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Companies will never value employees as much as employees value themselves.

If programmers can get a promotion and a 20% raise by switching employers, and a 3% raise by staying, why would they stay?

I find it funny that startups would expect to attract "missionaries" when most of them lack missions of any substance.

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I've always found this market inefficiency fascinating. It's conventional wisdom (not just in the software industry) that the best way to get a big raise is to switch jobs, but your employer "should" be aware of the market rate for your work, and have the most information about your value and the most incentive to keep you around. I've always wondered if new employers are overvaluing new hires, or whether current employers fail to keep up due to some sort of bureaucratic issue.

Alternatively, if new employers were not paying a premium, they would have a harder time attracting talent, so they are willing to pay more to fill the slots they really need to fill.

And employees have a switching cost, if you're getting paid 5% below market, that's probably not enough to get you to jump ship by itself.

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