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Comment by PeterStuer | Hacker News Reader

Systemically, there is a bias to find/retain employees that overcommit, and a bias for employers that will undercommit to the "relationship".

Rationally you can agree it is a purely transactional state. Working hours for compensation. Emotionally in tech many love the work itself, or the nerdy glamour of the industry, or the inherent intelectual bravadory and oneupmanship, and so are ripe for exploitation.

HR will draw you in, infecting your social life with company perks, values and "we are a family" messaging only to turn all process when it comes to an end.

But as the systemics are clear, each new generation will get drawn in. And tbh, often it can still be a good deal.

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I agree with your first paragraph, but I don’t really like the exploitation framing for tech jobs. Sure there is exploitation but there is also a lot of rest and vest going on. When you look at who’s delivering value in software it’s very unevenly distributed and only loosely correlated with raw work hours. A big part is collaboration and team dynamics. The ground dynamics are much more relevant than HR narratives when it comes to how a job feels and whether high expectations are motivating or seem exploitative.

I haven't seen much of a bias towards seeking out a predisposition to loyalty in employees except among authoritarian small business owner types who invariably underpay.

I don't think offering perks is necessarily supposed to engender loyalty. It's still a transactional relationship ("ok, google might pay less than the startup but I do get free lunches at google...").

In most companies I have more often seen not even a shred of expectation of loyalty. It's pretty normal to see critical employees quit at an inconvenient time on a critical project and the only person who expresses any bad feelings is the employee in question feeling a bit guilty.

>I haven't seen much of a bias towards seeking out a predisposition to loyalty in employees except among authoritarian small business owner types who invariably underpay.

It's easy. Some red flags:

"This is not a 9 to 5 job, you should know that. But that's normal in this industry"

"We're looking for people who are passionate about their work"

"I won't sugarcoat it, there are good and bad weeks" in terms of workload and hours

"We see a gap in your resume here a decade ago - may I ask why you took time off during this time"

etc

Those are signals.

There's a normalization of sociopathy in the hiring process. That's how we filter. Or maybe it's just financial services?

Yours are signals that a company is selecting for people who will consent to being overworked. That's not about loyalty.

Loyalty would be "we're looking for candidates who have long job tenures. do not apply if you never stayed at a job longer than 3 years".

That can be a red flag for me, as a hiring manager (not withstanding what you're replying to that I wrote). But I don't see it as loyalty, I see it as, shit, will this person quit after two years, I need long term types. It takes a while to learn the infrastructure and people get ever more skilled and useful. However, if they're new to their careers, you kind of need to skip town every two years because, at least in financial services, they only pay if you quit, that's how they value your worth. Consider: new hires are ALWAYS better paid than people who stay year after year.

Eh, I'm okay with doing more than required, as long as the employer also does so on their part.

butif the employer also do their part, then you're not doing more than required - you're doing _exactly_ what is required.

The only way to do more than required is when one party benefits more (e.g., employer gets free overtime, or an employee clocks more hours than they actually did).

They won't.

Well right now they do for me at least...

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