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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

#231

Post by nommm-nommm »

colanderman wrote: post #168
nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

To be fair, no teacher I have ever known has stopped working at 3:20 PM. Grading and planning often go far into the evening.

I had a teacher in high school once explain to us a side lesson on time management, she says she used moments of "downtime" in the school day to do grading and lesson planning so she almost never brought home work as a result.

I took it to heart. It worked very, very well for me in college. I'd always have homework with me ready to go and when I was waiting for a class to start, or any other short time with nothing to do, I'd do homework. I'd only get a bit done at a time but it really added up and reduced my take home workload considerably.

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

#232

Post by vonmoltke »

manuelflara wrote: post #63
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…

I totally agree. Being a developer is one of the best careers you can have right now. Well paid and high in demand everywhere in the world, very little "soul crushing" (and can even be very fulfilling) compared to most jobs and you can even get a job where you work from home, anywhere you want, with flexible time etc. What other jobs exist out there like it? And if your only complaint is "well my employer makes milli…

> Well paid and high in demand everywhere in the world, very little "soul crushing" (and can even be very fulfilling) compared to most jobs and you can even get a job where you work from home, anywhere you want, with flexible time etc.

Assuming you like and are good at a specialty that is in demand, and can convince someone else of that. As someone who does not like web or enterprise CRUD development I don't feel very in-demand, nor do I feel like I can get one of those sweet working arrangements[1] that get discussed here. I have spent the past couple of years wrestling with whether to keep trying to do what I want to do (real-time embedded systems) and be "underpaid" doing it or do something I am good at but really don't like (Java backend systems/"big data") in order to make more money. I think the latter is going to win by default, since I have been out of the embedded game too long at this point.

[1] Not to say my current arrangement isn't better than average with respect to flexibility, vacation, benefits, and such. I think the average HNer would probably consider my fringe benefits kinda crappy.

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

#233

Post by sctb »

notsurprised wrote: post #179
nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

This is dumb, you're dumb.

Please don't do this here. We ban accounts that violate the guidelines with comments like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #202
nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

They may leave at 3:20, but that doesn't mean they are done working. Teachers do lots of work -- lesson planning, grading, etc. -- out of the classroom and outside of "working" hours. Not to mention the money they spend on basic supplies for their job that aren't provided by their employer -- or the time they sirens trying to solicit other people to find that.

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by nommm-nommm »

Xylakant wrote: post #216
sokoloff wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both my parents were teachers. While there was some summer work, in no way was it nearly as intense as the school year. The mere fact that many do take summer jobs is proof of that, IMO.

> The mere fact that many do take summer jobs is proof of that, IMO. Or it's a proof that they need the money.

If I had two months off a year I'd take a summer job at Starbucks or whatever as well yet I don't need the money by any means whatsoever even if I took a prorated pay cut. Hell, I don't need to work at all because my spouse's income is more than enough to live off of very comfortably, but I do. The amount of time I work isn't an indication of the amount of money I need.

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

#236

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

ryandrake wrote: post #204
signa11 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... here you are paying $70k for a $1M lottery ticket ... care to elaborate a bit on how you got that ? thanks !

If the difference between what you can make in total compensation at BigCompany and your salary at Startup is $70K, then you're essentially buying a lottery ticket for $70K... PER YEAR.

...and if your options are for %0.1 of the company, they have to be a unicorn for you to make a million bucks (assuming that $1M is "lottery ticket" paying off.)

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

#237

Post by amag »

gaius wrote: post #176
minipci1321 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plumbers work reasonable hours, are paid overtime, Indeed, over here many I talked to refused to do more than 8 hours a day. I didn't understand until... -- ever tried to do a hard physical work several days in a row? How about the entire life? > don't have to deal with ageism But have to deal with knee joints and back pains. Don't underestimate the joy of physical work at an advanced age. > their skills stay relev…

A plumber we had in recently said electrical work is boring and it's no wonder electricians are miserable all the time, whereas plumbing is actually fun :-)

As we are sharing anecdotes: A plumber we had here a couple of years ago, changing thermostats on the radiators in the 40+ houses in our small townhouse community, caused serious water damages in 10+ of the houses. As he came by to fix the leaks, it didn't look like he had much fun plumbing..

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

#238

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

developer2 wrote: post #66
20yrs_no_equity wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's worthless, and you're taking below a market salary, and you're working much harder than you would have to at a company paying you that market salary... then you're getting a raw deal. Better to get the market salary for a 50 hour a week job and do your own startup on the side as a side project. The thing is, early employees (first 1-4 years) put in as much effort and take as much risk as founders, and take a…

>> Options do have a calculable value, if you can determine the risk of failure for the company. Yes, because every company that has ever failed was predetermined to be a failure long before they went out of business. Give me a break. I've watched companies of varying sizes do extremely well for several years, which then fall apart into ashes in a matter of a month or two. You can't assign value to options unless you…

There are multiple types of value. Some of which that you often see in startups is calculable. For instance if the strike price is X and the last funding was at Y then there's an intrinsic value to the options of Y-X. If that's positive you can make an estimate of the likelihood of the company being viable long enough to realize that value and then discount that value by that amount.

EVERYTHING involves risk. A risk adjusted calculation isn't a guarantee but it's also not irrelevant simply because there's risk.

If I will pay you $1 for every number that comes up on the dice, unless its a 1 in which case I pay you nothing, would you ante up $0.50? You seem to be arguing that because there's a chance a 1 could come up, that a ticket for that game isn't worth $0.50.

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

#239

Post by amag »

gaius wrote: post #148
dagw wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and their jobs will never be offshored Don't know about the US, but in much of Europe plumbing has definitely been 'offshored' in the sense that much of the work is done by non-locals brought in short term.

Everyone "learning to code" instead is probably why! If I were giving career advice to any young person now, I would definitely tell them plumbing or a similar trade. As we say in Yorkshire "where there's muck there's brass".

I always thought "where there's brass there's brass".

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

#240

Post by exelius »

blahi wrote: post #209
exelius wrote: post #157

In a capitalist system, you actually have an obligation to get as much of the pie as you can. Fuck being seen as greedy; greed is the entire basis of capitalism. This doesn't mean resorting to illegal / unethical measures; but it does mean always negotiating to get a better deal. This goes from the top of the economy all the way down to the bottom. I'll admit it can be hard when you don't have leverage; but you also…

Self interest is the entire basis of capitalism, not greed. You are not greedy for defending your interest, i.e. getting paid as much as you can.

Exactly my point. Greed is a false construct.
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