I know multiple people who did 15+ years at Google or other big tech cos, and got let go despite having consistently good performance reviews. Those companies figured they could be replaced with younger and much cheaper people (or not replaced at all since the companies overhired during the pandemic).
Fortunately, most of these people managed to find new jobs relatively quickly, albeit with somewhat lower comp packages.
Those jobs have always had inflated salaries anyway imo. I've worked with brilliant people at small companies and complete idiots at global behemoths (contracting). Working at a famous company just means you passed some litmus tests and the correlation to brilliance or a 10x type of person is weak at best. Paying someone 5-10x industry standard isn't going to get you 5-10x output. 2 people at 2x the standard is generally going to be a better bang for your buck than 1 person at 5x. Unless it's some super specialized field like genetically evolving PHP code or some shit.
Ive thought about this a bunch, and I design the comp plan for the company I am at, and I haven't seen any specific research on this but my conjecture is this: The comp plans at places like google are designed not to stack superstars, but rather to make it so that everyone at the company is at least 1x productive and not being constantly poached. Its attractive enough that the interview pool is filled with plenty of 1x+ engineers, people who are median or above in performance. Its enough so that they're not really worried about you jumping to the next highest payer.
And a $100,000/year MBA with a basic grasp of reality and the willingness to listen to people smarter than him could run Twitter better than Elon Musk.
In backpacking when we're trying to lighten our packs, we have a saying, "don't cut ounces when you can cut pounds." Yet the highest-paid people involved in a company always look at the lowest paid workers to see where they can cut costs, because after all, they can't possibly pay themselves less.
I'm a software engineer and you don't speak for me.
There are plenty of software engineers who would unionize, given the chance. It's not easy to do. And sure, with enough effort we could, but that's a pretty big difference from "refusing to".
Software engineers and other white collar professionals want to believe we have more in common with our CEO than we do with a plumber because we work in offices, but I'd bet most of the executive class, ownership class, boards of directors and such see us the same as plumbers: we're a necessary expense
What you’re pointing out applied last year when salaries were higher too though, thats an overarching theme for decades
I’m not furious about what this article is saying, this article is about doing economically viable thing with workers - inside this country - in lower cost of living areas with salaries relevant there instead of higher cost of living areas
I agree that employees could collectively extract more of the value they help create, I don't think every article ok the topic is the right place for that discussion
> I agree that employees could collectively extract more of the value they help create, I don't think every article ok the topic is the right place for that discussion
You don't agree with anything reasonable at all. The way you just said that blames workers, as if it's workers' fault.
Frankly, until people like you stop refusing to listen, every article on the topic is the right place for this discussion, because it's arguably the largest problem facing most people today and people who don't think it's important are a big part of the problem. Whatever ivory tower economics you want to talk about instead just isn't as important.
There actually is - see the various revolutions over the past few hundred years. But, as always, there’s a “but”: things would need to get much worse for that to be possible, and they would deteriorate by another order of magnitude after it happens. I’m not aware of any exceptions.
I find it fascinating and deeply sad how the fundamental position on capital markets seemingly shifts depending on how we feel about our current treatment (as if there were not always people who took a hit)
World Economic Forum [1]
"Between 1948-1979, the percent growth in productivity and wages were relatively similar, with an increase of 108 percent and 93 percent, respectively. The growth from 1979-2018, however, has been drastically different. While net productivity has continued to increase by an expected 70 percent, hourly compensation in the country is less than a fifth of that at just 12 percent."
> I find it fascinating and deeply sad how the fundamental position on capital markets seemingly shifts depending on how we feel about our current treatment (as if there were not always people who took a hit)
That's not reality. Just because you base your fundamental position on capital markets on how you feel about your current treatment, doesn't mean everyone else does.
What's deeply sad about this situation is that you don't even consider the possibility of empathy and concern for people less fortunate than ourselves.
The question is: who holds power in the relationship? If workers join together (unionize) they can demand a greater share of business' profits which are generated by those workers.
> wages for new hires in construction, manufacturing, food and other blue-collar sectors appear to be ebbing too, according to an analysis of millions of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter.com. Job seekers report seeing roles that once offered salaries between $175,000 and $200,000 a year ago now being advertised for tens of thousands of dollars less
You mean, I can quit software engineering and install flooring for $150,000/year!? Count me in
"Salaries for tech jobs working with back-office and core operations business software that paid between $110,000 and $130,000 a year ago now go to less experienced hires for $85,000 to $100,000, he said. Some companies are laying off entire service areas, renaming the division and populating it with new hires at much lower compensation levels."
