Does it happen that people leave the company not out of a desire to earn more, but for other reasons, sometimes agreeing to even a lower salary in a new job? We tried to find out and came across different answers. From "no one is fired for financial reasons at all," "and if they are fired, it is the youth," to "in fact, everyone is only interested in money."
Five IT specialists tell their own stories when they resigned from companies or left freelance for a higher salary computer engineer jobs.
Illustration by Alina Samolyuk
"Respect for the employee is a fixed idea for me"
Alexander Mikitenko , Lead QA Automation Engineer
In all my 14 years of experience, I have changed at least 8 companies. At the same time, he was often driven by financial motives, but sometimes left the company for reasons unrelated to money.
The clearest story happened when I went to work in Couchsurfing. This service is close in spirit to me, because it helps to host people for free - unlike Airbnb, where the benefits are shared on a commercial basis. From this point of view, Couchsurfing seemed to me a product I wanted to develop. The resource was created on Ruby on Rails, and I thought it needed automation. And this is my specialty. I found them myself and deliberately (not because of a vacancy) wrote.
I was answered in six months. They said that they were restructuring the team. Couchsurfing didn't have automation, so I got them interested. At that time I worked in a chamber startup, but gladly agreed to change jobs.
However, I left Couchsurfing in four months. It all ended quickly because I was too interested in the project. That is, he immediately began to show initiative, to push ideas, which did not quite suit the Owners and did not correspond to their vision of what people in the team should do. Every Friday, employees were sent an anonymous tool asking if they were satisfied and what they would like to change. And I painted everything every time. All the answers were tied to the team in San Francisco - ours, Kyiv, did not have autonomy. And I insisted, among other things, that autonomy is necessary, as well as horizontal principles by which people can make decisions in a team. All this was not normally spoken, and in response they said only "let's see."
There were many employees who criticized the company. But, as I was told, American culture must be taken into account. That is, it is worth writing: "Everything is wonderful and cool, but if you add this ...". Apparently, I have a problem with that, because I wrote directly. And once, when he again voiced his ideas, the CEO of the project, who is also an owner, answered me very aggressively and publicly: “I know that you are paid. And pay well. So do the work and that's it. "
It broke me! I was emotionally burned out and decided to resign. I was so sorry for the success of the project, and those words touched me. However, I expected some support from colleagues. Yes, everyone agreed that the processes were terrible, something needed to be changed, they said that we were perceived as guest workers, but it did not go beyond personal conversations. At the same time, professionally, there were no differences of opinion with the team, I received positive feedback for a long time. For example, I trained two automation staff (I have a mentor background), they progressed, and then a new developer who came in my place found me on LinkedIn and noted the excellent work on automated tests.
I left the team myself: I didn't want to stay where not only they don't develop, but they are indifferent to work. And respect for the employee is a fixed idea for me. I have left-wing views and believe that it is the employees who create the product, from which the business owner then removes the margin. Because a business owner is just a capital owner, not always even a manager. That's why it annoys me when profit-generating employees are treated as service personnel.
Besides, I'm not the only one who has this opinion. Just go to Glassdoor and read reviews about the company: they are very critical. They pay well there, but that's not the main thing. It is important for me to invest my knowledge and skills, to feel that my ideas are being developed, that I am valued.
Can similar frustrations be prevented during an interview? This is difficult because you usually see everything in the process. But you can ask whether the specialists in the company are given autonomy and in what way, how much control management (time tracking is already an element of disrespect and distrust, and I would rather not go to such a company).
In addition, there is another point - whether it is possible to disclose the salary. When you know how much your colleague earns, you can compare and analyze your capabilities, properly position yourself in the market. However, many companies either prescribe a non-disclosure clause separately or do not tolerate these conversations. So programmers usually don't allow themselves to talk about it, which is really awful.
It is also important to pay attention to companies that do not show the salary range. They actually say, "Guess how much we can pay you." This is abnormal and means that the company wants to "get cheaper". If you name a number that falls under their range and which is less than the top bar, you will be happily hired. In this case, I call the maximum possible number - such that there was nowhere to roll. It makes no sense to say a small amount: if you are valuable, you will be pointed to the "ceiling", if not - just will not take.
One way or another, companies will not pay more than a specialist generates a profit: these are not charities. And raising employees' self-awareness is a mission for me to some extent. When I come to the company, I try to initiate team building not in the style of "drink beer", but in the context of employee rights. It is terrible that there is no trade union activity in IT: specialists simply do not unite, and this is worrying. Because for me, everything that concerns employee rights is the first and most important factor that determines whether a company is suitable. The salary is also included in the list, but no more.
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