The quitting economy(aeon.co)
aeon.co
The quitting economy
https://aeon.co/essays/how-work-changed-to-make-us-all-passionate-quitters
195 comments
> Instead, 2 years is a pretty common stretch before turnover in white collar jobs, especially for younger folk. Employees become better off from firm-hopping, and employers have no reason to offer long-ROI incentives such as paid masters' programs.
I'd have gladly stayed at my third job for much longer than the ~21 months I did had there been training, retirement, reasonable pay increases, and career development offered. The same for my forth job. Some number of jobs later and my current one is also my longest tenure to date. Not coincidentally I have had and continue to have a clear path of career development, non-trivial pay increases and bonuses that aren't tiny. I've given up on employer-provided proper retirement plans and education/training.
"Firm hopping" exists, in my opinion, precisely because companies tend to either not recognize the role they must play in supporting long term tenures or else simply don't value them enough to allocate resources to the support.
I'd have gladly stayed at my third job for much longer than the ~21 months I did had there been training, retirement, reasonable pay increases, and career development offered. The same for my forth job. Some number of jobs later and my current one is also my longest tenure to date. Not coincidentally I have had and continue to have a clear path of career development, non-trivial pay increases and bonuses that aren't tiny. I've given up on employer-provided proper retirement plans and education/training.
"Firm hopping" exists, in my opinion, precisely because companies tend to either not recognize the role they must play in supporting long term tenures or else simply don't value them enough to allocate resources to the support.
My longest jobs both lasted around 8 years. In both cases, I stayed because I liked my coworkers and the environment.
As a result, my salary history is well below average for my location and experience. Further, since I was paid less than my less experienced (and less capable) coworkers, my input was usually ignored and I was basically sidelined except when something went badly wrong and I spent much of my time cleaning up others' mistakes.
Keep an eye on those pay increases and the IEEE salary survey in your region.
As a result, my salary history is well below average for my location and experience. Further, since I was paid less than my less experienced (and less capable) coworkers, my input was usually ignored and I was basically sidelined except when something went badly wrong and I spent much of my time cleaning up others' mistakes.
Keep an eye on those pay increases and the IEEE salary survey in your region.
At this point in my career I've reached a salary plateau for the technical track. Short of landing a high-profile project at one of the major tech firms the ~6%-7% raises I've had the last couple of years are about the max of what I might expect from a "hop." Instead I'm looking to both exit this industry completely and, while I build the cushion necessary to do so, switch to management (which has ample support, currently).
This happened to me as well, the only way I was able to get above that plateau was to go freelance and start my own thing. Charging a fair market value for my time. Best decision I ever made.
That's about what I've decided, but all the freelance work I've seen available has been web development---the kind of thing I'm trying to escape. Freelancing for a systems programmer has a "I can't get there from here" problem, particularly since I'm crap-tastic at networking.
I feel like there's a market for independent contract sales. I would love to pay 15% of a contract to someone who could source and close contracts for me.
Unfortunately, I think there's no way to escape the need to network. But, it's a learnable skill so you just have to put in the time and effort.
Unfortunately, I think there's no way to escape the need to network. But, it's a learnable skill so you just have to put in the time and effort.
The people who can close sales end up starting companies and they hire programmers. They end up taking a lot more than 15%.
I have 2 other freelancers I work w/. We've created a freelance conglomerate of sorts. We all work on a contract to contract basis. We offer our entire network a 10% finders fee. If someone you recommend closes w/ us you get 10% of the contract. This has worked out great for us. This also extends to the company we registered to provide all the freelancers w/ insurance and other things you should have when running your own company. So all the freelancers get 1m+ insurance through the company they bill as.
The company makes $30/hr on every hour billed. This covers taxes, etc as we also handle payroll and taxes for the freelancers but you could easily forgo this part. The person who brings in the client gets a 10% finders fee. We use this money to subscribe to lead generation services which deliver us hot leads and such.. RFP's, etc.
Anyone who contacts these leads and lands a client can earn the 10% finders fee.
Devs then take the rest as an hourly.. usually this means they're making between 90-120/hr depending on the contract. We specialize in Ruby, Elixir, ReactJS/React Native work.
The company makes $30/hr on every hour billed. This covers taxes, etc as we also handle payroll and taxes for the freelancers but you could easily forgo this part. The person who brings in the client gets a 10% finders fee. We use this money to subscribe to lead generation services which deliver us hot leads and such.. RFP's, etc.
Anyone who contacts these leads and lands a client can earn the 10% finders fee.
Devs then take the rest as an hourly.. usually this means they're making between 90-120/hr depending on the contract. We specialize in Ruby, Elixir, ReactJS/React Native work.
>I would love to pay 15% of a contract to someone who could source and close contracts for me.
Couldn't agree more. The product design space is crowded with low end parties on both sides, and I've fruitlessly offered a percentage a few times for people to source mature, ready-to-pay clients.
There are solutions like upwork, and solutions like hired, but there doesn't seem to be an intermediate solution. Would be interested in what keeps more people from pursuing deals like this. 10% of a 50k contract is nothing to shake a stick at.
Couldn't agree more. The product design space is crowded with low end parties on both sides, and I've fruitlessly offered a percentage a few times for people to source mature, ready-to-pay clients.
There are solutions like upwork, and solutions like hired, but there doesn't seem to be an intermediate solution. Would be interested in what keeps more people from pursuing deals like this. 10% of a 50k contract is nothing to shake a stick at.
I work through 10X Management, doing freelance programming. They find customers, define the work parameters and scope, close the deals, do all contract and billing, and provide customer support as necessary. Flat 15%, I see the contract with the customer. They get better rates than I do on my own.
That's what consulting companies do, although they'd take a bit more than 15%. More like 40%, but then they have a higher rate too.
The plateau is real. It's not unheard of for your first job hop, early in your career, to get you 10-50%. Next move might be 5-15%. Over time, as you approach the ceiling, your reward for job hopping will diminish. I've got close to 20 years under my belt, and my last few hops were less than +1%.
Short of going into management or doing a complete career change, it seems you can get stuck later in life.
Short of going into management or doing a complete career change, it seems you can get stuck later in life.
For me, the route out that I'm trying is to try to build a consultancy or productized-consulting business. It's effectively going into management, but the person you're managing is yourself.
It's especially true when you look at contribution vs reward for a skilled senior / principal engineer. If you take away the "steady paycheck" aspect of salaried employment, you can get 2x to 3x the reward for some percentage increase in total effort.
It's especially true when you look at contribution vs reward for a skilled senior / principal engineer. If you take away the "steady paycheck" aspect of salaried employment, you can get 2x to 3x the reward for some percentage increase in total effort.
Yep. At my company, the Engineering Manager position starts at about 10% above the equivalent tech track position's upper limit in the band, has larger RSU grants and a bigger bonus pool.
! I've seen 6 to 7 percent about twice in my entire career. 3% is the usual max, and 1-2% more common.
But job hops are an easy 10-15%, hence the problem ;)
(Up to some limit obviously, as a guy with 16 years experience is unlikely to get a 10% premium over a guy with 15 years of experience)
(Up to some limit obviously, as a guy with 16 years experience is unlikely to get a 10% premium over a guy with 15 years of experience)
First job out of college Inhad something to prove and worked my ass off. What I did was extremely measurable and I was easily doing 2x the work compared to the department average. Every single day.
1.5% raise the first year, made a huge fuss the second year and asked for a large raise (because my numbers of were insane) and only managed a 4% raise (promotion included).
I've been at a new job for about a year and have worked hard as always, but the things I am doing are much, much harder to measure. It's much more difficult for me to actually prove how much value I am providing. However, it's looking like I will be getting a ~15% raise shortly.
If a company wants you to stick around, they'll be proactive and show it. At least that's what I've taken from this...and I don't want to be anywhere I'm not wanted.
1.5% raise the first year, made a huge fuss the second year and asked for a large raise (because my numbers of were insane) and only managed a 4% raise (promotion included).
I've been at a new job for about a year and have worked hard as always, but the things I am doing are much, much harder to measure. It's much more difficult for me to actually prove how much value I am providing. However, it's looking like I will be getting a ~15% raise shortly.
If a company wants you to stick around, they'll be proactive and show it. At least that's what I've taken from this...and I don't want to be anywhere I'm not wanted.
I discovered early on that, at least in larger companies, advancement in a role is based on your strategic value to the company, and not even remotely related to your work ethic. If your manager is willing to go to bat for you, you stand a chance of getting a meaningful raise. And that depends on whether you can demonstrably make their job easier.
Working "hard" only serves to let you feel good about yourself.
Working "hard" only serves to let you feel good about yourself.
Not only are you dependent on your manager, your often only able to secure significant raises at the cost of other team member raises. The bucket is allocated to your team based on a company standard, with nothing connected to your performance, then that has to be divided, which they often claim is performance based...
Yes. Except, "strategic value to the manager"
What is strategic value to the manager that is not hard work and delivering result? I'm asking sincerely, since I do hear a lot about the lack of correlation between hard work and promotion. I want to understand.
Consider this case: For one of our software releases, we worked with another product group in the company to co-release a new product line. I was basically on loan from my team to work on that project, as the only developer from my product group, and working under another manager. During that time, my team's manager stepped down, and a new one was hired. The product was released, the salespeople made a lot of money on commissions selling the product. The "other manager" left the company. The dev team in the other product group all either left or were reassigned, and I was left as the sole escalation support for the product.
Problem: My team's new manager had no part in the decision of putting me on that project, couldn't override the time that I was required to spend supporting it, but also couldn't use me as flexibly as her other developers. So I was first at the chopping block when the company decided to have a round of layoffs. I was providing value to the company as a whole, but not helping my manager in her own job.
Hard work: Check.
Delivering results: Check.
Delivering value to my manager: Nope.
Result: Looking for a new job.
Problem: My team's new manager had no part in the decision of putting me on that project, couldn't override the time that I was required to spend supporting it, but also couldn't use me as flexibly as her other developers. So I was first at the chopping block when the company decided to have a round of layoffs. I was providing value to the company as a whole, but not helping my manager in her own job.
Hard work: Check.
Delivering results: Check.
Delivering value to my manager: Nope.
Result: Looking for a new job.
Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine as well as the background in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome
Essentially by supporting that manager's political goals (to gain power within the organization), you receive rewards based not on skill or merit but as a result of your support.
In this system, people in a relationship are either 'patrons' or 'clients', and it is expected that patrons will help clients within their power and in return clients will support their patrons advancement, either through advancing their ends directly or undermining competitors.
All of these things are wasteful distractions, but then, that's politics.
Essentially by supporting that manager's political goals (to gain power within the organization), you receive rewards based not on skill or merit but as a result of your support.
In this system, people in a relationship are either 'patrons' or 'clients', and it is expected that patrons will help clients within their power and in return clients will support their patrons advancement, either through advancing their ends directly or undermining competitors.
All of these things are wasteful distractions, but then, that's politics.
In my experience delivering results that the manager can leverage to demonstrate his or her value is more important than either working hard or delivering results in the strict sense that, e.g. you write solid code to produce a feature.
Often the talent on a team is not nearly as important as the talent's relationship to the strategic direction of the company.
Often the talent on a team is not nearly as important as the talent's relationship to the strategic direction of the company.
This too, I agree with, when my cynicism is not cranked to 11.
Backing your manager and/or attacking other princes in the org. Finding dirt on incumbents... playing along and don't making a fuzz when stupid rules are put into effect.
