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Pricing Programmers

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Re: Pricing Programmers

#111

Post by dclowd9901 »

gotchange wrote: post #62
lemevi wrote: post #10

For years, from one job in the bay area to the next I worked on products that never made any money and ended up being canceled. Even when I worked on a project that ended up making money I spent a year working on a version that was rebooted from scratch before customers ever saw it. At a couple of startups that never took of afterward I could clearly see the impact that code I wrote was making on sales and value. It…

> I'm not sure why people pay me so much Why is this sentiment in the community common? I can't really find an explanation for it so far.

I've heard it mostly from individuals of more humble backgrounds working on projects with little connection to the value they create. Many people are simply unequipped at seeing how they impact at scale. I've often found myself reminding people of the contributions they've made and even gone to lengths of calculating those contributions so I can show them that, if anything, they're vastly underpaid.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#112

Post by spoiler »

Joeri wrote: post #95
spoiler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to see someone have such a nice experience with their employment history. I actually have the opposite experience. tldr: I am happy you had such good luck; mine sucked. Worked in Tech Support (for a tech-related company), made tools to make mine and colleagues' from the department job easier and faster. This caught some attention from the infrastructure department, which got me "promoted" to junior sys admi…

If you can't leave, you have no leverage and rely on the benevolence of others (a trait which is exceedingly rare). I've been in the situation where I went from being the junior hire to the team lead, with only minor pay adjustments. All it took to fix that was to point out (nicely) that I expected to be paid what I was worth, and they had the choice to do so or to risk me walking out. Line up an alternative, then le…

I could leave, but I am not sure I want to. I like the people and some of them have become my good friends and the job was genuinely fun until I became a donkey.

I have enjoyed most of it, apart from the parts highlighted earlier which frustrate and upset me.

My alternative is to quit and sit at home. One of the reasons (I'm not sure how relevant it actually was) why I took the job was because my doctor said it'd help manage my depression, and it did, because it made me happy, and the atmosphere and coworkers were amazing.

Although, if by alternative you mean another job, I don't know if I'll be able find one close enough so I can still take care of my mum.

Underpaid isn't really the problem, it's just a symptom of this "broken" culture, where anyone new won't ever be as valuable as the new crew (regardless of their actual value or how much they contribute). And I feel part of my problem right now is that that I'm in the department with all the old employees.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#113

Post by dvanduzer »

spoiler wrote: post #89
lemevi wrote: post #10

For years, from one job in the bay area to the next I worked on products that never made any money and ended up being canceled. Even when I worked on a project that ended up making money I spent a year working on a version that was rebooted from scratch before customers ever saw it. At a couple of startups that never took of afterward I could clearly see the impact that code I wrote was making on sales and value. It…

It's nice to see someone have such a nice experience with their employment history. I actually have the opposite experience. tldr: I am happy you had such good luck; mine sucked. Worked in Tech Support (for a tech-related company), made tools to make mine and colleagues' from the department job easier and faster. This caught some attention from the infrastructure department, which got me "promoted" to junior sys admi…

I do not think my story is terribly common, but I was in a similar situation about 11 years ago. Somebody noticed, and at some point I was simply given a ~20% raise. I didn't even ask.

Some companies cultivate a recognition of talent, and some don't. Some companies are simply small companies, and the culture reflects some of the idiosyncrasies of a family (for better and worse). Getting a promotion without a pay raise is certainly a mixed signal.

The one thing I'd suggest you look around for, is to understand the business cycle of the company you're working for. If most of the revenue is from contract sys-ops for enterprise clients, pay raises may simply lag based on the client business cycles.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#114

Post by marcosdumay »

Joeri wrote: post #96
fsloth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"whether there is something intrinsically non-value-capturing going on" If you mean that it's hard to apply value to an individuals labour in programming you are correct, except in some rare circumstances where there is only one guy at work - then it becomes trivial. Let's look this from the point of view of features and fixes for an individual software product. For a car mechanic, an unserved issue means the single…

> Software is nothing like building a house except in rare circumstances. Real world construction projects are mostly about creating linear combinations of known things. Have you actually built a house before? The plans never quite match up to the reality. It always takes longer than you think, and costs more. No house is exactly the same as another. Every house has bespoke parts to it. Shoddy construction happens of…

Yes, civil engineers use a 30% - 40% fudge factor to deal with those unforeseen costs. They often get the costs wrong, sometimes it's nearly twice more, but those times are rare.

