While I agree that money is quite important, but it's not the only thing that matters.

A few weeks ago I interviewed for a job with a 50% salary increase compared to the current company I work for. All went well until I had an interview with the manager. He was the kind of guy I would not want to work with. He gave me the micro-manager vibe and mentioned a few things that made me turn down the job.

I'd rather work with a good and nice manager than have a 50% salary increase.

> I'd rather work with a good and nice manager than have a 50% salary increase.

But as soon as you find a good job with a decent manager that pays 50% more, you are going to leave.

Actually the moment that you've received that offer with 50% salary increase you already lost some of your motivations even though you may not notice it immediately. And you are going to continue lose more of your motivations because you know that you can earn more.

I think Money is equally important to many other things mentioned here. But the thing about money is that it isn't the only thing that matters. If you don't fix other problems, money can only keep your employees as long as they can't find a replacement with similar pay scale. And even until then they are going to under-perform.

So Money is important. You can't keep good, motivated, high performing employees only with a good pay check. But you can't keep them without a good pay check either.

> But as soon as you find a good job with a decent manager that pays 50% more, you are going to leave.

Well yes, I would. But that doesn't mean it's only about money.

> And you are going to continue lose more of your motivations because you know that you can earn more.

Partly agree. I know I can do more and be in a role with more responsibility. If I find a new job as a manager/team lead which pays same or 10% less, I would actually go for it. Because in the long run I may move up to director/VP level. So maybe money is important as I mentioned, but it's not the only thing.

> So Money is important. You can't keep good, motivated, high performing employees only with a good pay check. But you can't keep them without a good pay check either.

Totally agree.

Money is the best way. Your situation is a different scenario. If you were going to accept the other offer what would it took to keep you in your current one? Money.

And if you worth +50% on the market you should really re-evaluate how nice is your manager not paying you that much. It is all 3-5%/year {raises|insults} until you show them a competitive offer, then the parent question gets asked.

> Money is the best way. Your situation is a different scenario. If you were going to accept the other offer what would it took to keep you in your current one? Money.

Not necesseraly. If I had the chance to move up in my current role and keep the same salary I would stay.

I’m curious, then, why you were interviewing elsewhere. The OP is asking about retaining good employees. You were on the verge of leaving. You didn’t like the environment at the place you looked, but does that mean you’re done looking now?

I'm looking to move up, i.e manager/team lead. I do like my job currently and there is a really good environment. I get to work from home, the work/life balance is quite good.

I did apply for a job that actually paid less, but had more responsibility. I guess it's part of planning your career rather than tactically deciding based on money.

So, I'm not done looking, but money is not the only deciding factor.

Well I'd argue this is part of life.

If I'm a muslim who doesn't drink alcohol, and people I'm working with keep talking about having a beer and "what? you really don't drink". Does that mean everyone should stop drinking alcohol?.

Yes different words have different meanings, but once you start tinkering with this, where do you draw a line in the sand?

When I read the tiltle the first thing I thought about was "Man in the middle" attacks which belongs to the security field. How do you rename this? "woman in the middle"? doesn't this sound sexist? wouldn't some guys use this to have sexist jokes with their female colleagues and make matters worse?

I'm genuinly thinking out loud here.

Exactly. Anything can trigger emotions. The difference is emotional management, or not. Letting bad emotions stifle you may reduce your outcomes, but we can't always expect others to save us.

Racism and discrimination is real, but we shouldn't conflate them with unfair powerstructures. We need to level the playing field and speak up against bullying.

This. If your company is migrating to AWS, go with AWS certification. You need to go horzintal in your learning, i.e broad and wide in term of knowledge and certifications. After getting some experience or extensive labbing, you can go vertical, i.e deeper and more specific knowledge.

Find whatever projects your company is planning, read more about those projects. Then understand where your passion is and what value you can add. Start learning, then contact the people owning those projects. Say that you want to contribute and that your main job will not be affected, as you will be doing it on the side. Your transition will not happen overnight, and you need a lot of work to get there, but if you are persistent you will get there.

There are courses on AWS certification for 9$ on udemy. You can also get a free account from AWS and start labbing.

I'd start with reading any digital strategy or any published company's strategy. That will give you a sense of where the customer is and where they want to move to. The strategy will also help you cross sell your services to your customers.

If you are planning to work with the customer for a long period, please read about their vision and mission. You want to align your projects according to what the customer wants.

Thanks for sharing. I hear you when you say it still rings 20 year later. I think the other thing is that it is hard to share this stories with people. Hell, I had a hard time sharing it with my wife. I'm not sure if its shame or similar, but it feels worse than being physically assaulted.