Ostracise, or at least selectively ignore certain coworkers when called for to keep the "team spirit" alive. And so on and so forth. For being a loyal page, there might be some great reward. Funny thing is, I'm not even sure the incumbents would count it against you if the tables are turned. They know and respect a mercenary when they see one and will be happy to take you under their wing. But not if you jump faction too early, then you are just a traitor. Nobody loves a traitor.
Ostracise, or at least selectively ignore certain coworkers when called for to keep the "team spirit" alive. And so on and so forth. For being a loyal page, there might be some great reward. Funny thing is, I'm not even sure the incumbents would count it against you if the tables are turned. They know and respect a mercenary when they see one and will be happy to take you under their wing. But not if you jump faction too early, then you are just a traitor. Nobody loves a traitor.
I learned in the late 90s that the best fit for myself was to hop and hop often. I tended to stay with a company for about 12-18 months and would use each hop to increase my salary. Among my friends, the basic catch phrase was "want a 10k pay raise, get another job". This worked well on 2 fronts, your pay kept going up, and you tended to stay at the firm long enough to extract any real value to yourself in terms of interesting projects, learning a new industry etc. That just made you more attractive to the next company.
A cautionary note here: companies are not blind to this behavior. The job market for programmers is very hot right now and employers to some degree just have to suck it up and deal with job hopping employees, but if the market cools, a resume full of one year stints may become a liability.
Maybe, but if you have 10 years of 1-year stints... companies aren't foolish either. They know you only survived that tactic because you're extremely good (and gosh hopefully well recommended by your colleagues from 10 jobs).
They also know that they are now 'lucky' enough the market is cold, and you'll be trapped with them for the next 5+ years out of fear.
They also know that they are now 'lucky' enough the market is cold, and you'll be trapped with them for the next 5+ years out of fear.
A lot of this can be mitigated by managers having genuine conversations with their employees. The ideal manager I would work with (I've seen some managers come close but never hit all the right notes) would first and foremost be genuinely interested in my career progress as an employee. Different employees have different ambitions and expectations and there is just no way for a manager to know all of this just by observing someone; they really need to actively communicate and find out, to have a genuine conversation about how much raise they can provide or why they can't, what future they see for the employee. Especially if the employee is performing below expectations... that conversation can be tough, but I think one of the qualities of being a good manager is to convey this information in a way which makes the employee try to remedy the situation rather than just disparage them.
One on ones are important to me, and have been among the most enjoyable interactions in my professional life. My favorite point on this was by Andy Grove, who suggested that there's a limit to the number of your direct reports because you owe each of them about half a day per week to properly manage and support them.
I firmly believe part of this conversation needs to be clear, measurable goals. At most places I've worked it's "Your performance is good, but you're not getting a raise/bonus. In order to get a raise, you need to do subjectively better in some vaguely described area or in some other nebulous way that I cannot articulate. Good luck--you won't know if you've done it until next review time!"
A better conversation would be: "In order to get raise X% you need to do A, B, and C. In order to get raise Y% you also need to do D and E. We will checkpoint 4 times per year on progress, and you'll know well in advance if you've made it." Where A-E are things the employee has direct control over, i.e. not dependent on things like overall team success or company stock price.
A better conversation would be: "In order to get raise X% you need to do A, B, and C. In order to get raise Y% you also need to do D and E. We will checkpoint 4 times per year on progress, and you'll know well in advance if you've made it." Where A-E are things the employee has direct control over, i.e. not dependent on things like overall team success or company stock price.
That would imply the hiring process didn't select a perfect match 100% of the time, which is a slap in the face of a large budget item, that's not going to happen.
The fiction must be maintained at all costs that the employee was the perfect fit at hiring time; neither overqualified aka too expensive or underqualified aka the manager screwed up.
The fiction must be maintained at all costs that the employee was the perfect fit at hiring time; neither overqualified aka too expensive or underqualified aka the manager screwed up.
Not at all.
People change, companies change, the business changes. The person you needed when you hired him might not be the exact person you'll need in a year, but a good manager will first see if that person can grow into a new role instead of firing him and hiring someone else.
People change, companies change, the business changes. The person you needed when you hired him might not be the exact person you'll need in a year, but a good manager will first see if that person can grow into a new role instead of firing him and hiring someone else.
Exactly. I've never worked somewhere that gave >5% raises, yet simply switching jobs has gotten me a >8% raise every time.
I've stayed beyond what pay would incentivize at almost every company I've worked at because I liked the culture/coworkers/etc., but workplaces are fragile ecosystems, and culture/coworkers/etc. can drastically change with surprising speed.
I've stayed beyond what pay would incentivize at almost every company I've worked at because I liked the culture/coworkers/etc., but workplaces are fragile ecosystems, and culture/coworkers/etc. can drastically change with surprising speed.
It's worth noting that people are staying at their jobs for longer periods of time, not shorter. [1][2]
"As of January 2016, the typical U.S. worker had been in their current job for 4.2 years, up from 3.5 years in 1983, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
There has been a significant slowdown in the speed at which people are changing jobs.
Younger people today are also not showing any indication of switching jobs more frequently than in the past:
"Millennial workers are as likely to stay with their current employers as members of Generation X were when they were young adults back in 2000, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Roughly 63% of millennial had been with their employer 13 months or more as of last years, versus 60% of Generation-Xers in 2000. Additionally, a fifth of millennials have been with their company for five years or longer, again in line with Generation X."
[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/12/27/how-l...
[2] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/young-americans-stay-in-job...
"As of January 2016, the typical U.S. worker had been in their current job for 4.2 years, up from 3.5 years in 1983, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
There has been a significant slowdown in the speed at which people are changing jobs.
Younger people today are also not showing any indication of switching jobs more frequently than in the past:
"Millennial workers are as likely to stay with their current employers as members of Generation X were when they were young adults back in 2000, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Roughly 63% of millennial had been with their employer 13 months or more as of last years, versus 60% of Generation-Xers in 2000. Additionally, a fifth of millennials have been with their company for five years or longer, again in line with Generation X."
[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/12/27/how-l...
[2] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/young-americans-stay-in-job...
I wonder if there is bias there in the moment in time chosen. Having been a genX young professional in 2000, my impression at the time was that the rocketing Internet bubble caused a lot of people to switch jobs much faster than they had done even just five years earlier (lots of Internet companies were recruiting heavily and plucking people out of other jobs because the demand for new hires was so high. Lots of rapidly growing companies with stock options to offer made for an employees' market). After the bubble collapsed, jobs were much harder to come by, which in turn meant job tenures were longer. It would be interesting to compare today to 1997 or 2007, rather than 2000.
I'm a "young folk" who worked at a company that implemented his Tour of Duty. However, my "tour supervision" was so incredibly bad, I was way better off jumping ship after not even 11 months.
This is why I find contracting to be ideal. Minus the night mare of health insurance. I'm in for X months, and it may be renewed. I know what I'm getting in. If they don't deliver on their end, i.e. the project is canned, or a death march. Either way I have an out.
I also structured my year so I did two contracts. Allocating about 10 months then took two months off. I would like to be loyal to a company. But have found the "lying through their teeth" to be apt. I tried full time again. But the end result is I regressed my career by about five years. If it weren't for the health insurance I don't really see a point to full time. It's all project based, deliver something and move on.
I also structured my year so I did two contracts. Allocating about 10 months then took two months off. I would like to be loyal to a company. But have found the "lying through their teeth" to be apt. I tried full time again. But the end result is I regressed my career by about five years. If it weren't for the health insurance I don't really see a point to full time. It's all project based, deliver something and move on.
One idea I've heard is that Wall Street has solved this problem in the form of bonuses.
If companies want their talent to stick around, a bonus structure would go along way, especially since a quick job move can get a person $10k bump.
If companies want their talent to stick around, a bonus structure would go along way, especially since a quick job move can get a person $10k bump.
Don't many of the big tech companies have this with their stock options?
And I've heard that, with the Wall Street approach, your bonus is the lion's share of your income for the year. If true, I don't know if I'd like to go to that, given the propensity for letting people go in this field.
And I've heard that, with the Wall Street approach, your bonus is the lion's share of your income for the year. If true, I don't know if I'd like to go to that, given the propensity for letting people go in this field.
After three zero-value share options schemes in a row (two ran out of money, the third is still going but doesn't look like it'll ever be publicly traded), I now regard share options as worth less than the time it takes to sign the paperwork.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Wall Street bonuses are cash. Your options are restricted and the value is very unknowable.
A stock option is a lottery ticket (some are better odds than others). Notice how the wall street guys that deal with probabilities in financial instruments all day long in a professional capacity expect bonuses in cash.
I think at the big tech companies, it's comparable to cash but favored even more so because (if you hold them for a year) you can take capital gains (15-20%) on them instead of paying 40%+ tax. I don't think s73ver wasn't talking about startups that are pre-IPO.
I think this only applies at companies not using RSUs. Since I think you get taxed immediately (no capital gains) with RSUs.
I think this only applies at companies not using RSUs. Since I think you get taxed immediately (no capital gains) with RSUs.
No when you receive the RSU unit or exercise your option, it's taxed as income. Whatever gains you make after that event is taxed as capital gains, like any other stock.
A lot of that may be deferred, depends on the firm.
I knew a guy at a fund who told me he hated the place, but he was locked in for the next 5 years due to several million being deferred. No motivation at all, the guy sounded very jaded.
I knew a guy at a fund who told me he hated the place, but he was locked in for the next 5 years due to several million being deferred. No motivation at all, the guy sounded very jaded.
The problem with stock options is that the majority of their value is not directly tied with your individual performance. You can be a stellar employee but your options could turn out to be worthless. Likewise, you could be extremely mediocre but end up winning the lottery and your options become very valuable.
With wall street bonuses, as long as you perform well, you get rewarded for it. Its a much more "meritocratic" system, there are cases when a hedge fund will lose money overall but individuals within the fund still get large bonuses because the areas they were responsible for did well.
With wall street bonuses, as long as you perform well, you get rewarded for it. Its a much more "meritocratic" system, there are cases when a hedge fund will lose money overall but individuals within the fund still get large bonuses because the areas they were responsible for did well.
I view it more akin to a military contract. You will serve X years then get stock.
What's to stop them from terminating the contract a month shy, because of "performance reasons"? Unfortunately this setup would require quite a lot of trust in the industry, which, quite frankly, it has not earned.
https://www.cnet.com/news/zynga-to-employees-give-back-our-s...
If I stayed at a place a few extra years in anticipation of an IPO, this would have me seeing red.
If I stayed at a place a few extra years in anticipation of an IPO, this would have me seeing red.
No I'm completely in agreement with this. There are two types the Restricted units. Which vest slowly over several years. So if you're terminated early. You may get a percentage of the promised stock.
Then there is the startup model. Where you're given stock of varying grades.
Stock always felt like a gamble. Give me enough for bills + saving, then treat the stock as a bonus. Not core compensation.
Then there is the startup model. Where you're given stock of varying grades.
Stock always felt like a gamble. Give me enough for bills + saving, then treat the stock as a bonus. Not core compensation.
At least in Germany this would open the company to a lawsuit for wrongful termination (unless you worked there less than 6 months I think). At-will employment throws this out the windows, of course.
I think for this to work, we'd have to have some form of Universal Healthcare in place. Right now, if you don't have employer sponsored health insurance (and I doubt many employers would want to offer that to people who are simply doing a "tour of duty" [yeah, there should be a better name for that]), insurance isn't good. It became better with the ACA, but I don't know how hopeful I'd be that it sticks around.