Software developers normally apply a 200% - 500% fudge factor do deal with unforeseen costs. Problem is, they are usually wrong by an order of magnitude or two, at whatever direction.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#115

Post by gizi »

jacquesm wrote: post #72
gizi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, I don't like the mentality that exudes from "How to price a programmer". Furthermore, this site, "Hacker News", is not supposed to be upvoting that kind of posts, because in that case, the people on this site are not hackers at all. The vote here has obviously been subverted. But then again, it does not matter. Making billions is not a matter of voting or misguided pseudo-democracy. Mark Zuckerberg made hund…

How to price a programmer is a legitimate subject of discussion on a website where a large portion of the audience derives their bread-and-butter from being exactly that, programmers. What 'hacker news' is or is not supposed to be upvoting is only fragmentary up to you, the value of your one vote which you may withhold as you please. There isn't a day that goes by without some relative newcomer here saying with great…

If someone wants a tool to "determine their value" he is already asking the wrong question. It is his work that should have value. I can only feel sorry for people who believe that they should be the product and not their work.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#116

Post by burnallofit »

spoiler wrote: post #112
Joeri wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't leave, you have no leverage and rely on the benevolence of others (a trait which is exceedingly rare). I've been in the situation where I went from being the junior hire to the team lead, with only minor pay adjustments. All it took to fix that was to point out (nicely) that I expected to be paid what I was worth, and they had the choice to do so or to risk me walking out. Line up an alternative, then le…

I could leave, but I am not sure I want to. I like the people and some of them have become my good friends and the job was genuinely fun until I became a donkey. I have enjoyed most of it, apart from the parts highlighted earlier which frustrate and upset me. My alternative is to quit and sit at home. One of the reasons (I'm not sure how relevant it actually was) why I took the job was because my doctor said it'd hel…

You do "tech support" and are generally tech savvy? Try getting a job doing remote QA. There are online services for testing apps/software. I work for a company that employs such a service to test our stuff.

Now, your real goal, it sounds like, is not to leave your current job, it is to get paid better. You can't do that without mobility.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#117

Post by burnallofit »

staticint wrote: post #11

As always, prices are determined by supply and demand. A price is too high if the buyer can find the same thing (another programmer considered to be an equal hire, in this case; people are not commodities so this can be difficult to evaluate with absolute accuracy) for less. A price is too low if the buyer cannot find the same thing for even an equal amount. The price is just right, at that moment in time, if there i…

And ... we control the supply. If we all agree, we can set pricing however we want. Yes, it would be a monopoly/union/cartel, but OTOH, we could double or triple our take home overnight.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#118

Post by rev_bird »

gsnedders wrote: post #63
gotchange wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure why people pay me so much Why is this sentiment in the community common? I can't really find an explanation for it so far.

It's incredibly pervasive—it's essentially one way of imposer syndrome manifesting itself.

I was thinking about exactly this earlier today -- I'm almost suspicious about my level of compensation. I work for a reputable company doing straightforward development, but the stars aligned, so to speak, in the timing of my offer, and I'm probably making twice as much as the average programmer with my experience in my region. I'm good at stuff, but I'm not twice as valuable. I just wonder if this is going to last.

Re: Pricing Programmers

#119

Post by fsloth »

Joeri wrote: post #96
fsloth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"whether there is something intrinsically non-value-capturing going on" If you mean that it's hard to apply value to an individuals labour in programming you are correct, except in some rare circumstances where there is only one guy at work - then it becomes trivial. Let's look this from the point of view of features and fixes for an individual software product. For a car mechanic, an unserved issue means the single…

> Software is nothing like building a house except in rare circumstances. Real world construction projects are mostly about creating linear combinations of known things. Have you actually built a house before? The plans never quite match up to the reality. It always takes longer than you think, and costs more. No house is exactly the same as another. Every house has bespoke parts to it. Shoddy construction happens of…

"I would say building software is very much like building a house."

Yeah, it's good to remind that making anything new and not mass produced is always messy. I would still claim that software only goes more insane from that since there are very little constraints to the work and it's less understandable as a whole. House at least is bound to the basic laws of physics. One cannot mess up the local universe so that walking through any arbitrary door takes one suddenly to the toilet. In software, on the other hand, one needs to design the constraints oneself (I'm generalizing again, of course).

Re: Pricing Programmers

#120

Post by dang »

mruniverse wrote: post #22
rgbrgb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't pay for "programmers" they pay for people to make products.

People don't pay for people to make products, they pay for people to make them money. People don't pay for people to them to make money, they pay for people to build wealth. People don't... wait I have to throw up. Will be back.

You have a decent point here, but please don't optimize for snark on HN.
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