This would only be true if finding another job was a simple (and reliable) process for most people. I imagine you might come back and say, "But finding another job should be easy for a talented engineer!" To which I would say, nope! Not true! The tech interview grind is often inconsistent and demoralizing. Even talented people might make a reasonable calculation to avoid the trouble and just stick with their current job.
Correct. People also assume that you’re always going to get paid more at a new gig. This just isn’t true in SV. If you joined a startup and it rocketships - I’ve seen many smart engineers stick around for years just because they have a 7-fig TC. Why would they move elsewhere? Just isn’t financially responsible and most are willing to suffer through it as far as I’ve seen.
Re:How to drive away your best engineers
by ClumsyPilot on Sunday July 24, 2022 @08:39AM
(#32212866)
> no engineer worth their salt will be spending a material amount of time working at an organization that they don't believe utilizes their talents well
So is everyone developing advertising at google is a second rate engineer?
I think believes is the key here. There are definitely people who believe that if they can work on complex graph colouring problem in a real-time processing scenario and the interruptions are minimal - then indeed their talent is utilised well. And I can imagine such a scenario happening at Google in advertising department/division/tribe .
There are plenty of critical, unglamorous jobs which need to be done. It’s not unreasonable for an engineer to value high six figure/seven figure salaries over a feeling of work fulfillment and skill utilization
In my time Ads org had some pretty interesting engineering challenges, relatively fast promotion track and good pay
Just look at the state of almost every google project.
Re:How to drive away your best engineers
by kidgorgeous on Sunday July 24, 2022 @08:48AM
(#32212936)
Yes. First rate engineers are designing rockets at Space-X
Re:How to drive away your best engineers
by throwaway98797 on Sunday July 24, 2022 @10:37AM
(#32213896)
lol
brilliant engineers can have crippling life leaks that make them work at shitty but well paid places
This applies regardless of actual talent and does not guarantee results. I've seen mediocre SWEs with inflated egos jump around because they felt their "world class" talents weren't being put to good use, some unsuccessfully, but some rather successfully fooling their way through the ranks of management. But I've also (more frequently) seen disillusioned, extremely talented engineers leave an org that was paying them obscenely well already, but was making them feel like they were wasting their time, for a shot at a startup dice roll which does not pay off as well (on average).