I fully support that idea - in fact, your example is pretty much where I am at the moment: marketer who wants to start a company, working for another startup to deliver more strategy and system development. It'd be great if it was on a tour-of-duty type contract where someone could come in, deliver on their area, and then transition out onto the the next thing when the company lifestage has been fulfilled feeling satisfied the role had been done.
There are two problems to this in my mind: people are always scrambling for the rare "experienced" people because too little training happens. The other problem is that the best project work I have seen have come from experienced, cohesive teams. It's true that many experienced teams are not cohesive or even sometimes skilled. But I think continuity helps.
A company wonders why their development team is performing and they decide they don't have hotshots, or need more "hotshots" they can recruit from whatever company they think is a good place they can poach from. Communicating to the team that if you want to grow or be promoted, switch jobs. So a lot of money is spent and chaos created to get the results that a solid, if not brilliant or terribly experienced team, could accomplish.
A company wonders why their development team is performing and they decide they don't have hotshots, or need more "hotshots" they can recruit from whatever company they think is a good place they can poach from. Communicating to the team that if you want to grow or be promoted, switch jobs. So a lot of money is spent and chaos created to get the results that a solid, if not brilliant or terribly experienced team, could accomplish.
This has been observed repeatedly, Fred Brooks wrote a whole book about it. Everyone says they've read and agree with "The Mythical Man Month" but when schedules loom the first reaction is always to throw more people at it. An expensive hot-shot added late in the project can grind the gears much worse than a green trainee.
> For example, maybe a marketer wants to start a company, but an existing company needs a senior marketer to strategize and execute the plan for its next segment. The company could give the marketer opportunities to meet funding sources and receive education about company building, while the marketer can whole-heartedly deliver on agreed objectives for the time period of two years.
That seems like it would be incredibly difficult to match up needs, considering how hard employers say it is to fill jobs and how hard many people find it to land a job. There's already serious matching issues with a relatively simple system for hiring.
That seems like it would be incredibly difficult to match up needs, considering how hard employers say it is to fill jobs and how hard many people find it to land a job. There's already serious matching issues with a relatively simple system for hiring.
Fine if the employer pays upfront or into a trust. If you sign on exclusively then you need to know the other side is committed, we know the military is committed... tech company x, not so much.
I am happily at the 2.5 year mark at my first real job out of college, and my employer-sponsored master's degree courses begin this fall. Couldn't be happier.
Higher education is a great place to work.
Higher education is a great place to work.
Again, here's HN with a Silicon Valley bias.
This is not an unavoidable trend and is not global. Japan's work market isn't exactly like this. Germany's Mittelstands are eating the world precisely by buckling this trend. Northern Italy (around Milan) has an artisan industry that thrives on skilled artisans working for small cottage industries, etc.
If you want workers skilled in a very niche and crucial technology then you desperately need to invent strategies to avoid this. This is particularly true to technologies that rely in manual work or manipulating precision machines such as mechanics, clothing, specialty food (e.g: fine cheeses and wines), etc.
A better discussion are the side effects of becoming an economy that lost manufacturing skills, such as Silicon Valley and Great Britain.
This is not an unavoidable trend and is not global. Japan's work market isn't exactly like this. Germany's Mittelstands are eating the world precisely by buckling this trend. Northern Italy (around Milan) has an artisan industry that thrives on skilled artisans working for small cottage industries, etc.
If you want workers skilled in a very niche and crucial technology then you desperately need to invent strategies to avoid this. This is particularly true to technologies that rely in manual work or manipulating precision machines such as mechanics, clothing, specialty food (e.g: fine cheeses and wines), etc.
A better discussion are the side effects of becoming an economy that lost manufacturing skills, such as Silicon Valley and Great Britain.
> Again, here's HN with a Silicon Valley bias.
It's explicitly an article about the microeconomic impact of neoliberalism, so discusses places where that holds particular sway such as, as you mention, USA and U.K.
You are correct that it is less appropriate to a place such as Germany where Ordoliberalismus is a more popular model. But the article doesn't pretend to discuss this.
It's explicitly an article about the microeconomic impact of neoliberalism, so discusses places where that holds particular sway such as, as you mention, USA and U.K.
You are correct that it is less appropriate to a place such as Germany where Ordoliberalismus is a more popular model. But the article doesn't pretend to discuss this.
>"Again, here's HN with a Silicon Valley bias"
Did you miss the opening sentence where the author states:
"In the early 1990s, career advice in the United States changed."
So yes the article is specifically talking about the US economy and not the global economy.
>"Germany's Mittelstands are eating the world precisely by buckling this trend."
The article is also referring specifically to publicly traded companies. I think that's pretty clear when the author states:
"In general, to keep stock prices high ..."
Germany's Mittelstands are largely family-owned companies, they are also not part of the US economy, ditto for some artisans in Northern Italy.
Did you miss the opening sentence where the author states:
"In the early 1990s, career advice in the United States changed."
So yes the article is specifically talking about the US economy and not the global economy.
>"Germany's Mittelstands are eating the world precisely by buckling this trend."
The article is also referring specifically to publicly traded companies. I think that's pretty clear when the author states:
"In general, to keep stock prices high ..."
Germany's Mittelstands are largely family-owned companies, they are also not part of the US economy, ditto for some artisans in Northern Italy.
I was going to say that this isn't new nor limited to the SF tech industry. It has been common throughout the US for at least 30 years.
> manual work or manipulating precision machines such as mechanics, clothing, specialty food (e.g: fine cheeses and wines), etc.
computers count in your list of precision machines, right?
computers count in your list of precision machines, right?
The key issue is how niche, rare and unreplaceable the skill is.
If your skill is MS-Office then you're not niche and you're easy to replace.
If your skill is Maya, Autocad or Oracle then you are a little harder to replace and you can see more stable jobs.
If your skill is MS-Office then you're not niche and you're easy to replace.
If your skill is Maya, Autocad or Oracle then you are a little harder to replace and you can see more stable jobs.
> If your skill is Maya, Autocad or Oracle
Maybe not Oracle, but most gigs related to Maya were shipped off to Canada yeas ago.
Maybe not Oracle, but most gigs related to Maya were shipped off to Canada yeas ago.
I really think trying to reason about labour markets using pure theory in a Hayek-Friedman-esque way is a dead end.
It's the 2nd time in two days I made the recommendation, but throwing Ronald Coase into the Neoliberal canon would help a lot. He was a "chicago school" academic from the same intellectual family, so it shouldn't be too much of a culture shock.
He wan't like "progressives" in the "evidence based" sense but he also objected to first principles theory like Friedman. Instead, he tried to find persistent phenomenon and theorized about why they exist.There was always a link to the real world.
Anyway, the pure theory approach leads to a general conclusion/assumption that markets are the same. The market for labour, barbie dolls, whatever.
IRL, labour markets are obviously very different than most other markets. It's inflexible. People stay in jobs a long time and most employers actively try to lower their average turnover. Why?
If flexibility is so wonderfully efficient, why do almost all companies have such a big inflexible workforce? Why is the market for labour so different in practice than the market for oral hygiene products and services.
Why isn't Wall street staffed by day labourers or SV products built by quarterly contractors? You have to look past pure theory to answer these questions. I think you probably have to look beyond economics, or at least to its fringes (like behavioral economics).
It's the 2nd time in two days I made the recommendation, but throwing Ronald Coase into the Neoliberal canon would help a lot. He was a "chicago school" academic from the same intellectual family, so it shouldn't be too much of a culture shock.
He wan't like "progressives" in the "evidence based" sense but he also objected to first principles theory like Friedman. Instead, he tried to find persistent phenomenon and theorized about why they exist.There was always a link to the real world.
Anyway, the pure theory approach leads to a general conclusion/assumption that markets are the same. The market for labour, barbie dolls, whatever.
IRL, labour markets are obviously very different than most other markets. It's inflexible. People stay in jobs a long time and most employers actively try to lower their average turnover. Why?
If flexibility is so wonderfully efficient, why do almost all companies have such a big inflexible workforce? Why is the market for labour so different in practice than the market for oral hygiene products and services.
Why isn't Wall street staffed by day labourers or SV products built by quarterly contractors? You have to look past pure theory to answer these questions. I think you probably have to look beyond economics, or at least to its fringes (like behavioral economics).
Transaction costs.
Both the employee (search costs, hours in the day) and employer (job training, search costs, process knowledge) incur far greater transaction costs than you see in commodity markets. Business models that lower transaction costs (e.g. "gig economy" middlemen) tend to lead to the emergence of highly flexible labor markets. This currently only applies to jobs that don't require a high level of nontransferrable knowledge, because nobody has yet invented an "I know Kung-Fu" machine that can transplant a company's 5 year marketing strategy into the head of a day-laborer CMO.
None of this requires going outside pretty basic economic theory.
Edit: I just realized this sounds like I'm explaining Coase theorem to the person who cited Coase. It's not for you, it's for others reading your comment. I'm disagreeing with your conclusion, not your premises.
Both the employee (search costs, hours in the day) and employer (job training, search costs, process knowledge) incur far greater transaction costs than you see in commodity markets. Business models that lower transaction costs (e.g. "gig economy" middlemen) tend to lead to the emergence of highly flexible labor markets. This currently only applies to jobs that don't require a high level of nontransferrable knowledge, because nobody has yet invented an "I know Kung-Fu" machine that can transplant a company's 5 year marketing strategy into the head of a day-laborer CMO.
None of this requires going outside pretty basic economic theory.
Edit: I just realized this sounds like I'm explaining Coase theorem to the person who cited Coase. It's not for you, it's for others reading your comment. I'm disagreeing with your conclusion, not your premises.
There are labor market overhead costs that are often easily overlooked/under-appreciated too: tying one's health care, as one obvious example, to one's current employer necessarily undermines liquidity in the labor market.
But more importantly: the overall inability in current culture to have "not working" as a legitimate and survivable labor position (for the majority of the labor force, at least) also threatens the liquidity of the labor market. Employers may fire at will, certainly, but as a laborer you can much more rarely quit at will without threatening your establishment in the labor market (Americans often question holes in resumes and may see them as moral failings), and your possible (even short-term) survival (health care, shelter, food).
But more importantly: the overall inability in current culture to have "not working" as a legitimate and survivable labor position (for the majority of the labor force, at least) also threatens the liquidity of the labor market. Employers may fire at will, certainly, but as a laborer you can much more rarely quit at will without threatening your establishment in the labor market (Americans often question holes in resumes and may see them as moral failings), and your possible (even short-term) survival (health care, shelter, food).
Yes, the labor market is distorted precisely because it's not a negotiation between equals. Costs and benefits are disproportionately pushed onto the party with less leverage.
:)
That's definitely a very Ronald Coasian answer! We should start that lobby to get Ronald Coase accepted into neoliberalism or novoliberalism or whatever comes next.
I purposely didn't give the answer because I think there are possibly other explanations besides transaction costs and regulation (probably the more friedman-esque go-to). The reason I like his papers a lot is because of his questions. He has a Darwinian sort of approach. Why does the moth have such a strange beak. Lets look for the matching orchid.
I think (don't know, speculation) labour markets are special in other ways, not just high transaction costs. A company is a society. People have loyalties and identity tied into it. We are a social animal in very fundamental ways. Our psyche handles the intricate nuances of human cooperation by default. Things happen in a team of people that know each-other, like each other or just think of themselves as part of a group that I think are fundamental to this question. I don't think transaction costs sums it up. I suspect group-oriented work plays a bigger role. Also employer-specific skillsets, though that probably can be lumped into transaction costs.
