The Most Common Reason People Quit Their $200,000 Tech Jobs

In Silicon Valley, talented engineers are earning around $200,000 a year, and receive some amounts of equity that can turn into valuable nest eggs later in their careers. Still, for many high-income earners, they are quitting their $200,000 tech jobs and the most common reason is unfair treatment. San Francisco Chronicle reported:

The study, by the Oakland, California-based non-profit Kapor Center for Social Impact and Harris Poll, asked a nationally-representative sample of 2,000 adults who had voluntarily left a tech job in the last three years why they chose to abandon their cushy workplaces. Were they enticed by a better opportunity? Did they decide to take time off to care for children? Did they desire a shorter commute?

The answers the “tech leavers” gave were eyebrow-raising in that they suggest the extent to which feelings of mistreatment drive people to leave even the most elite jobs. They also show the way the same workplace can be a vastly different experience depending on a person’s background.

Overwhelmingly, workers of all backgrounds cited “unfairness or mistreatment” within the work environment as the most common reason for leaving. Thirty-seven percent said it was as “major factor” in their decision to quit. Unfair treatment was cited twice as often as being recruited elsewhere.