Many companies do pay for people to stay, but its debatable if its worth it.
The last company I worked for gave me significant golden handcuffs. Probably 30-40% more than I could get elsewhere. They had a "cost of replacement player" policy, where they count the cost of hiring, sourcing, training over the years, etc, and come up with a number thats almost always way above market rate for people who have been around a bit.
Attrition was lower than industry average...but not by much. The reality is that in big tech, salaries are high enough that people stop caring. People left for a variety of reasons, the most common one being "I want to see how it is elsewhere" (especially from college hires who have been at the company several years). Others leave because they want to work at a startup. Some leave to join their friends. Some because they move to follow a significant other who got a job elsewhere (many prefer offices over WFH, so offering that only helps so much).
In the end, again, retention is higher, but when you crunch the numbers, its very debatable if it's worth it for the company. Worse, sometimes companies end up "competing" over it, so even if you pay a lot, the next one offers more because they know your salary bracket, then you raise yours until one gives. That sounds great for the employee but there are budgets and limits at some point.
And then there's the topic of counter offers. The uncomfortable truth is that there's very significant demographic differences when it comes to folks who use the "I got an offer elsewhere, pay me more and Ill stay". If you give counter offers when that happens (as opposed to across the board bracket increase), you quickly end up with statistically significant discrepancies, and that's not ok.
Devs also leave after completing all the meaningful, interesting work and finding there is none left. It feels good to build and launch a product - or even add features that can have an impact on the bottom line. It is something very different to work on a list of features that you know very few people, if anyone at all, are going to use. Same goes for maintenance.
> The uncomfortable truth is that there's very significant demographic differences when it comes to folks who use the "I got an offer elsewhere, pay me more and Ill stay".
What differences are those?
I tend to think that it’s a bad idea anyway. Once you’ve done it, your employer will know that you’ve already thought about leaving, so much so that you’ve already completed an interview process and have gotten an offer. Surely that must tend to be damaging to the relationship going forward (not saying that it should be, but that it often is).
If it leads to not just more money but a significantly changed role, it can possibly work. Though arguably that conversation should have taken place earlier.
Especially in Silicon Valley, there seems to be a lot of itchy feet in tech that leads people to changing jobs every 2 to 3 years because some people get bored easily and get the impression it's almost required. Historically it wasn't. And it still isn't in most industries and most places (including tech jobs elsewhere). The two larger places I've worked, 10+ year stints were, if maybe not the norm, extremely common. I've spent most of my career in three jobs +/- 10 years each.
The last company I worked for gave me significant golden handcuffs. Probably 30-40% more than I could get elsewhere. They had a "cost of replacement player" policy, where they count the cost of hiring, sourcing, training over the years, etc, and come up with a number thats almost always way above market rate for people who have been around a bit.
Attrition was lower than industry average...but not by much. The reality is that in big tech, salaries are high enough that people stop caring. People left for a variety of reasons, the most common one being "I want to see how it is elsewhere" (especially from college hires who have been at the company several years). Others leave because they want to work at a startup. Some leave to join their friends. Some because they move to follow a significant other who got a job elsewhere (many prefer offices over WFH, so offering that only helps so much).
In the end, again, retention is higher, but when you crunch the numbers, its very debatable if it's worth it for the company. Worse, sometimes companies end up "competing" over it, so even if you pay a lot, the next one offers more because they know your salary bracket, then you raise yours until one gives. That sounds great for the employee but there are budgets and limits at some point.
And then there's the topic of counter offers. The uncomfortable truth is that there's very significant demographic differences when it comes to folks who use the "I got an offer elsewhere, pay me more and Ill stay". If you give counter offers when that happens (as opposed to across the board bracket increase), you quickly end up with statistically significant discrepancies, and that's not ok.