Incidentally, I feel that "basic economic theory" tends to acknowledge transaction costs mostly as a caveat to basic models: "assuming no/low transaction costs," more often that actually accounting for it. I think this is also true for "economist hat" thinking. Coase complained about this a lot. Coase theorem is (at least to me) taught as a theory about bargaining and contracts solving problems like externalities. For Coase, the caveat was the "theorem." In the absence of transactions costs blah blah pareto optimals. externalities... He thought it was obvious that the pareto efficiency doesn't actually happen in reality, externalities continue. Therefore transaction costs must be high.
To me, this is the big difference between Friedman and Coase. Friedman's a pure theory guy. The main opposition to this view today is a theory-less econometrics/evidence based "wonkish" analysis. Coase is a middle ground. Theories make predictions. In some cases they are good. In cases where they're not, we need theoretical expansion. Neoliberals tend to reach for "distortion" as an explanation far too often, and selectively IMO.
(we're really in the weeds here, sorry)
That's definitely a very Ronald Coasian answer! We should start that lobby to get Ronald Coase accepted into neoliberalism or novoliberalism or whatever comes next.
I purposely didn't give the answer because I think there are possibly other explanations besides transaction costs and regulation (probably the more friedman-esque go-to). The reason I like his papers a lot is because of his questions. He has a Darwinian sort of approach. Why does the moth have such a strange beak. Lets look for the matching orchid.
I think (don't know, speculation) labour markets are special in other ways, not just high transaction costs. A company is a society. People have loyalties and identity tied into it. We are a social animal in very fundamental ways. Our psyche handles the intricate nuances of human cooperation by default. Things happen in a team of people that know each-other, like each other or just think of themselves as part of a group that I think are fundamental to this question. I don't think transaction costs sums it up. I suspect group-oriented work plays a bigger role. Also employer-specific skillsets, though that probably can be lumped into transaction costs.
Incidentally, I feel that "basic economic theory" tends to acknowledge transaction costs mostly as a caveat to basic models: "assuming no/low transaction costs," more often that actually accounting for it. I think this is also true for "economist hat" thinking. Coase complained about this a lot. Coase theorem is (at least to me) taught as a theory about bargaining and contracts solving problems like externalities. For Coase, the caveat was the "theorem." In the absence of transactions costs blah blah pareto optimals. externalities... He thought it was obvious that the pareto efficiency doesn't actually happen in reality, externalities continue. Therefore transaction costs must be high.
To me, this is the big difference between Friedman and Coase. Friedman's a pure theory guy. The main opposition to this view today is a theory-less econometrics/evidence based "wonkish" analysis. Coase is a middle ground. Theories make predictions. In some cases they are good. In cases where they're not, we need theoretical expansion. Neoliberals tend to reach for "distortion" as an explanation far too often, and selectively IMO.
(we're really in the weeds here, sorry)
I like your "in the weeds" thoughts. There are a lot of intagibles that get wrapped up in employment, and many of them are very personal and contextual. Such things are incredibly resistant to meaningful quantification -- often the individual might even struggle to explain the dynamics that led to certain choices. A lot of food for thought here... thanks for the post!
Huh. I think this highlights the fact (that I didn't realize until now, really) that I never really considered Friedman an "economist" in the strictest sense — in my view he's more of a normative political theorist, who uses economic models combined with empirical evidence from history to draw conclusions about policy. Though I'm politically & philosophically simpatico, I've never really looked to Friedman (or Hayek, for that matter) for practical economics.
Friedman was a professional economist all his life. His most famous area was on monetary policy which was very politically important in that era of hyperinflation disasters.
But, economics bleeds into political science readily. Marx was an economist. Hayek (mentioned in the article) is most famous for political pamphleteering, but he was certainly an economist too. Both he and Friedman got the nobel prize for their economics.
Neoliberalism is very much an economics-politics hybrid movement.
But, economics bleeds into political science readily. Marx was an economist. Hayek (mentioned in the article) is most famous for political pamphleteering, but he was certainly an economist too. Both he and Friedman got the nobel prize for their economics.
Neoliberalism is very much an economics-politics hybrid movement.
Transaction costs.
Of course. And I'm surprised that the post you're replying to didn't come out and say that, since he brought Ron Coase into the conversation. I mean, for Coase, the effect on markets of non-trivial transaction costs was really the core of his work, at least as I understand it.
Of course. And I'm surprised that the post you're replying to didn't come out and say that, since he brought Ron Coase into the conversation. I mean, for Coase, the effect on markets of non-trivial transaction costs was really the core of his work, at least as I understand it.
Would you mind if I told you that you're not even wrong?
First, neither Hayek nor Friedman were well known for contributions to labor market research. Hayek was well known for his critiques of central planning while Friedman was famous for his contributions to monetary theory. But my point is that these guys aren't "labor market economists", so taking an issue with them over labor market issues would be barking up the wrong tree.
Plus, I don't see why "pure theory" should push anyone anywhere: constraints on model-building are actually quite weak. On the other hand, labor market models haven't become more like consumer goods market models over the years. If anything, the opposite has happened: labor markets are unique among other markets because of stuff like human capital, efficiency wages, signalling, gift exchange, searching costs, internal labor markets, non-cognitive abilities, poaching externalities, hedonic benefits of work, etc. This list isn't exhaustive.
There are very fair and well-documented economic reasons why present day firms might want to put more money into their employees than a 19th century landowner hiring day-laborers during harvest would. Firms benefit from having (and keeping!) a skilled and well-motivated labor force, and so they act accordingly. Trying to look "beyond" economics if you haven't heard of any of those is just looking past it.
First, neither Hayek nor Friedman were well known for contributions to labor market research. Hayek was well known for his critiques of central planning while Friedman was famous for his contributions to monetary theory. But my point is that these guys aren't "labor market economists", so taking an issue with them over labor market issues would be barking up the wrong tree.
Plus, I don't see why "pure theory" should push anyone anywhere: constraints on model-building are actually quite weak. On the other hand, labor market models haven't become more like consumer goods market models over the years. If anything, the opposite has happened: labor markets are unique among other markets because of stuff like human capital, efficiency wages, signalling, gift exchange, searching costs, internal labor markets, non-cognitive abilities, poaching externalities, hedonic benefits of work, etc. This list isn't exhaustive.
There are very fair and well-documented economic reasons why present day firms might want to put more money into their employees than a 19th century landowner hiring day-laborers during harvest would. Firms benefit from having (and keeping!) a skilled and well-motivated labor force, and so they act accordingly. Trying to look "beyond" economics if you haven't heard of any of those is just looking past it.
They were both pretty wide, but I disagree. I think both touched on labour markets quite a bit. For example, "Friedman's" best known policy is negative income tax (earned income tax whatnots).
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_unemployment http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Spring2008_2
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_unemployment http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Spring2008_2
Frankly, I think that in order for something to "touch on labor markets quite a bit", they'd have to at least dedicate a book to it. In the current day, David Card and Orley Ashenfelter might be said to have touched on labor markets quite a bit.
Hayek and Friedman? Not so much.
Hayek and Friedman? Not so much.
Anyway, the pure theory approach leads to a general conclusion/assumption that markets are the same. The market for labour, barbie dolls, whatever.
Go to your whiteboard and draw supply-and-demand curves for a couple derpy markets of widgets and other goods. Then, draw one for labor. Note how the curves are reversed; if you draw it "backwards", then it goes back to behaving like a normal market. Now, try adding employment policies, like minimum wages, to the market; what happens to the curves?
"Pure theory" or Hayek / neoliberal theories don't seem to be just about perfect S/D curves and reasoning with S/D curves doesn't prove anything, it's just a visualization tool. I didn't understand why the curves are reversed ?
To be fair, the labor market does have some gotchas. In particular, there's the phenomenon of "price stickiness", which is a big deal in labor (i.e., wage stickiness), but doesn't have nearly so much effect with other goods.
Don't bring Keynes into this! We're way to far in the weeds already.
I've been self employed since 2006. In a way, consultants are the greatest job quitters around and the most flexible. I had so many customers/jobs in these 11 years. I didn't even have to quit and they didn't have to fire me.
About one of the points of the post, companies often chose the fashionable tools of the year because of buzzwording, ease of recruiting and because they build the CVs of managers too. Would you manage either a bunch of VB or Elixir developers today? So I'm working on Python and Elixir now, plus a Ruby pet project waiting for less busy times.
About one of the points of the post, companies often chose the fashionable tools of the year because of buzzwording, ease of recruiting and because they build the CVs of managers too. Would you manage either a bunch of VB or Elixir developers today? So I'm working on Python and Elixir now, plus a Ruby pet project waiting for less busy times.
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"[...] thinking of themselves as the CEO of Me, Inc; and to survive in the neoliberal world of work, the CEO of Me, Inc must be a quitter."
I fail to see how that's a bad thing. I've never quite understood this notion of tying your fate, your welfare and your livelihood to a single company.
By not thinking of yourself as the CEO of Me Inc. you ultimately become a commodity for employers to do with as they please. At the very least there will be a power differential where the employer will always gain the upper hand in negotiations.
Seeing and marketing yourself as a service provider in a market economy instead will allow you to focus on creating value in lieu of trading time for money. This can be beneficial to both parties. This whole idea of using 'time spent' as a surrogate measure for 'value created' is a large contributing factor to waste in modern economies.
I fail to see how that's a bad thing. I've never quite understood this notion of tying your fate, your welfare and your livelihood to a single company.
By not thinking of yourself as the CEO of Me Inc. you ultimately become a commodity for employers to do with as they please. At the very least there will be a power differential where the employer will always gain the upper hand in negotiations.
Seeing and marketing yourself as a service provider in a market economy instead will allow you to focus on creating value in lieu of trading time for money. This can be beneficial to both parties. This whole idea of using 'time spent' as a surrogate measure for 'value created' is a large contributing factor to waste in modern economies.
I fail to see how that's a bad thing.
For example, economic downturns will cause faster rises in unemployment, leading to faster drops in consumer spending.
And employers are going to see lower returns from investing in training - meaning colleges might need even more focus on applied skills.
Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two.
> Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two.
I guess that's somewhat true. But I feel that for companies handling more complex topics (not just the new 'AI deep learning on big data with hadoop on rails in the cloud' startup), experts are hired with the understanding that both the work is interesting and it would be a long-term project with long-term benefits.
This is all, of course, without counting academia as possibly the ultimate example of long-term hiring with high-risk, high-reward returns.
I guess that's somewhat true. But I feel that for companies handling more complex topics (not just the new 'AI deep learning on big data with hadoop on rails in the cloud' startup), experts are hired with the understanding that both the work is interesting and it would be a long-term project with long-term benefits.
This is all, of course, without counting academia as possibly the ultimate example of long-term hiring with high-risk, high-reward returns.
The article doesn't condem this per se, simply discusses the negative consequences for companies and people working in them (look at the Java/C++ case).
I don't think it's safe to assume that the big company will take care of you forever but it's equally disastrous that the metrics of value have become so one sided.
I don't think it's safe to assume that the big company will take care of you forever but it's equally disastrous that the metrics of value have become so one sided.
This is very noticeable in London. It's a relative rarity to find a dev that's worked anywhere longer than a couple years. The simple economics of it is that until a certain salary, there is no easier way to ratchet up the pay scale then to use the negotiating leverage of having a job to get the next one on better terms. Meanwhile, the supply situation for devs is such that employers have to accept the situation. I'm not sure it's an employer led effect at all; especially given the size of the SME scene in London.
> I'm not sure it's an employer led effect at all; especially given the size of the SME scene in London.
In the US at least, my experience has been that most employers would rather let a good dev walk than raise his/her salary to match the going market rate, even if said dev has copious amounts of domain knowledge, works well with the team, regularly receives positive feedback on performance reviews, and consistently ships high-quality code.
This is sad to me, but I also think employees are right to vote with their feet and seek jobs elsewhere in such circumstances. Maybe the high turnover will raise some red flags and cause the employer to implement changes. If not, then these employees are smart to leave what I think will prove to be a sinking ship in the long run.
In the US at least, my experience has been that most employers would rather let a good dev walk than raise his/her salary to match the going market rate, even if said dev has copious amounts of domain knowledge, works well with the team, regularly receives positive feedback on performance reviews, and consistently ships high-quality code.
This is sad to me, but I also think employees are right to vote with their feet and seek jobs elsewhere in such circumstances. Maybe the high turnover will raise some red flags and cause the employer to implement changes. If not, then these employees are smart to leave what I think will prove to be a sinking ship in the long run.
In my experience, the executives in companies don't even consider that, the only consider the total cost of development. Whether it's a good developer or a bad one doesn't even enter their thinking because they are so far removed from it. They don't have nuanced thinking in those regards or long term planning what so ever. It's quite old fashioned.
It's up to individual managers to stick their necks out, and they most likely won't. They are told to reduce costs and they do. Middle managers are trying to hold on for dear life, their future prospects are much worse than a developer in high demand.
My experience is working at small, great companies that get acquired and the acquiring company usually wrecks everything.
But hey, if you need justification to not stay at a company, there it is. Unfortunately for me, I'm just about capped. Contracting or building a company is the only way up from here on. Having survived the dot.bomb, I can tell you both have a lot of risk that needs to be calculated.
It's up to individual managers to stick their necks out, and they most likely won't. They are told to reduce costs and they do. Middle managers are trying to hold on for dear life, their future prospects are much worse than a developer in high demand.
My experience is working at small, great companies that get acquired and the acquiring company usually wrecks everything.
But hey, if you need justification to not stay at a company, there it is. Unfortunately for me, I'm just about capped. Contracting or building a company is the only way up from here on. Having survived the dot.bomb, I can tell you both have a lot of risk that needs to be calculated.
I'm reminded of the Netflix slide deck that was making the rounds, last year. Adjusting pay, yearly, based on the market value of the employee seems like an ideal solution to this problem. If you stay at a typical company for a year you might get a 5% raise and have some seniority and relationships under your belt. This model tends to undervalue the true costs of replacing you and the likelihood that there's another company willing to pay 10%+ over your current pay.
In fact you can pay under the market, a bit, if you treat your people like humans, develop them, stretch them and insist on a positive working environment (no rudeness, fair dos for everyone even if they look, talk or smell different). People will not switch away for minimal reward and considerable risk of being landed in a dead end with a bunch of sociopaths. Also many people realise that their current track has 5/10 years of seniority to build - and then that's your lot. The option of switching to management or to tracks like architecture or even non-functional work like finance or intellectual property is attractive to many people.
Well said. Also think that the cost of replacement is usually not included in decision calculations at almost any point in time. Perhaps paying N above market may actually be the cheaper thing to do.
London seems like a place that could easily attract amazing developers simply by raising salaries. The money is there...it is the fucking financial capital of the world (well maybe 2nd after NYC). If the executives at UK financial companies wouldn't artificially hold down salaries, there could probably be a lot more innovation and a much better marketplace for tech workers.
Yea, seriously. I've gotten multiple recruiter spam emails that offer the equivalent less than half of my current salary for an engineering job in London. No, thanks.
Has it occurred to you that they hold down salaries, because they can? Apparently there are many people willing to work for that money.
The word "market" assumes that each party can walk away from the deal.
But if you are the sole bread-winner and jobless, you are not in a position to walk away.
The word "market" assumes that each party can walk away from the deal.
But if you are the sole bread-winner and jobless, you are not in a position to walk away.
> Has it occurred to you that they hold down salaries, because they can?
Can we please have a conversation without the snark? Thank you.
> Apparently there are many people willing to work for that money.
I understand that they probably do find workers willing to work that wage. But what I'm stating is: they can have much more, a thriving hub of tech innovation much like SV, if they were to pay more, and attract talent from around the world, like SV does today. That talent and ecosystem would probably help them a lot more overall.
Can we please have a conversation without the snark? Thank you.
> Apparently there are many people willing to work for that money.
I understand that they probably do find workers willing to work that wage. But what I'm stating is: they can have much more, a thriving hub of tech innovation much like SV, if they were to pay more, and attract talent from around the world, like SV does today. That talent and ecosystem would probably help them a lot more overall.
There is more to creating "another SV" than just paying more, and it is quite complex and not precisely measurable.
If you are interested, The Economist had a cover story on this a couple of years ago, explaining it much better than I ever could.
If you are interested, The Economist had a cover story on this a couple of years ago, explaining it much better than I ever could.
Sure, but pm90's point is still a good one (as someone who's worked for tech companies in both markets).
But how is it that there is always another company willing to pay more? Do companies hire devs with X years of experience without planning to pay more for X+1 years of experience?
They will pay you the range you ask for. If Joe is offered a job at 50k but he does not know the position range is 50 - 70k, he might accept it. Joe now has a job making 50k a year with the potential to earn 3% raises annually. Bob might be offered the same position, but right from the beginning he has indicated he expects to earn 67k or more, they will offer him 67k.
The company will hire you for as little as they can. Which is logical for the company. Often there is a range but the employee will not know it unless they insist on asking for what they perceive they are worth.
Lately I have seen a trend where people wont even ask the salary until they have interviewed because they don't want to appear rude. I just don't get it. You should provide your salary expectations prior to reaching the interview stage otherwise you are potentially wasting your time.
The company will hire you for as little as they can. Which is logical for the company. Often there is a range but the employee will not know it unless they insist on asking for what they perceive they are worth.
Lately I have seen a trend where people wont even ask the salary until they have interviewed because they don't want to appear rude. I just don't get it. You should provide your salary expectations prior to reaching the interview stage otherwise you are potentially wasting your time.
> The company will hire you for as little as they can. Which is logical for the company.
I know this logic is common, but I'm not at all sure it's true. Hiring at the minimum you can is a major source of turnover, at least in high-turnover industries like software. If someone is work 50k-70k and you offer them 50k, there's a real risk that they'll get a recruiter calling in 8 months talking about 70k. Hiring is expensive, both directly (several months salary in costs?) and indirectly (repeated ramp-up periods and a loss of institutional knowledge), which makes this into a serious false economy.
I've seen several companies get themselves into real trouble by striking too many 'good' salary deals. They ended up serving as springboards for people who didn't yet know their own value, and losing all their hires within a year or two. Well, almost all - the ones who stuck around were often the less-capable hires they'd overvalued in the first place!
I know this logic is common, but I'm not at all sure it's true. Hiring at the minimum you can is a major source of turnover, at least in high-turnover industries like software. If someone is work 50k-70k and you offer them 50k, there's a real risk that they'll get a recruiter calling in 8 months talking about 70k. Hiring is expensive, both directly (several months salary in costs?) and indirectly (repeated ramp-up periods and a loss of institutional knowledge), which makes this into a serious false economy.
I've seen several companies get themselves into real trouble by striking too many 'good' salary deals. They ended up serving as springboards for people who didn't yet know their own value, and losing all their hires within a year or two. Well, almost all - the ones who stuck around were often the less-capable hires they'd overvalued in the first place!
I used to share the view that in a negotiation, never make the first offer. The fear is coming in way below as your example indicates. Over time, my attitude changed. I found that by constantly interviewing, I could get a feel for the local market, and have a much better idea of where the ceilings are.
For example over a few years and 3 jobs, I found that $120k was about the max for senior devs in my city and tech stack. When interviewing I would lead with "is 120k in the range for this position?". And getting that could sometimes be a stretch. When I found a company offering 10-15% above that, I took it. I knew they were desperate, and the work would probably suck (and I was right) but no overtime and lot's of vacation make up for it (for now).
For example over a few years and 3 jobs, I found that $120k was about the max for senior devs in my city and tech stack. When interviewing I would lead with "is 120k in the range for this position?". And getting that could sometimes be a stretch. When I found a company offering 10-15% above that, I took it. I knew they were desperate, and the work would probably suck (and I was right) but no overtime and lot's of vacation make up for it (for now).
That's just not how London works. It may be a cultural difference but a non-contractor candidate asking for salary during an interview is considered a big red flag.
I agree, salary should not be discussed during the interview, it should occur prior to the interview. It should take place with the hr rep. during the interview setup or initial contact conversation that way salary does not have to be discussed in the interview.
It does not have to be a detailed initial conversation, something as simple as "what is the salary range for this position, due to my current responsibilities and level I am looking for something in the range of x to y. Is that realistic?" HR will give you a yes or no, you say thank you and decide where to go from there.
It does not have to be a detailed initial conversation, something as simple as "what is the salary range for this position, due to my current responsibilities and level I am looking for something in the range of x to y. Is that realistic?" HR will give you a yes or no, you say thank you and decide where to go from there.
Yeah, I didn't make that clear, I don't ask that in the interview, but with HR or the person recruiting for the firm (before any interviews). One time had a recruiter lead me to believe the salary on offer was upto $X, then after interviewing and negotiating salary, found they would only go so high as $X - $Y. I declined and no one was happy with that situation.
You're agreeing, but not really. gncb was correctly stating that the red flag is asking too soon (the first interview) rather than the first interview being too late.
> Lately I have seen a trend where people wont even ask the salary until they have interviewed because they don't want to appear rude. I just don't get it.
This cuts both ways too. If a candidate asks the salary before the interview, many companies will perceive the candidate as not caring about the work, and being "only in it for the money".
And if a candidate doesn't wait until the interview to discuss money, they have very little to justify the average market-rate wage they're trying to convince the company to pay them.
This cuts both ways too. If a candidate asks the salary before the interview, many companies will perceive the candidate as not caring about the work, and being "only in it for the money".
And if a candidate doesn't wait until the interview to discuss money, they have very little to justify the average market-rate wage they're trying to convince the company to pay them.
> ...many companies will perceive the candidate as not caring about the work, and being "only in it for the money".
The owners, the shareholders, are "only in it for the money". It makes sense therefore that all other participants interacting with the company are also. Promulgating a behavior standard under the guise of propriety that doesn't align with the owners' position is shipping out an externality to everyone at the table who follows that standard, benefiting only the shareholders.
I'm not a fan of this approach to business myself, but that's the cards we've all been dealt, and until the system is changed, we learn how to play by the right rule book.
The owners, the shareholders, are "only in it for the money". It makes sense therefore that all other participants interacting with the company are also. Promulgating a behavior standard under the guise of propriety that doesn't align with the owners' position is shipping out an externality to everyone at the table who follows that standard, benefiting only the shareholders.
I'm not a fan of this approach to business myself, but that's the cards we've all been dealt, and until the system is changed, we learn how to play by the right rule book.
I don't worry so much about that. I'd hope in the modern world that everyone understands that no one really means everything they say when dancing around the "where do you see yourself in five years" kind of interview question.
My reason for not leading with salary is basically that I'm going to be asking them for the high end of what I hope I've accurately ascertained to be their range, and I'd rather the first impression I leave them with be "we have to get that guy" rather than "is he really worth what he's asking"?
Yes, it costs some time I suppose, but I find there are very few activities one can engage in that are more lucrative per hour than correctly doing a job hunt. I can eat the time if need be.
My reason for not leading with salary is basically that I'm going to be asking them for the high end of what I hope I've accurately ascertained to be their range, and I'd rather the first impression I leave them with be "we have to get that guy" rather than "is he really worth what he's asking"?
