Great discussion on LinkedIn replying to this:

Good thing I didn’t get used to these crazy salaries and perks because all that is about to change. Tech salaries are way out of line with reality in these FAANG companies and all it takes is a recession to shine light on it. Back to reality!

Replies:

Nato R.

“or going up against their corporate overlords during the pandemic for the right to work however and wherever they wanted.”

It’s 2022, if a “corporate overlord” is trying to be overly controlling, it’s big companies and those who struggle to drive cashflow that will struggle harder in an incoming recession. Folks who are the ones who drive capital and cashflow at big corps can just quit and make the money without a corp if they have to.

Just because a recession is coming doesn’t mean employers have leverage over advanced employees their department can’t survive without.

We’ll see how stern managers get when folks are quitting mid-recession to either work for themselves or competitors. Just because someone is in charge doesn’t mean they can manage folks who won’t stick around.

Don’t go up against the corporate overlords who get abusive, leave them for better and the only one who loses is the corporation who can’t treat folks right.

People will opt for pay cuts to work where they are treated better over staying at companies who just gave a paycut… where that employee was just there for the money anyways. Some companies pay more, particularly because folks won’t stay otherwise without excessive payment at some companies.

Naimi D

I disagree. A key point these predictors of power shifting back to employers miss is the generations that dominate the workforce today: millennials and Gen Z. Unlike Boomers and Gen X, they are ok with sitting out from work, getting roommates, going back to live with their parents or hustling in gig economy to make ends meet while taking their risks in retail investing and crypto. They are not as obsessed with working their way up for “the man” as Gen X and the boomers. Generations like these have never been seen before. We still haven’t raised the federal minimum wage, yet these generations have forced places like McDonalds to pay their employees upwards of $16/hour by refusing to work for less. The power has always been there for employees to take, but Gen X+ all bought into the same lie and viewed it as a failure to not be living on our own and at certain point in our careers by a certain age. These generations don’t care. And in tech, many are capable of building platforms that could be direct threats to the big tech firms that need to keep young, innovative talent coming in. They can’t afford to be stuck with mediocre people who will just fall in line. They need that top talent. So they will comply for their survival.

Jono S

Same old shit – the whole article is about how “workers better wake up” when the hiring and salary ranges were completely determined by the companies in the first place. For once I’d love to see an article about work that didn’t threaten workers in some fashion. I don’t understand why we talk about work like it’s war and we should be grateful that someone took pity on us and gave us a job we didn’t deserve.