Remember when we said that tech workers should be careful what you wish for with regard to work from home? Execs are slow to learn but eventually the dim light bulb will go off in their head that someone from a much poorer country with an internet line can do the same work as their engineers making six figures and working in their home.
If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation. "Yep boss, those face-to-face meetings and talks around the coffee pot are VITAL to this company's success." You have to choose your battles.
Offshoring has always been an option and blaming it on WFH is pointless. Every company goes through the cycle of offshoring, doing it too much, regretting the decision and bringing back some of the jobs eventually. We are in the “doing it too much” phase.
If they don’t realize their mistakes, they eventually end up being like Boeing. Cheaper coders are cheaper for a reason.
Already been happening. This is exactly what's been going on for over a year now at the company I was most recently working for.
When I check in with folks still there, they mainly talk about how the time difference and distance has done nothing but add churn to the entire process both between devs but also between devs and management. Hopefully higher ups will recognize these inefficiences too, but that's wishful thinking.
> Remember when we said that tech workers should be careful what you wish for with regard to work from home? Execs are slow to learn but eventually the dim light bulb will go off in their head that someone from a much poorer country with an internet line can do the same work as their engineers making six figures and working in their home.
It's odd that you're pretending executives didn't already know this, and in fact havnt either already tried it, or have not already been engaging in such practices for a very long time. It's called outsourcing and tech companies have been doing it for literally decades. I didn't see "being in the office" saving any of those people.
Outsourcing is one of the first things i've heard out of the mouth of more mediocre mid level managers than I can count at this point in my career.
> If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation.
Outsourcing was already a thing more than ten years ago though. It may be easier to achieve thanks to all the freelancers available, but bosses still want to hire people to control them, while outsourcing prevents that in some ways.
> If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation. "Yep boss, those face-to-face meetings and talks around the coffee pot are VITAL to this company's success." You have to choose your battles.
It's not as if you have any influence on that. It all comes down to dollars. Faking a need for office collaboration will only postpone matters a short while.
To be honest I'd love to get my redundancy package now, I've worked at a major enterprise for 15 years and would get more than a year's wage.
I hate working there since the pandemic. Our IT top leaders are complete idiots. And the flex desk office is a nightmare to work in, always running around with your bag of stuff trying to find a desk because nobody obeys the booking system (planon, which is admittedly a total piece of shit)
I'd love to go and work for a startup again but I need the redundancy money to make it through.
Offshoring is not new and I’m not sure work from home has any influence. They certainly had these ideas years ago.
I can say from my experience the output and productivity of offshore devs hasn’t matched local. Not necessarily because of capabilities, but communication and culture.
> Execs are slow to learn but eventually the dim light bulb will go off in their head that someone from a much poorer country with an internet line can do the same work as their engineers making six figures and working in their home.
This is called offshoring, and has been done for decades, to varying degrees of success.
Companies are always trying to undermine label. This is a tale as old as time. WFH changes nothing in that regard.
Anecdotally, my first job in tech was as a cheap developer from a poor country, more than 2 decades ago.
Thomas Friedman published a New York Times best seller in 2005 — the
World is Flat.
A major premise of the book was that post-dot com boom, software engineering in the US had already gone the way of manufacturing — and was never coming back - because executives had figured out that people in much poorer countries with internet connections could do the work for much cheaper.
People have been trying to make outsource only models work for a lot longer than the pandemic.
Return to office mandates don't solve this problem, they will still fire you and replace you with someone cheaper and more desperate to move to work. I've seen folks move to work in office only to be immediately laid off.
Frankly, businesses are due for a reckoning because they're coasting on skeleton crews barely managing to survive critical incidents. More businesses than you think are ran like Boeing under the hood.
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Fortunately, most of these people managed to find new jobs relatively quickly, albeit with somewhat lower comp packages.
In backpacking when we're trying to lighten our packs, we have a saying, "don't cut ounces when you can cut pounds." Yet the highest-paid people involved in a company always look at the lowest paid workers to see where they can cut costs, because after all, they can't possibly pay themselves less.
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Text-only:
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1pCcpj
Productivity is up, companies are reporting record profits, and all forms of compensation are being squashed as much as possible
At some point enough is enough right?
This idea that people were being overpaid is absurd. We've been underpaid for decades and it's getting worse over time not better
Software engineers? The ones who proudly refuse to unionize?
There are plenty of software engineers who would unionize, given the chance. It's not easy to do. And sure, with enough effort we could, but that's a pretty big difference from "refusing to".