Yes, it costs some time I suppose, but I find there are very few activities one can engage in that are more lucrative per hour than correctly doing a job hunt. I can eat the time if need be.
If a company believes I'm only in it for the money, I'm likely to think that company is using "caring about the work" as a way to reduce my salary. Salary translates to investment. Caring about the work won't grant me another 100k at retirement.
The only reason to show that I care about the work and take potentially less salary is if I think the economy is going to take a turn for the worse and I need a job for 3-10 years to ride out the storm. In which case I have to take a lower salary, but at least I have a job. Remember, I can't know how much the company is able/willing to afford.
And just to clarify, not caring about the work doesn't mean doing a terrible job. It means giving them what I'm paid for, but I'm not going to go the extra mile for them (overtime) because there's no incentive to do so.
The only reason to show that I care about the work and take potentially less salary is if I think the economy is going to take a turn for the worse and I need a job for 3-10 years to ride out the storm. In which case I have to take a lower salary, but at least I have a job. Remember, I can't know how much the company is able/willing to afford.
And just to clarify, not caring about the work doesn't mean doing a terrible job. It means giving them what I'm paid for, but I'm not going to go the extra mile for them (overtime) because there's no incentive to do so.
I hear what you are saying and agree with you. A company though for the most part is "Only in it for the money" and I can't feed my family with work satisfaction. I would caution against working for a company that has a problem with me asking for the salary range. The entire point of a job is to earn money.
This is just my opinion though and is in no way a road map for others.
This is just my opinion though and is in no way a road map for others.
> Lately I have seen a trend where people wont even ask the salary until they have interviewed because they don't want to appear rude. I just don't get it. You should provide your salary expectations prior to reaching the interview stage otherwise you are potentially wasting your time.
I once asked an internal recruiter the salary (as to not waste each other's time) and he returned a tirade of abuse about me not clearly being a good fit if money is my only focus. The guy organises a few meetups as well, fair to say I'll avoid anything he touches at all costs.
Edit: if you publish/ let me know the the range, I'm happy to interview.
I once asked an internal recruiter the salary (as to not waste each other's time) and he returned a tirade of abuse about me not clearly being a good fit if money is my only focus. The guy organises a few meetups as well, fair to say I'll avoid anything he touches at all costs.
Edit: if you publish/ let me know the the range, I'm happy to interview.
Not sure X years of experience matters all that much. For example, Java dev goes to employer and adds Hadoop to her experience, then applies for other jobs for 10k more ambiently for a few months. Eventually nails one and packs her bags, and so on recursively.
Sometimes dev don't add anything at all and just go for more money because of change in condition. JS or mobile app dev is a great example. Nothing changed; they just became more demanded. Meanwhile, you can't match someones salary to the market every day of the week, so they leave.
From the employer side London is brutal.
Sometimes dev don't add anything at all and just go for more money because of change in condition. JS or mobile app dev is a great example. Nothing changed; they just became more demanded. Meanwhile, you can't match someones salary to the market every day of the week, so they leave.
From the employer side London is brutal.
What do devs get paid in London on average? I always had the impression, perhaps wrong, that software engineers seem underpaid in England relative to the US, even accounting for currency and cost of living and such (which, probably London is as bad as SF on that front).
(i've also gotten the impression that there's not the same level of cultural esteem for engineers and scientists and such in England, and that this might have something to do with it. also could be wrong or outdated.)
(i've also gotten the impression that there's not the same level of cultural esteem for engineers and scientists and such in England, and that this might have something to do with it. also could be wrong or outdated.)
No personal experience, but salaries in Europe seem, on the whole, utterly pathetic compared to the US, at least looking at listings. I don't get the impression London bucks this trend.
That being said, I moved to Europe and am pretty happy with where I'm at. It helped that my first job was with a company that had SF and Dublin offices, and I knew what the rate in SF was.
It's public sector and Ireland, but here's an example of a job paying €28k in Dublin that would be triple that in the states. Note the use of docx...
http://www.museum.ie/NationalMuseumIreland/media/Corporate-I...
That being said, I moved to Europe and am pretty happy with where I'm at. It helped that my first job was with a company that had SF and Dublin offices, and I knew what the rate in SF was.
It's public sector and Ireland, but here's an example of a job paying €28k in Dublin that would be triple that in the states. Note the use of docx...
http://www.museum.ie/NationalMuseumIreland/media/Corporate-I...
Salaries overall in the UK are comparable to the US (similar median), but programming falls at a different place on the salary curve. In the US, programmer is among the highest-paid professions, often earning 2-3x what would be a typical salary in other white-collar, professional jobs. In the UK that's not the case, and programmers earn just a typical white-collar salary that you'd earn in any job that requires university-level qualifications (or equivalent experience).
Unlike the US, I don't believe there is much of a perception of a "STEM shortage", which may be a contributing factor. Programmers are just not seen as particularly hard to find, at least no more than any other skilled profession. Especially after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which brought in a lot of highly skilled STEM folks into the common market.
Unlike the US, I don't believe there is much of a perception of a "STEM shortage", which may be a contributing factor. Programmers are just not seen as particularly hard to find, at least no more than any other skilled profession. Especially after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which brought in a lot of highly skilled STEM folks into the common market.
There is no shortage of programmers in the US, either (except, temporarily, in SF/SV).
There is this myth, which uses an example of a handful of lucky "tech" people like Jobs or Gates or Zuckerberg who got rich and famous. In fact, none of them were/are programmers (though Zuckerberg _can_ hack around a bit)
A few numbers to refute your point about programmers being among the highest paid professions:
- doctors $400K-$800K
- lawyers - starting salary $160K[2], can go into millions, if you make it as a partner
- MBAs - even lowly "marketing managers" - often glorified secretaries - can make $150K or more
- chemical engineers - at least comparable with SW
- pharmacists
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/dealbook/welcome...
There is this myth, which uses an example of a handful of lucky "tech" people like Jobs or Gates or Zuckerberg who got rich and famous. In fact, none of them were/are programmers (though Zuckerberg _can_ hack around a bit)
A few numbers to refute your point about programmers being among the highest paid professions:
- doctors $400K-$800K
- lawyers - starting salary $160K[2], can go into millions, if you make it as a partner
- MBAs - even lowly "marketing managers" - often glorified secretaries - can make $150K or more
- chemical engineers - at least comparable with SW
- pharmacists
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/dealbook/welcome...
Contracting is reasonably good in London. You can easily get £5-600 a day if you're a (provably) senior Rails/Java/C++ and well above that with exotic financial or uberniche things.
(Which is probably why more people are turning to contracting in London.)
(Which is probably why more people are turning to contracting in London.)
Contracting in London seems to have morphed from "we want somebody for a short term project" to "for the level of experience/knowledge/skills we want this is literally the only way we can get it".
I've seen RoR jobs go from £35k to £60k in London (and even ones as low as £27k...). Might just be the ones recruiters have tried to pitch though.
"How does £35k sound?" "Like a three day week."
The average is not a very useful metric since the gap between IB/hedge fund pay and the rest is huge. It's not unheard of for developers with 4-5 years of experience to make close to £100k.
is that number supposed to be low or high?
in the US $120k is a reasonable (mid-range) salary for a new college graduate in Silicon Valley, Seattle, or New York at one of the big 5 tech firms. It's comparable at financial institutions.
probably $60-$70k for a more "blue-collar" programming job at a lower-profile company, or in a lower cost-of-living area.
in the US $120k is a reasonable (mid-range) salary for a new college graduate in Silicon Valley, Seattle, or New York at one of the big 5 tech firms. It's comparable at financial institutions.
probably $60-$70k for a more "blue-collar" programming job at a lower-profile company, or in a lower cost-of-living area.
You're not wrong.
Right, so does the employer not realize that the Hadoop experi nice they require is valuable? Or are they hoping the dev doesn't know it's more valuable? It seems to me hat in cases like these thare employers are hiring and training but then not compensating employees for the new skills. Thus there is always another employer willing to value that training.
The business of course wants it for as little as possible, but pricing individual skills can be tricky unless they've done something with it you're specifically looking for. In that case, you know they can do what you want. It's difficult to know if "6 months of Hadoop XP" means more than tutorials and basic usage and if they'll be able to solve your business's problems.
10 years of experience vs. 1 year 10 times is still an issue and should affect the price of an employee, but it can be difficult to asses.
10 years of experience vs. 1 year 10 times is still an issue and should affect the price of an employee, but it can be difficult to asses.
Indeed! But who is the greater fool in this case? The job-hopping employee looking for money, or the new employer willing to pay more for the job-hopper?
It's difficult to say by predicting. You'd need to know what every business would pay for your skills at any given time, plus what everyone else was paid for their skills, and the rate of false positive hires or hires that ultimately hurt the employer's bottom line (false positive hires, negative productivity devs, bullshit artists, etc.). That kind of price information just isn't available. Otherwise the market would be closer to efficiently pricing developers, matching devs with jobs, and would be more accurate with what individual skills are worth.
I can't help but think contracting is becoming more popular in London. I've been doing it myself now since 2013. I've seen a couple of perm staff walk out of jobs due to petty reasons in the last year, both were <1 year into their roles.
Actually trying to move into more of a consulting role going forward, but there is such a demand for contractors IMO it could be shortening the availability of good developers in London.
Actually trying to move into more of a consulting role going forward, but there is such a demand for contractors IMO it could be shortening the availability of good developers in London.
It can be difficult to hire in this environment. I've had 3 employees quit less than 3 months into new full-time positions. My first inclination is to ask, "What are we doing wrong?" but the more I look around it seems like a common industry problem. Perhaps it's rational behavior - as the article highlights, companies now view people as disposable. There's loyalty to a manager, but not a company. (You always want a good reference)
Often in the current market you don't even need a reference at all. Many companies refuse to provide any reference at all besides confirming an employees starting and ending dates to a prospective employer. This is I am sure to reduce the risk of litigation thus increasing shareholder value.
1-2 years is business as usual; multiple employees quitting in less than 3 months means you're doing something wrong.
Only time I think one would be loyal to the company is if they own a significant stake in it (which is usually the founding execs).
Or maybe if the company has done something amazing like pay for all your college / masters tuition...
Or maybe if the company has done something amazing like pay for all your college / masters tuition...
Maybe you're not paying enough?
how many of those that left are going to be better compensated at their new positions?
401k, bonus, sabbatical, profit sharing, "sitting the bench", annual raise, stipends. These are words and phrases most younger workers don't even know the meaning of.
Employers have been extracting maximum value out of employees with little investment in those employees in return. It's no wonder high turn over is so common place.
Employers have been extracting maximum value out of employees with little investment in those employees in return. It's no wonder high turn over is so common place.
Firm hopping happens because hierarchy hopping within an organization get's obstructed. Sooner or later you can't get further up because someone has the position you want and you start looking for opportunities that allow you to move up.
There is a reality that lots of companies look at their employees as the same as when they hired them. Meaning, a junior person has a hard time shaking that "junior" title, but can move to a new company and start fresh.
In addition, it is shocking how often companies don't promote from within, but offer higher level jobs to outsiders "experts".
Then you have the situation where your company just isn't growing. They can't afford to give you raises or have positions you can move into. Again, for growth you have to move on.
Like many others said, the biggest reason employees don't stick around is that the current corporate culture views employees as expendable resources they would rather not have to have. Shareholders come first, at all costs - even to the internal health of the company.
In addition, it is shocking how often companies don't promote from within, but offer higher level jobs to outsiders "experts".
