Comment by mzarate06 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mzarate06 | Hacker News Reader

As a CEO, many of the scariest days I've faced have been those when a critical member of our team told us they were leaving the company. Your heart sinks...

I'm always happy to hear that a company values their employees, and takes a proactive approach to keep them happy. I'm also surprised how little some companies do on that same front, and only scramble to analyze pay, work conditions, etc. after an employee has announced they're leaving. By then it's too late.

One case that sticks out for me was a few years back when a brilliant lead dev I know left the company he was working for. I knew the company's work conditions weren't favorable, he didn't have a job title worthy of what he was doing day to day, and after hearing the salary he was being paid (about half a typical market-rate salary at the time), my only question was why he hadn't left earlier.

So I think a lot of companies encourage their employees to leave without even knowing it. Or even worse, they know they're shortchanging them on some level and gamble on fear or ignorance in hopes that said employees feel they're getting a fair deal. I believe this to be the case with the example I cited above, and am glad the lead dev has since found a company with much better work conditions across the board.

I was in a pretty similar situation recently. After more firewood was thrown on the fire, I decided to start looking, and at that point I had already decided not to accept any counter-offer. Not only was I being shortchanged on salary (significantly), but also in benefits, perks, and working conditions. I'm really happy I found an awesome startup in SF that still after a month feels like an ideal workplace for me.

When I was looking, I was disconcerted when I found companies with no personal growth prospects or that flat out said they wouldn't pay what I was asking (fair) because they didn't want to pay two engineers with the same title too differently. I asked if they would offer bonuses to compensate or if they'd consider paying the other guy the same salary, because he seemed smart enough. No to both, and I felt that alone indicated that management there didn't value engineering talent.

I really hope this treatment of talented workers isn't too pervasive in the industry. Pay people what they're worth. Strive to offer the best working conditions, benefits, and perks. Take the values of your employees into consideration. It really doesn't seem like it's too much to ask for. And personally, I'm all for complete transparency within my company, even to the point of salary information. I think it would resolve more issues than it would cause.

I asked if they would offer bonuses to compensate or if they'd consider paying the other guy the same salary, because he seemed smart enough. No to both, and I felt that alone indicated that management there didn't value engineering talent.

That's awesome that you vouched for the other guy. And I wonder what technical experience management or upper-level execs had at that company. I find that when there's very little to none at those levels in the company, they'll tend to be similar to what you described. Ultimately they view engineers as a commodity resource and try to get by with the "cheapest" deal they can.

I've found many of the same companies also suffer from high turnover, and turn a blind eye to the long term drag that imposes on their software. For companies that profit in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year (e.g. the company I mentioned previously), I think it's silly they resort to offering market, or below market, wages to save a few bucks (relatively speaking) vs. striving to have happier employees, and retaining them for a longer period of time.

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