Software engineers and other white collar professionals want to believe we have more in common with our CEO than we do with a plumber because we work in offices, but I'd bet most of the executive class, ownership class, boards of directors and such see us the same as plumbers: we're a necessary expense
I’m not furious about what this article is saying, this article is about doing economically viable thing with workers - inside this country - in lower cost of living areas with salaries relevant there instead of higher cost of living areas
I agree that employees could collectively extract more of the value they help create, I don't think every article ok the topic is the right place for that discussion
You don't agree with anything reasonable at all. The way you just said that blames workers, as if it's workers' fault.
Frankly, until people like you stop refusing to listen, every article on the topic is the right place for this discussion, because it's arguably the largest problem facing most people today and people who don't think it's important are a big part of the problem. Whatever ivory tower economics you want to talk about instead just isn't as important.
I find it fascinating and deeply sad how the fundamental position on capital markets seemingly shifts depending on how we feel about our current treatment (as if there were not always people who took a hit)
World Economic Forum [1] "Between 1948-1979, the percent growth in productivity and wages were relatively similar, with an increase of 108 percent and 93 percent, respectively. The growth from 1979-2018, however, has been drastically different. While net productivity has continued to increase by an expected 70 percent, hourly compensation in the country is less than a fifth of that at just 12 percent."
1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforc...
That's not reality. Just because you base your fundamental position on capital markets on how you feel about your current treatment, doesn't mean everyone else does.
What's deeply sad about this situation is that you don't even consider the possibility of empathy and concern for people less fortunate than ourselves.
You mean, I can quit software engineering and install flooring for $150,000/year!? Count me in
Deleted Comment
If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation. "Yep boss, those face-to-face meetings and talks around the coffee pot are VITAL to this company's success." You have to choose your battles.
If they don’t realize their mistakes, they eventually end up being like Boeing. Cheaper coders are cheaper for a reason.
When I check in with folks still there, they mainly talk about how the time difference and distance has done nothing but add churn to the entire process both between devs but also between devs and management. Hopefully higher ups will recognize these inefficiences too, but that's wishful thinking.
https://respectfulleadership.substack.com/p/when-outsourcing...
It's odd that you're pretending executives didn't already know this, and in fact havnt either already tried it, or have not already been engaging in such practices for a very long time. It's called outsourcing and tech companies have been doing it for literally decades. I didn't see "being in the office" saving any of those people.
Outsourcing is one of the first things i've heard out of the mouth of more mediocre mid level managers than I can count at this point in my career.
> If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation.
Thanks for the advice, but i'll pass.
It's not as if you have any influence on that. It all comes down to dollars. Faking a need for office collaboration will only postpone matters a short while.
To be honest I'd love to get my redundancy package now, I've worked at a major enterprise for 15 years and would get more than a year's wage.
I hate working there since the pandemic. Our IT top leaders are complete idiots. And the flex desk office is a nightmare to work in, always running around with your bag of stuff trying to find a desk because nobody obeys the booking system (planon, which is admittedly a total piece of shit)
I'd love to go and work for a startup again but I need the redundancy money to make it through.
There is no real special secret in the WFH world that changes this pattern.
Tech is special in that there is no real capital barrier to a whole lot of what we do; and yet low cost countries are not outputting products...
Offshoring is not new and I’m not sure work from home has any influence. They certainly had these ideas years ago.
I can say from my experience the output and productivity of offshore devs hasn’t matched local. Not necessarily because of capabilities, but communication and culture.
This is called offshoring, and has been done for decades, to varying degrees of success.
Companies are always trying to undermine label. This is a tale as old as time. WFH changes nothing in that regard.
Anecdotally, my first job in tech was as a cheap developer from a poor country, more than 2 decades ago.
A major premise of the book was that post-dot com boom, software engineering in the US had already gone the way of manufacturing — and was never coming back - because executives had figured out that people in much poorer countries with internet connections could do the work for much cheaper.
People have been trying to make outsource only models work for a lot longer than the pandemic.
Frankly, businesses are due for a reckoning because they're coasting on skeleton crews barely managing to survive critical incidents. More businesses than you think are ran like Boeing under the hood.
That would be more likely a memory loss and not a light bulb. They already did that but it didn't work out.
That's sounds more like fell for the AI promises, were everybody can code with AI support.
Being at the mercy of a cost cutting boss isn’t going to improve your situation - they will always find a way.
Dead Comment
Is this what happened with Crowdstrike?
Dead Comment