Then you have the situation where your company just isn't growing. They can't afford to give you raises or have positions you can move into. Again, for growth you have to move on.
Like many others said, the biggest reason employees don't stick around is that the current corporate culture views employees as expendable resources they would rather not have to have. Shareholders come first, at all costs - even to the internal health of the company.
One of the serendipitious consequences for the "quitting economy" in my experience is that I have gained experience working in a number of diverse industries such as finance, insurance, biotech, entertainment and gaming, hospitality, etc. giving me first hand insight into how such sectors work. This has not only increased my ability to apply novel solutions when new problems approached, it has informed and broadened my world view in seeing how the pieces of society and the economy fit together for professional and personal benefit.
Does anyone else feel this way?
Does anyone else feel this way?
Oh yeah, i feel this way!
In fact, during job interviews - if i feel questions are hinting at having/not having enough experience in a specific vertical/industry - i start bringing up the fact that before I jumped into induxtry X i had little experience, but then learned fast and became an expert...so hopping into your industry Z - sir or madam - is a straightforward process for me to learn it, and then succeed at it for you. 9 out of 10 times, there is a subtle visible body language that they like that perspective; and of course agree with that rationale. Of course 1 out of 10 times, that hiring manager doesn't see that, and of course my ability to adapt to a totally new industry matters little, they usually assume you should have been born into the industry...but in that case, i likely wouldn't want to work for someone like that (who might lack vision) anyway. ;-)
In fact, during job interviews - if i feel questions are hinting at having/not having enough experience in a specific vertical/industry - i start bringing up the fact that before I jumped into induxtry X i had little experience, but then learned fast and became an expert...so hopping into your industry Z - sir or madam - is a straightforward process for me to learn it, and then succeed at it for you. 9 out of 10 times, there is a subtle visible body language that they like that perspective; and of course agree with that rationale. Of course 1 out of 10 times, that hiring manager doesn't see that, and of course my ability to adapt to a totally new industry matters little, they usually assume you should have been born into the industry...but in that case, i likely wouldn't want to work for someone like that (who might lack vision) anyway. ;-)
I kind of feel that this doesn't happen as much for engineering positions, unless you're moving to a consultancy. However, consultancies are a different beast.
I've worked in a few different industries myself, and I feel it gives me a broader view of things. Regardless, most of the engineering orgs I've been in have a heavy NIH mentality. They don't really care what you did at other companies. I've often been met with resistance when I suggest techniques or particular stacks that I've used successfully at other companies. So your experience is often dismissed and it can create a good deal of frustration.
I do have friends outside of engineering that have used this to their benefit. One friend had a good amount of experience with merging multinational orgs from an HR (benefits, compliance, etc) perspective. He was hired by Facebook for this exact reason and got a handsome raise and more substantial benefits.
A broad experience might be good for soft skills/procedures, but I have yet to experience that in engineering.
I've worked in a few different industries myself, and I feel it gives me a broader view of things. Regardless, most of the engineering orgs I've been in have a heavy NIH mentality. They don't really care what you did at other companies. I've often been met with resistance when I suggest techniques or particular stacks that I've used successfully at other companies. So your experience is often dismissed and it can create a good deal of frustration.
I do have friends outside of engineering that have used this to their benefit. One friend had a good amount of experience with merging multinational orgs from an HR (benefits, compliance, etc) perspective. He was hired by Facebook for this exact reason and got a handsome raise and more substantial benefits.
A broad experience might be good for soft skills/procedures, but I have yet to experience that in engineering.
Yep - one of the things I recommend people to do when mentoring them is to read a sh*t load about other industries (I still maintain that buying random magazines is a fantastic way for people to learn) - those novel approaches will work wonders when creating solutions.
If you can sell an employer on the benefits of diverse experience, it can reap wonders.
If you can sell an employer on the benefits of diverse experience, it can reap wonders.
Learning from magazines is definitely a great way to ease yourself into learning about a new subject. It's worked out very well for me. The only other approach I find that works as well as a starting point is subject-focused online forums. For example, if I want to learn about creating an electric car, no magazines that I know of, but there is a forum covering this subject:
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/
Just reading through the content gives a good feel for common issues and solutions.
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/
Just reading through the content gives a good feel for common issues and solutions.
Every company I've ever worked for nickels and dimes my pay. If I didn't have to fight for a market/above-market salary, good benefits, and regular raises commensurate with what I'm adding to the company with my increased tenure and effectiveness, I'd gladly stay.
But it never works out that way. It's painfully simple -- you get what you pay for.
But it never works out that way. It's painfully simple -- you get what you pay for.
I have a question about the term 'neolibral'.
I seem to have missed when it became common. Further, it seems identical to what we called neoconservative back in the 1990s: free market economics, very limited government, Hayak, etc.
Is William F. Buckley a neolibral? Ronald Reagan?
I seem to have missed when it became common. Further, it seems identical to what we called neoconservative back in the 1990s: free market economics, very limited government, Hayak, etc.
Is William F. Buckley a neolibral? Ronald Reagan?
There is a lot of overlap between people with neoconservative views and people with neoliberal views. Neoliberalism is purely an economic position while neoconservatism is primarily focused on foreign policy. Reagan is definitely a neoliberal.
> Further, it seems identical to what we called neoconservative back in the 1990s: free market economics, very limited government, Hayao, etc.
Neoconservatism is foreign policy school which embodies a particular attitude toward the use of US military and diplomatic power. It incorporates and aims to spread basically neoliberal economic principles and systems, but it's not the same thing as neoliberalism in the same way that support for Soviet-style Communism as an economic system and support for the Soviet Union vigorously using its military and diplomatic power to spread Soviet-style Communism globally are distinct views.
Neoconservatism is foreign policy school which embodies a particular attitude toward the use of US military and diplomatic power. It incorporates and aims to spread basically neoliberal economic principles and systems, but it's not the same thing as neoliberalism in the same way that support for Soviet-style Communism as an economic system and support for the Soviet Union vigorously using its military and diplomatic power to spread Soviet-style Communism globally are distinct views.
I've quit only once, from the mega-corp, in order to start freelancing.
I've never quit from a customer project. And oddly, I've worked for very few customer for years and years. Controlling and understanding the entire cash-flow really helped.
My other IT friends did job-hop while young but as they settled down, they started staying longer. After 30 it's basically smooth sailing.
So, I don't see a quitting economy. It's phase in young adults.
I've never quit from a customer project. And oddly, I've worked for very few customer for years and years. Controlling and understanding the entire cash-flow really helped.
My other IT friends did job-hop while young but as they settled down, they started staying longer. After 30 it's basically smooth sailing.
So, I don't see a quitting economy. It's phase in young adults.
I dunno i'm 35, own a home and have a kid and the longest I've ever worked anywhere is my current job at 2.5 years. I'm only sticking it out here to get a bit more vested and then I'm taking my shares and going on to the next thing as always. Especially because each time I change jobs I end up with a close to a 20% raise on average...
I'm 34, married, have a toddler, and have definitely stopped hopping (used to be at a gig no more than 2-3 years each).
My last gig was a startup, and it's my last startup. I'm at an enterprise now that pays a bit less than double what I made at my last gig, no more than 40 hours a week, no on call, and they treat their employees very well.
My last gig was a startup, and it's my last startup. I'm at an enterprise now that pays a bit less than double what I made at my last gig, no more than 40 hours a week, no on call, and they treat their employees very well.
I have a theory that part of this is related to shrinking real economies. People use less energy, buy less stuff, etc. The real economy shrinks. Money has less utility. Business lags. Fewer employers can afford to pay competitively.
I think that the economic system assumes constant growth, and doesn't have a way to deal with the sustainable consumption rates that we are now trying to adjust to.
I think that the economic system assumes constant growth, and doesn't have a way to deal with the sustainable consumption rates that we are now trying to adjust to.
[deleted]
I think it's important to note the negatives of the previous way of working. In the old days, pay was less (because the company was responsible for one's pension, and often for many benefits — e.g. corporate vacations were once a thing), and if the company did fail then one was left with nothing. Advancement could be very slow. One was working according to the whims of a slow-to-change set of central managers, who were no better at allocating resources than was the Politburo. Since one's colleagues were much the same for one's career, one youthful slip-up could have lasting consequences. One didn't have as much flexibility to live & work where one would have wished.
There were benefits to this way of working, of course: one could more-or-less just turn up, do one's job and life would go on. But it didn't give one as many opportunities to excel.
Our modern way is more dynamic and can be just as or even more secure, provided one has the discipline to save, invest & insure.
There were benefits to this way of working, of course: one could more-or-less just turn up, do one's job and life would go on. But it didn't give one as many opportunities to excel.
Our modern way is more dynamic and can be just as or even more secure, provided one has the discipline to save, invest & insure.
> In the old days, pay was less
How can you suggest this? When adjusted for inflation, wages have remained constant or decreased in purchasing power, unless you happen to be in the top 5% of earners[0].
>Advancement could be very slow
As opposed to today's "non-existent"? The article we're discussing is all about how people hop jobs precisely because internal advancement is becoming a rare thing.
[0]:https://www.advisorperspectives.com/images/content_image/dat...
How can you suggest this? When adjusted for inflation, wages have remained constant or decreased in purchasing power, unless you happen to be in the top 5% of earners[0].
>Advancement could be very slow
As opposed to today's "non-existent"? The article we're discussing is all about how people hop jobs precisely because internal advancement is becoming a rare thing.
[0]:https://www.advisorperspectives.com/images/content_image/dat...
I'm about to hop after being at my current company for almost 3 years. I feel I've shown my ability to be a lead engineer, but there's no room in my department for a new lead. I've also expressed the desire to manage, but talks with my manager about this have dead-ended. We are getting a new manager in my team's chain, but I was told they would be coming from outside the company.
The sad part is our current lead is bad, really bad. He won't be moved or dismissed either. So despite leading several successful projects, I'll be stuck at senior. So, fuck it, I'm moving on.
The sad part is our current lead is bad, really bad. He won't be moved or dismissed either. So despite leading several successful projects, I'll be stuck at senior. So, fuck it, I'm moving on.
>Our modern way is more dynamic and can be just as or even more secure, provided one has the discipline to save, invest & insure.
Do that all you like, but the second you get a debilitating illness, that goes out the window.
Do that all you like, but the second you get a debilitating illness, that goes out the window.
I've had a few sales jobs where I was employed full-time (w2 not 1099) but also had an employment agreement with a defined term. Most often the term was 1 to 3 years, and if you were going to be let go it would happen when the term was over. They just would not renew your contract.
You could still be fired "for cause" but that almost never happened. The employee would almost have to commit a crime to be terminated early.
Of course you could always quit during the term if you wanted, but that meant you would have to pay back the signing bonus received when the contract was signed :)
I really did not mind this structure, but it seems like it's confined to specific industries and outside of those almost no one does it. For example, I've never seen a software dev job with this sort of structure.
You could still be fired "for cause" but that almost never happened. The employee would almost have to commit a crime to be terminated early.
Of course you could always quit during the term if you wanted, but that meant you would have to pay back the signing bonus received when the contract was signed :)
I really did not mind this structure, but it seems like it's confined to specific industries and outside of those almost no one does it. For example, I've never seen a software dev job with this sort of structure.
I am hoping that studies emerge that positively correlate a firm's mean employee satisfaction / tenure with long-term financial health. This was conventional wisdom for a while but as far as I can tell, data models just aren't sophisticated enough to prove it out. Yet.
