[hnriot]

interesting to read all these from the engineer's perspective. from the manager's side of the table things are quite different. If an employee comes to me and asks for a raise then I begin the process to replace them. We give reasonable raises, we pay fair market value and an engineer might make a little more elsewhere but they'll be giving back their RSUs and the opportunity to work on really cool stuff. If, however, they want something else then good luck to them, people are all different and it's a free country, but asking for raises means they aren't happy so they will leave anyway, either way, I begin looking.

when someone joins, unless they are at vp level they really don't have much negotiating opportunity, we make a decent offer and they either take it or leave it. we very seldom adjust the offer.

[jacquesm]

> but asking for raises means they aren't happy

That's an assumption on your part.

And since you state up front that you are giving reasonable raises you essentially forestall the negotiations so unless your definition of 'reasonable' is different than the ones that your employees maintain you should have next to no turnover. If that's not the case you might have a problem there.

The 'opportunity to work on cool stuff' is worth $0 to a working dad with a mortgage, so likely you can do this but only to younger people, but people do not remain young forever and sooner or later their expenses will go up. And you sound like you will not be taking their position into account at all.

[aridiculous]

I'm really perplexed by this common attitude.

Employees are sometimes happy. Sometimes they're miserable. Sometimes they're in-between — for complicated reasons, that may lie outside of work.

Firing any employee that asks for a raise is so unbelievably short-sighted, binary, sociopathic, and potentially bad for business (morale, replacement costs, unknown costs), it's cartoonishly villainous.

You sir, appear to have authoritarian tendencies.

[johnward]

Yeah sounds like exactly the kind of place I wouldn't want to work anyway.

[hnriot]

nobody said anything about firing anyone. That would be illegal for one thing.

[Iftheshoefits]

This is true at most employers, and is one of the biggest contributors to churn and the lower-than-it-should-be pay in our industry. Companies whose offer includes (implicit or explicit) statements about how cool the projects are are peddling the same employees-are-pets nonsense that the "free food/perks" companies peddle, and there is no shortage of labor ready to lap it up.

[itsybitsycoder]

Yup, and high churn actually makes the projects less pleasant to work with IME. More turnover means the people updating the projects have a weaker understanding of how the projects work, so they create more bugs/cruft than an equally-skilled developer who has worked with the project longer. And by the time those developers know the projects inside-and-out, they are already looking to move on.

[ddingus]

Another manager here.

I don't automatically do this. I want to know why, and what their value proposition is.

People have things happen and reasons and goals for wanting to change their comp, and frankly, that goes both ways. I've had people want less and to change roles for very similar reasons.

Replacement is expensive, so is commitment and vision. For some people, yes. It's a trigger for replacement. For others, it's a time to discuss keeping everybody healthy and productive.

And there could be options too. Perhaps more money isn't optimal. Nobody knows, until there is a discussion.

[johnward]

What would you say if the "value proposition" is simply Company Y will pay me more?

[ddingus]

It is a discussion regardless. And it is one where motivarions, goals, etc... all play out.

Could be time to replace, could be time to make different employment arrangements, whatever.

I might advise them to take the offer.

See my other comment.

[UK-AL]

Several bad assumptions here.

If they're getting better offers elsewhere, its not market rate.

Whats to say other companies aren't doing cool stuff? All companies say this.

[seekingcharlie]

"If they're getting better offers elsewhere, its not market rate."

Exactly.

[pmoriarty]

I commend you for your honesty. If more employers were this honest up front, the workforce would be a much better place.

Since we happen to be in a sellers market for IT talent, I suspect you would not have very many takers if your prospective employees knew up front that this was your attitude towards them, and they'd be valued so little that asking for what they thought they were worth would mean they would get fired.

You attitude would fly much better in a buyers market, where the employer holds all the cards. Then you could demand whatever you like, and the employee would most likely be desperate enough to lick it up.

[johnward]

"If an employee comes to me and asks for a raise then I begin the process to replace them."

That makes you sound like a horrible manager.

[Iftheshoefits]

It makes him the kind of low-level or middle-manager that certain companies love. His purpose isn't to support his subordinate employees in their work, it's to make sure the company pays as little as possible for as much work as possible, and to act as the first line of defense against employees who aren't "100% on board".

Clearly he thinks that "asking for a raise" puts an employee in the "not 100% on board" category. That makes him terrible at reasoning, and perhaps poor at empathy, and strongly indicates he's not the kind of person an intelligent developer who desires to be treated like a human being should ever have to work for, but I'm not sure it makes him a bad manager per se. He might manage very well in other respects.

[hnriot]

maybe, but when an employee asks for a raise, or say they are quitting does that make them a horrible employee. so many people think that work is some big philanthropic organization set up to serve their needs.

[johnward]

"when an employee asks for a raise, or say they are quitting does that make them a horrible employee"

No it doesn't.

You seem think employees are there just to serve you for the lowest bid and if an employee is coming to you with a better offer then, you aren't paying them "market rate".