computer and gardening.
If you want to stand out then you need to go somewhere that you can.
Or threaten to leave and get a real raise
Honestly it does sound like you're doing it wrong. If you want to get paid more there are more effective ways of doing that. If you enjoy tough tasks that's fine, but be honest with yourself and make sure you're doing it because you want to.
Ish. It's complicated.
IME, most folks have a low standard for "good" and don't differentiate well above a certain minimum. Someone with an MFA and 150k in debt may expect to get paid more than someone with no degree and no school debt, but that doesn't mean the buyer will rate the MFA higher -- which means they won't pay them more money.
The MFA may also expect to spend X hours on a project without _explaining that_ to the buyer.
That's not corporate types being stingy or such, it's a mismatch of expectations. At the end of the day, buyers value the work much lower than the sellers, so the sellers are going to be disappointed far more often.
Doesn't this require a level of coordination between hirers that almost certainly doesn't exist?
I see these takes all the time about how "the industry" cabal coordinates to screw over workers. Never have I seen any meeting notes or interviews from former CEOs on how this coordination might happen, just disgruntled employees feeling they deserve more.
Clearly, the heads of HR and other people who define corporate compensation talk to one another, “hey what are you guys doing to manage pay cuts, reductions in staff, etc in this economy at company x/y/z”.
It’s a pretty obvious benefit of having a strong professional network. I.e you have people you can ask for mentorship and advise. Every startup board was asking companies to belt tighten and reduce costs because of the economy earlier this year and last year.
A relatively small number of companies and startups in tech define top of market for compensation. Clearly the people at those companies know one another and talk about what they are doing.
Except when it does. Remember when most of big tech had secret no-poach agreements to keep the wages of engineers down [1]? It wasn’t that long ago.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...