Changing jobs every two years is not necessarily a good strategy for techies who want to gain deep experience. When joining a new company, it will take time for one to become productive by learning the dynamics of the company as well as the unique business and technical challenges. And then it will take time for the person to learn something deep by building a truly great product.
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Couldn't we just drop the application bullshit? Didn't they do without this in the old days?
This quitting is completely forced in government work. Every few years the project will be turned over to an entire new group of programmers and system admins at a lower price. They often spend years trying to figure out how the code and configuration works and learn the business rules. It's sad to watch.
tl;dr: Our capitalistic economy, which incentivized the notion of "maximizing shareholder returns," created an environment in which Companies who are efficient in hiring the right amount of disposable assets. Because of this, employees better be ready to quit when they sense better pastures elsewhere.
It was a good read, and a reminder that we are all subservient to the Shareholders (directly or indirectly). The companies of the previous generation had 3 pillars that needed to be strong: Sense of Customer, Employee Satisfaction, Shareholder support. All the attention is now shifted in winning Shareholder support.
I wish we could abandon this cargo cult mentality that shareholders are the utmost important stakeholders of a company. It's already been discussed that maximizing shareholder value is meaningless: https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-false-premise-of-the-shareholder...
It was a good read, and a reminder that we are all subservient to the Shareholders (directly or indirectly). The companies of the previous generation had 3 pillars that needed to be strong: Sense of Customer, Employee Satisfaction, Shareholder support. All the attention is now shifted in winning Shareholder support.
I wish we could abandon this cargo cult mentality that shareholders are the utmost important stakeholders of a company. It's already been discussed that maximizing shareholder value is meaningless: https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-false-premise-of-the-shareholder...
I'm of the opinion that we will have to use technology to restructure the fundamental ways businesses work.
Whether that means every person is their own business or we try some other type of union to give workers more leverage when negotiating or we crowd-fund the resources to start a competitor to shitty company A and have all the workers walk down to a new building and start company B with 95% of the same people but better deals all-around.
Lots of ideas, very few potential solutions. I don't think the wealthy are ever going to change the game to make it easier for us plebs, so we've gotta figure out a way to play the game and beat them at it.
Whether that means every person is their own business or we try some other type of union to give workers more leverage when negotiating or we crowd-fund the resources to start a competitor to shitty company A and have all the workers walk down to a new building and start company B with 95% of the same people but better deals all-around.
Lots of ideas, very few potential solutions. I don't think the wealthy are ever going to change the game to make it easier for us plebs, so we've gotta figure out a way to play the game and beat them at it.
The issue with abandoning the maximizing the shareholders profit mentality is that it has to be replaced with something else, and unless we change the way investment works, then it will still be serving the shareholders. The shareholders should be the one with power to make decisions, as they own the company. Additionally, not all companies serve greedy shareholders. Believe it or not, shareholders are people too who have multi faceted interests besides making money.
>The shareholders should be the one with power to make decisions, as they own the company.
They don't actually, see:
Consider first Friedman’s erroneous belief that shareholders “own” corporations. Although laymen sometimes have difficulty understanding the point, corporations are legal entities that own themselves, just as human entities own themselves. What shareholders own are shares, a type of contact between the shareholder and the legal entity that gives shareholders limited legal rights. In this regard, shareholders stand on equal footing with the corporation’s bondholders, suppliers, and employees, all of whom also enter contracts with the firm that give them limited legal rights.
http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... [pdf]
>The issue with abandoning the maximizing the shareholders profit mentality is that it has to be replaced with something else, and unless we change the way investment works, then it will still be serving the shareholders.
But this is relatively easy! Instead of top level management being rewarded for stock price only, they should also be rewarded for other metrics, like customer satisfaction or how much they lowered the spread between median and mean wages. Hell, we could even allow it to be determined only by share price, but only the share price on a long time horizon, no sales within five years.
They don't actually, see:
Consider first Friedman’s erroneous belief that shareholders “own” corporations. Although laymen sometimes have difficulty understanding the point, corporations are legal entities that own themselves, just as human entities own themselves. What shareholders own are shares, a type of contact between the shareholder and the legal entity that gives shareholders limited legal rights. In this regard, shareholders stand on equal footing with the corporation’s bondholders, suppliers, and employees, all of whom also enter contracts with the firm that give them limited legal rights.
http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... [pdf]
>The issue with abandoning the maximizing the shareholders profit mentality is that it has to be replaced with something else, and unless we change the way investment works, then it will still be serving the shareholders.
But this is relatively easy! Instead of top level management being rewarded for stock price only, they should also be rewarded for other metrics, like customer satisfaction or how much they lowered the spread between median and mean wages. Hell, we could even allow it to be determined only by share price, but only the share price on a long time horizon, no sales within five years.
This is a good point; but perhaps we need to think a little more "meta" about the situation. In our era of late stage capitalism Finance dictates production - this is an inherently cannibalistic model of economics and it's not surprise that the U.S. labor market continues to degrade into a more "gig" (Considering a "tour of duty" a gig for arguments sake) economy that hurts the laborers the most.
We should question if this is the system we want to continue to perpetuate, or on the flip side do we want more regulations and restructuring of our market economy? The question is not "More or less market?" but rather "What kind of market?"
We should question if this is the system we want to continue to perpetuate, or on the flip side do we want more regulations and restructuring of our market economy? The question is not "More or less market?" but rather "What kind of market?"
The problem with the "shareholder value only" model is its focus on generating short-term returns vs. creating long-term value. How is this sustainable?
I don't think we should abandon shareholder profit completely (after all, companies do need to make money in order to stay in business). However, I do think the philosophy needs to be balanced with other aims like investment in employees, giving back to the community, environmental stewardship, and thinking about the long-term future of the company.
Importantly, these things shouldn't be after-thoughts - they should be cornerstones of the corporate philosophy.
I don't think we should abandon shareholder profit completely (after all, companies do need to make money in order to stay in business). However, I do think the philosophy needs to be balanced with other aims like investment in employees, giving back to the community, environmental stewardship, and thinking about the long-term future of the company.
Importantly, these things shouldn't be after-thoughts - they should be cornerstones of the corporate philosophy.
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Companies used to also focus on their local communities, rather than a pure bottom-line focus.
When?
Perhaps we can move on from only caring about the stock price, if we stop providing bonuses/compensation to executives in stock, and also stop making the stock price a benchmark to getting many of those bonuses.
As an [outside] investor in the company, I'm more than happy to vote for compensation packages that are driven by stock price (management wins iff shareholders win). I'm unlikely to vote for a compensation system where management can win big without shareholders gaining.
It's not accidental that the tie between share price and executive comp came into being.
It's not accidental that the tie between share price and executive comp came into being.
> ...I'm more than happy to vote for compensation packages that are driven by stock price...
The challenge with this approach is share price is a highly lossy metric. By the time it all rolls up into the share price, you've lost a pile of other information. And a whole hell of a lot can hide under that lost information.
Example. IBM long ago sold off their PC hardware division and low-end servers. Those divisions' low profitability was dragging down the overall profitability metrics when the total numbers bubbled up the reporting. Selling off those assets gave a cash boost, and the shareholders were especially happy when the overall profitability numbers weren't getting held back by those laggard divisions. Big win!
Now for the rest of the story. This comes from what I saw at the ground level, from speaking with many IBM sales people at the time. After the sale, extremely good, higher-end sales reps saw the front-end of their pipelines collapse. By getting rid of those "low-value" divisions, many of these reps no longer had a built-in excuse to frequently see many different accounts.
Clients had no problem frequently seeing reps for these "low-value" products. The higher-end reps lots of times tagged along and found opportunities to help solve the client's pain points with higher-end solutions by simply being in the discussions, because these low-end products, in volume, interfaced with higher-end infrastructure all the time.
Without this channel of contacting clients, these higher-end reps were reduced to cold-calling and bringing in hordes of inside sales staff to bring the cold-calling volume up to the point where they could get back to their original sales volumes. The low-profit products were making IBM a profit, just not enough, but what the shareholders really should have seen was those products were a sales and marketing channel where the clients paid for the sales and marketing to reach them. Now IBM is spending cash it can't really afford on brute-forcing that channel, which clients hate.
I see this kind of "rest of the story" game played out in many different companies under many different guises, and the destruction of company value is pretty intense when it happens.
The challenge with this approach is share price is a highly lossy metric. By the time it all rolls up into the share price, you've lost a pile of other information. And a whole hell of a lot can hide under that lost information.
Example. IBM long ago sold off their PC hardware division and low-end servers. Those divisions' low profitability was dragging down the overall profitability metrics when the total numbers bubbled up the reporting. Selling off those assets gave a cash boost, and the shareholders were especially happy when the overall profitability numbers weren't getting held back by those laggard divisions. Big win!
Now for the rest of the story. This comes from what I saw at the ground level, from speaking with many IBM sales people at the time. After the sale, extremely good, higher-end sales reps saw the front-end of their pipelines collapse. By getting rid of those "low-value" divisions, many of these reps no longer had a built-in excuse to frequently see many different accounts.
Clients had no problem frequently seeing reps for these "low-value" products. The higher-end reps lots of times tagged along and found opportunities to help solve the client's pain points with higher-end solutions by simply being in the discussions, because these low-end products, in volume, interfaced with higher-end infrastructure all the time.
Without this channel of contacting clients, these higher-end reps were reduced to cold-calling and bringing in hordes of inside sales staff to bring the cold-calling volume up to the point where they could get back to their original sales volumes. The low-profit products were making IBM a profit, just not enough, but what the shareholders really should have seen was those products were a sales and marketing channel where the clients paid for the sales and marketing to reach them. Now IBM is spending cash it can't really afford on brute-forcing that channel, which clients hate.
I see this kind of "rest of the story" game played out in many different companies under many different guises, and the destruction of company value is pretty intense when it happens.
Of course. It's only natural that this behavior emerges. It's causing major structural issues within our country, though. Our economy depends on consumers, but with corporations worrying more about stockholders than employees, it lowers worker income, amplifies income and wealth inequality, and lowers the velocity of money.
Yes, and being passionate about your work — such as wanting to work with new developments in your chosen field or changing jobs for an opportunity where you'll be better able to apply your talents to your field of interest — is just a capitalist ploy.
It's not a capitalist ploy. Capitalists do exploit the passionate (to the detriment of us all) by giving them what they ask for: lower compensation in return for providing a job they're "passionate" about. It's not really any different from them exploiting youth.
The exploited are being tricked into believing that there's intangible value in spending their life's work on something that they believe in and are passionate about, right? It's only virtuous to do that if someone doesn't profit from it, correct?
There is virtue in laboring at a compensation far below the value generated (see: most science ever done). There is also intangible value at dedication to work. Neither is what I referred to, though.
You shouldn't be passionate about your work: http://www.virtuouscode.com/2014/02/10/the-passion-gospel/
Instead, 2 years is a pretty common stretch before turnover in white collar jobs, especially for younger folk. Employees become better off from firm-hopping, and employers have no reason to offer long-ROI incentives such as paid masters' programs.
To make everyone better off, Hoffman suggests that we should introduce timeboxed contracts called "tours of duty" that explicitly state the true benefits for either party and the duration of the contract. I really am not a fan of misappropriation of military terms, but I guess it gets the point across.
For example, maybe a marketer wants to start a company, but an existing company needs a senior marketer to strategize and execute the plan for its next segment. The company could give the marketer opportunities to meet funding sources and receive education about company building, while the marketer can whole-heartedly deliver on agreed objectives for the time period of two years.
It's an idea that seems to straddle between W2 and 1099, as many of the "gig economy" jobs seem to do. Some further definition here may be welcome.