I mean, I would prefer to stay at the same place than hopping around, but I’ve never gotten a raise that pays as good as a new job at a different company
I still don't understand the reasoning behind that tactic.
Why would a company effectively force turnover like that? No argument I've ever heard makes sense, if you think about for more than a few seconds.
Because job hopping is scary as hell (especially for developers who struggle with imposter syndrome) and job hunting is generally shitty.
What if I don’t like the new place? What if I can’t feed my wife and kids? What if I’m actually terrible at this and my current place is so stupid they haven’t figured that out? What if the economy tanks in the next couple of months and I’m out on my ear with no severance pay?
Better to stay put, accept slightly less money for another year and look at it again when I’ve got the time and energy to cope with it.
Better to stay put, accept slightly less money for another year and look at it again when I’ve got the time and energy to cope with it.
but Watch Out
Seriously, though, this is hitting the nail on the head. That dangling carrot of job security can be so exploitative when there’s so many unknowns (many of them confidence-based in a dev’s situation). I’ve heard that little evil voice (recently) telling me “yeah, you could probably go back to physical labor when you can’t find any more work as a dev. you’ll do okay out there”
I work hard for my company. But paying me raises to deal with inflation? Rewarding my efforts and loyalty? Why bother when they can just hold out and pay my identical wage to someone greener and less jaded in a couple short years?
And now think about, who stays in such positions. Not the ambitious people. It's the risk averse, socially inept people. They will perform just enough to get by, simply because there's zero reward for any ambition.
Because business people are generally not actually competent, they've failed upwards and just continue doing the things that haven't completely failed them yet.
Really, capitalism as a whole is fundamentally inefficient and just kind of dumb, and the economical theory underpinning it is simply incorrect.
Maybe enough people don't know that jumping makes more money that low raises still save money overall?
Even knowing that though, job-hopping does come with risk. As with most money-related things, the more risk you take, the bigger payout you can get.
Plus, luck favors the prepared. If you're confident you can get the next job then you probably won't feel like taking a risk is actually that much risk.
I think it works when employees don't want to switch jobs even when they don't get good raises. Then it's like a decision between giving out 100 good raises and keeping everyone or giving out 100 low raises and keeping 95 people.
it doesn't effect some of the more narrow fields because everyone is already contracting to each other already.
this puts an artificial cap on labor but it's often already higher than more general fields.
Allow me to introduce you to CODE-CWA
Interesting! Do you think they would take Embedded System Software Engineers?
I've been organizing with them for over a year, they want to help unionize the entire tech industry! They've helped organize unions at Google, Activision Blizzard, Paizo, Sega, and more. Knowing the people leading CODE, they would love to expand beyond the games industry
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
