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Comment by twiddling | Hacker News Reader

Actually providing a path for advancement is cited over compensation concerns in a lot of exit interviews I have seen

I think a lot of those are code for compensation, though. It’s a lot more polite to say “I didn’t see a path to advance here” than it is to say “this other company was willing to pay me more” [or “I was tired of your particular flavor of bullshit”].

Because advancement offers what? Right, bigger compensation.

- Better comp (significantly better, not insulting 4% raises)

- Better working conditions (possibly including more respect and higher social status)

- Different work (sick of development, want to move into management or product or whatever)

- Better prospects for future employment ("when I'm a middling-quality 45 year old developer I might not be able to find a job anymore... as a middling-quality 45-year-old manager, on the other hand, I'll do just fine)

One or (probably) more of those are what people want when they talk about wanting advancement opportunities. The comp is pretty much always going to be one of the things they're focused on, as it's a big part of what distinguishes advancement from changing careers. The better pay and/or status is what makes it advancement.

It's not just that though. It's also the oppertunity to work on more interesting things and less on day to day drudge work.

Beyond a certain point, though, advancement can mean less and less interesting domain-specific work, and more things like managing people, strategic decision making, presenting to executives and business stakeholders, and yes politics.

The only thing that is almost universally true about "advancement" is more compensation. So, if someone is complaining about advancement in their exit interview, it's very often code-word for compensation.

I've also seen advancement as a cover for "unfair advancement of others."

Which is sometimes the trigger for leaving: "why did they get the promotion when I have been-here-longer/work-harder/do-better-work?"

This will always be the case. The last thing the majority of companies want to do is provide a clear path to promotion and pay increases. Face it, the vast majority of non technical companies are all about cost cutting, doing more with less. Hence job hopping is how developers get promotions and raises.

> path for advancement

I'm pretty sure that's code for better compensation and better working conditions.

Because discussing compensation is impolitic. "Path for advancement" is often code for under-compensation.

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