What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
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Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#2I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons:
1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling
2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engneers spend unemployed (due to economic cycle, startup bankruptcy, downsizing, etc.) compared to the general population (e.g., government workers for example have superb job security, often 100% lifetime job security.)
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#3Comparing software engineer's salary with other graduate's salary would have been more meaningful. Instead of with general population.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#4I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
Software engineers are like doctors or lawyers - long period of study on difficult (and in places where people pay for colleges expensive) schools, long hours, but good pay. So it makes sense to compare them with doctors and lawyers.
Unlike doctors and lawyers, software engineers don't have any respect and are pretty much working class, but that's another story.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#5I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
Software engineers are like doctors or lawyers - long period of study on difficult (and in places where people pay for colleges expensive) schools, long hours, but good pay. So it makes sense to compare them with doctors and lawyers. Unlike doctors and lawyers, software engineers don't have any respect and are pretty much working class, but that's another story.
Disagree. Status is attributed based on "How useful are you or can you be to me?". A doctor and lawyer could be very useful to me personally, selfishly. A software engineer tends to be very useful to capital (institutions, etc.) but not as useful to an individual personally. Facebook engineers have a lot of status - because people use Facebook personally all the time. A great engineer who programs stop lights, manufacturing PLCs, business application, etc. not so much. No selfish benefit = No love.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#6I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
Does it make any sense to you to compare a particular group to the general population then? I think it does, the insights you may draw from such a comparisons are obviously different than comparing two sub-groups, e.g. programmers vs. doctors for example.
Also the article doesn't judge the differences of incomes, the "overpaid" is your interpretation.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#7I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
Did you check the article, though? In quite many European countries the median software engineer earns less than the average salary.
I wonder if they meant "median salary" instead, as median vs. median would seem a better comparison than median vs. average.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#8I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
Software engineers are like doctors or lawyers - long period of study on difficult (and in places where people pay for colleges expensive) schools, long hours, but good pay. So it makes sense to compare them with doctors and lawyers. Unlike doctors and lawyers, software engineers don't have any respect and are pretty much working class, but that's another story.
Not really. SW engineers are more like the better paid regular engineer.
Hired for a specific, technical purpose. Expected to (usually) have gone to college.
No offense, but equating a comp sci degree (even with years of work experience) to a medical doctor is a little laughable. Doctors (as a field) are a step up from software engineers in terms of professionalism and work expectations.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#9I really detest when software engineer salaries are compared to the salaries of the general population (often to cite how our sector is "overpaid"). Usually lacking from such simple comparisons: 1. Discussion of how software engineers have to go to college for 4 to 6+ years, but the general population is weighted towards those far fewer years of schooling 2. Discussion of downtime -- the amount of time software engne…
A lot of software engineers are autodidacts and never graduated in IT. I didn't (I have an MA in politics, obviously irrelevant to my profession). In general unemployment in IT is very low, and there's always a shortage of programmers, so job security is clearly above average. (And government administrations have IT departments, too).
It's supply vs. demand, that's all there is to it. I'm not buying any of the above as a justification for big salaries.
Re: What Software Engineers Earn Compared to the General Population
#10It's meaningless to directly compare software engineer salaries with the rest of the general population because our work is a 'force multiplier'. A single software engineer can displace the labor of 10 staff - often permanently. While we're compensated more highly than 1 lower-skilled staff member it's still actually not commensurate with the amount of value we actually deliver. My (unscientific) belief is that we actually capture less of the value we generate than most other staff, out of the sense of "fairness" espoused in this article.
This applies at all levels of the spectrum, from a junior developer working at a contracting firm to high-end staff working for Google or whatnot. We wouldn't be paid those salaries if we didn't bring in 5x more than our pay.
Apart from that, supply and demand/etc also apply. We're highly-trained staff who often deal with mathematics that the general population can't or won't deal with.