Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

This is why its healthier to always run with the premise that you're leaving at some point and its the employer's responsibility to keep you there and give you interesting and rewarding work. If you're asking them to promote you then its the wrong way round, they should be asking on you about whether you're staying there. That's how the market is today.


I doubt Google cares if the majority of it's people stay or not. Beyond the rock star employees who they absolutely know they need/depend on, they have an unending pipe of software engineers who want to put Google on their resume, in part due to the value of having the resume item and in part due to all of the perks.

Assuming the free food and massages will keep a lot of talent there, why would they bother incentivizing the average individual employee with interesting work and promotions? If you leave, they'll replace you, likely without shedding a tear.


afaik their "average individual employee" is actually pretty damn good. Anyway that's the point, if they don't care then you shouldn't remain there trying to impress them, especially if that doesn't align with your life goals.


Sure, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I just meant, if they have an endless flow of "pretty darn good" employees, they have no particular need to try to retain any given one.

Other companies may have to search hard to find excellent software engineers, but Google does not.


It's still really important. There's a cost to training and getting an engineer to understand the problems and scale that Google faces (some might come in with that, but many do not). There's also domain/google specific knowledge that's expensive to replace as well.

Yes, if someone leaves after 4 years, it's possible to hire someone else of the same ability level, but you're going to spend time and effort to make them as effective as the person who just left.


It really depends on the economic climate, the size of the company and the risks you afford to take, otherwise I generally agree.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: