Earlier quoted context omitted.
A roadworker should be paid amazing rates, then, because millions of people will end up using that road.
Valid point, but most roads aren't profitable. They're subsidized by tax payers.
Toll roads ftw?
Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
31–40 of 310 posts
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#32Majority of new IT grads earning 150k? This can't be representative sample for US. > this is from about 100 data points, members of the “Hackathon Hackers” Facebook group, in 2015. What's the point of analyzing data from such narrow and unusual sample? RE: how to get data about programmers salaries, I'd say try to check job postings, they usually say how much company offers.
Does 150k include bonuses and stock?
In my experience, 150k base pay sounds awfully high
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#33Does anybody else think the salaries are a little high? Perhaps the sample size is skewed? I'm somewhat senior in software engineering, but I literally don't know a single person making over 200k. Nada. Not one. I also don't know any college grads who started making 150k. That seems absurd, unless you're only looking at certain companies and top performers or something.
> Does anybody else think the salaries are a little high?
The numbers for programmers are total compensation, not just salary. The lawyer figures are actually salaries though.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#34I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
I have a theory where the bimodal distributions comes from two sets of people: one set focused only passing the course/assignment/test, the other set focused on actually knowing the content. Appearance and substance.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#35I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector?
If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#36I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
I have a theory where the bimodal distributions comes from two sets of people: one set focused only passing the course/assignment/test, the other set focused on actually knowing the content. Appearance and substance.
Interesting theory.
I have a different one, derived from teaching 1000s of students over 2 decades. the bimodal distributions comes from two sets of people: one set working hard and putting the hours in until the master the subject, the other set being lazy, cheating, and don't put the hours in, so they never achieve mastery. Appearance and substance.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#37The most important thing to remember about developer compensation, especially when comparing to more "traditional" roles, is scale. A programmer working at a large internet company may be impacting millions upon millions of people. Building a feature that lets you collect (or save) a penny from a user every month is worth $240K a year when spread out over 2 million users. $120M when spread out over 1 billion users. T…
Scale is not the most important factor. It really is about supply and demand. If employers could get away with paying their developers 30K a year, they would (... and they do whenever possible). The actual scale of the work certainly informs the compensation, like it might for other jobs like journalists for example, but that is only part of the story. If you need developers, you simply gotta pay them salaries the ar…
Scale is part of the demand side of the supply and demand equation.
Using dkopi's example, at a company with 2M users, it's worth hiring a developer for each "penny per user per month" problem. A company with 1B users, it's worth hiring a developer for each "0.002 pennies per user per month" problem.
Or similarly, if you look at developers who work on internal tools that save other developers time. At a startup with 40 employees, each new tools developer must save everyone else two days per year. At a large company with 20 000 developers, each new tools developer must be able to save everyone else 6 minutes per year.
As the scale gets bigger, smaller and smaller problems become worth hiring people for.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#38I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
I have a theory where the bimodal distributions comes from two sets of people: one set focused only passing the course/assignment/test, the other set focused on actually knowing the content. Appearance and substance.
FYI, you have an untested hypothesis, not a theory. Unless you have done some research somewhere. Sorry for the pedantics!
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#39I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector? If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.
Oh if only that were true.
I've worked with people in the past who know just enough to hack together a front end on top of a simple database, but who would completely fall apart when presented with anything more complex than that. These are the sort of people who when asked to build an internationalised website "solve" the problem by copying an entire PHP application into directories called "english" and "german" and then proceed to change the text in the German version.
Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?
#40I teach computer science at a well-known, large and mediocre university. I see bimodal grade distributions all the time. The more technical a subject, the more bimodal the grades. In fluff subjects like software engineering where grading relates to essay writing and group projects, grade distribution tends to be gaussian. OTOH in technical subjects where I grade by automated test suits, basically students fail almost…
Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector? If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.
In my experience, there is enough fluff and non-programming, abstract theory classes in a CS major that people who cannot program their way out of a wet paper bag can complete the degree, and even get high marks. These people can get jobs, and coast along for years at sub-mediocre levels of production, in most cases.