"Compensation: How much is enough?"

L has put up a blog post with this title. And I wouldn't have responded in kind had I not seen a number there. Two numbers actually - 15L and 4 years. Pardon my language, but I can't help it - WTF?!

I always thought EDA was one of the more lucrative fields in the industry in India, specially because one can't just jump into the field from any other - you need knowledge about more things than the standard C/C++/Unix and the number of experienced people is limited. And here are Java and .Net people talking about 15L in 4 years?! As I said before, WTF!

This can mean either of two things - that kids nowadays are very greedy or that I need to move to a Java based field. The funny thing is that none of the people whom I know (and whose compensation I know as well) get anything close to that number.

Right, now that I have that out of my system, let me go back and see what else L has to say. Ho hum, how much is enough? Ideally, zero work and infinite pay. Next question.

How much time should one spend in a job? That really depends. Job satisfaction and the way you are treated in the company matter a lot. But only at the start of your career, I think. Because that's the time when almost everyone you know have more or less the same pay. But once the years pass, you see people who get paid a lot more just because they happened to land in the right place. Or because they jumped ship 7 times in 7 years. Or because they are in a company that believes in sending you abroad for years together. And once you see the changing lifestyles, the reckless display of wealth, the buying of apartments and cars, the exotic vacations, then it hurts because all I have is certificates and a bunch of gift coupons.

I wouldn't want to judge the quality or worth of the work that all these folks do. But it hurts because I know these were the same people who learnt Fortran programs by heart in the first semester because they didn't understand what was going on. If society values their work much more than mine - then somewhere, somehow, I have slipped and I have failed. How does one rectify that? By getting paid more. Which is possible only if you move.

The sad fact is that you do get a good hike if you move. I've never got the 60-100% that L mentions, but 20-30% is a good number. I lay the blame squarely on management for this one. The way it works in many places is that you get a good hike when you move into the company. During the yearly appraisal, you miss out on the hike because you're too new there. You might even fall behind others in the same role. To keep up, what do you do? You move. Again, and again. There are always other companies willing to take you on board for a 30% hike.

L is probably wrong about us losing out on the cost advantage. As long as I am not paid 80 to 120K dollars, I am a cost advantage to the company, because that is what it will cost them to get someone to do the same work elsewhere (maybe 60K, but the point still stands). And even with all the salary hikes, I am still MUCH below that number. Cost matters a lot to those companies where skill and experience do not matter as much as the head count. Call centers come to mind. I may be wrong, flame me if you will.

Back to the management. Create a job profile vs. compensation matrix, and, damn it, stick to it! Turn the candidate away if he's asking for more. "But what if the candidate is exceptionally qualified/experienced?" whine the MBAs. Then he doesn't belong to that job profile, does he? DON'T base your offer on what the candidate is earning now. One large company that shall go nameless, seems to be making offers directly related to what the candidate earns in the current company. So the numbers I get to hear about fluctuate wildly for the same position.

What I would really like to see is standardized salaries. Yes. Everyone in a given company (or department) at a particular designation or experience level or with the same job responsibilities should have the same compensation. If someone has done exceptionally well, then reward him with a performance bonus, or more stock options or whatever. But I should know when I join a new place that I am not being shortchanged just because I didn't negotiate, and that everyone else is also being paid the same, with point variations depending on performance. It should also reduce favouritism a bit, because you will have to justify any performance bonus you give to an employee.

We come next to the fact that moving often looks bad on the resume'. I don't know. I've seen both kinds of cases, people who have done really well because they moved once a year and ended up as big shot managers, and people who cannot get hired anywhere because they moved once a year. It depends on the people doing the hiring and the reasons that you come up with for moving. Like so many things in life, chance rears its ugly head again.

People say that all this moving around is bad and that soon the market will stagnate because nobody will have the resources to offer you yet another hike. I believe they say this to convince people not to move around so much. From my point of view, if it is inevitable that the market stagnates, then I better move around as much as I can before that happens! (Just kidding, I'm not moving again for some time.)

Why do companies and recruiters hire you even after looking at your history of leaving in a year in all previous companies? I don't know either, but possibly it has to do with you convincing them that you won't. You might even be sincere when you tell them that all the previous ones were a mere coincidence and that you are applying at this place to be able to make a career here. Maybe the people doing the hiring feel that their company will provide a better environment and compensation and that you will finally remain for more than a year. Maybe they just want to complete their headcount.

Finally, uh, is someone actually GETTING that 15L in 4 years? If yes, please, please, please, let me know which company it it, and how one goes about getting a job there.