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I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

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Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#111

Post by cel1ne »

gaius wrote: post #103
cel1ne wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add "police" to the list of critically important yet comically underpaid professions.

Well there is a paradox at work here. You need to pay any sort official enough that they aren't desperate for bribes, but not so much that you attract people into the job motivated by personal enrichment. Read "Systems of Survival" by Jane Jacobs for a good study of this.

I agree. In return for the higher pay, I'm in favour of much stronger selection, screening and higher penalties for wrong-doing.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#113

Post by ethanbond »

amelius wrote: post #94
flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

> If it were about intelligence, most physicists I know are underpaid and programmers are generally compensated fairly. Most physicists I know are searching for stuff that already exists, whereas most programmers I know are actually building new stuff.

New stuff = this week's rip of another game, Snapchat feature, or productivity app. Yippee.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#114

Post by rimantas »

flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

Not sure aniut the low barrier to entry. Take 1000 programmers, how many can be made into decent plumbers in 6 months? Now take 1000 plumbers, how many can be made ibto decent programmers in 6 months? Also, I am nit aware how often tevhnology materials and tooling changes for plumbers (I guess some of these spsn generations), but I am aware that platform I have been working full time for 4 years did not exist 8 years ago, and the language I write my code in did not exist three years ago.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#115

Post by PDoyle »

pjc50 wrote: post #68
mosselman wrote: post #41

Misleading title and premise: The author makes it seem as if something will be explained for people who are not 'financially-savvy', but nothing is explained. In fact it is made more complex. Which is fine, but still it was kind of misleading. Solid advice to get financial advice nonetheless. Can someone explain this part to my/some-of-us like I am five?: "Which muppets advised them to spend hard-earned cash to exerc…

The point he's making is that if that's part of your compensation, and you don't understand it, then you might as well be being paid in magic beans. Options have a much higher "total cost of understanding" than regular compensation, and understanding liquidity and volatility is part of that.

But if you assign your options the same value as magic beans (ie. zero) and find that the job is worth doing anyway, then you can avoid filling your head with a lot of financial mumbo jumbo.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#116

Post by mamon »

billmalarky wrote: post #106
flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

> What about the risk of work injuries faced by construction workers every day. That's real risk. I hear you, but the negative health effects of working insane hours developing in a high stress "start-up" environment for many years should not be understated.

Exactly, in fact I think that if you want to stay healthy then working as a construction worker is great: you get physical excercise, fresh air, low stress level. Risk of injury is pretty low, and wages are pretty good.

In contrast, being software developer will probably get you heart attack, or problems with your spine, or eyes, or hands or all of the above.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#117

Post by radmuzom »

flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

Downvoted. Your response did not make much sense to me given the article. The article just states that programmers should understand the intricate details of their compensation and make a balanced judgment (whether to take an offer or not) based on that. (edit) The article does not make a judgment on whether programmers are well compensated or not.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#118

Post by qudat »

olavgg wrote: post #69
flexie wrote: post #56

I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…

Yes programmers are well compensated, but they are also in very high demand. One day at a big family union I got three phonecalls from recruiters. My whole family rolled their eyes, while I politely said no to those recruiters with below average offers. I told them that this is usual, I get a few phonecalls from recruiters every week. None of them who work as doctors, teachers, accounting, geophysicist, even an old C…

My gf is a physician and she has recruiters contacting her exactly how we get contacted and with the same vein, recruiters are calling about jobs no one wants.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#119

Post by qudat »

Artlav wrote: post #112

In simple words, you should work for money/salary, not for promises/equity. This way you'll always get a fair compensation, regardless of what happens to the company.

Low risk, low reward. If everyone thought this way then entrepreneurs wouldn't exist

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#120

Post by qudat »

jondubois wrote: post #53

Finance is evil. Day trading, investment banking, venture capital; they don't produce anything for society, they just sit at the intersection of various people, companies and industries and they capture big chunks of the money that flows between them - They rely on information asymmetry and market manipulation to do so; but 'information asymmetry' is just a euphemism for 'deception'. Even startups which are doing wel…

The allocation of resources is a non-trivial problem and financing, while on the surface can be corrupt, does have value in the world.
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