Stop complaining and pay programmers more • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#61

Post by fleitz » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 3:55 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #49

mikemainguy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly, physicians, mechanics, lawyers, and many other skilled tradesmen are just like programmers. The problem is that many folks see programmers as somehow different than these folks.

Doctors and lawyers can't engage in their profession since the age of 10 or so, like programmers can. Doctors generally cannot be self-taught like programmers (what practice surgery on a neighbor?). Programmers can literally envision things in their minds, and then make them come to life after putting hands on keyboard -- there's no effective equivalent in medicine and law. (Biology/biochem/chem, sure.) Also doctors…

The only difference is in the protectionism of the other professions. Most of the barriers you mention are imaginary. Programming errors can have far worse consequences than medicine or law. I've never seen a doctor or lawyer make a rocket ship turn into the ground (Arian V) or oil pipelines explode (buggy versions of pipeline software stolen by Russia) or make airplanes refuse to execute commands ( airbus and apache FCS). They also can't destroy trillions of dollars of wealth (black- sholes and other flawed risk models, high frequency trading)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#62

Post by mkramlich » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 3:56 AM UTC

scumola wrote: post #37

brown9-2 wrote: post #35

How many job postings even mention salary beyond "salary commensurate with experience"? We must be seeing different types of postings.

Job postings have salary ranges. If I have 80 years of experience and ask for $500k/yr salary, I'm not going to get it.

The whole "years of experience in X" thing is horribly broken and ridiculous. Because there isn't a uniform way of measuring it. It's apples-to-oranges with any one else's way of measuring it, even if you yourself were consistent within your own system. Plus every job is different. Plus, in software you can be programming for many years in a language but never at a day job -- only on home projects or (more recently) open source projects, and yet this experience wouldn't count in some people's eyes. Plus there's the whole multi-variable thing where someone with say 2 years of Ruby preceded by 6 years of Java is generally going to be a more experienced/senior programmer than someone who has 4 years of Ruby ONLY (nothing before that) -- but each person is "farther along" experience-wise depending on your particular crazy-ass assumptions about measuring experience. It's an utter joke.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#63

Post by kranner » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:01 AM UTC

rubinelli wrote: post #16

The best way to hire good programmers is by tapping into the network of the good programmers you already have. Everyone with a few years of experience has a short list of developers they'd like to work with again. EDIT: sponsoring hackathons may be another way of finding great programmers. And don't forget the colleges in your area: if you have an interesting piece of technology you can show off, you can present a ta…

Networking is a good strategy, but you have to temper it with interviewing and portfolios or it can turn into nepotism and a mushroom cloud of bad hires.

Hackathons and design contests like topcoder.com are great for employers but really bad for contestants, most of whom are left with nothing.

http://codeanthem.com might turn into something of an inverted marketplace where employers can compete for the attention of good programmers. (I'm not associated with codeanthem.com)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#64

Post by hello_moto » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:02 AM UTC

Towle_ wrote: post #24

A relative of mine works as a database administrator making $120k/year and lacks fluency in HTML/CSS. By contrast, Google regularly comes under fire for underpaying their employees, and their average employees are more talented than those of perhaps any other large corporation in the world. It's not about money.

I'd take DBA if that would be the last job I ever had (leading to retirement). Otherwise it might be a career killer.

I'd take Google job if I'm fresh out of college for the sake of experience so I can get better position, salary, and wide-range of opportunities in the future.

But check this out: if there's a better place than Google and they pay better, do you not expecting Google's employees to jump ship? (for example, Facebook pays more or Facebook has a good potential to make yourself to become a millionaire)

These 3 examples are strategy to position yourself for a better future. A better future usually involves better position and/or compensation. Sometime it's not about money, but it's about power. Power to tell fellow developers that they're not that good so they have to do TDD, code-review, and help QA to test their own shit.

Yes, it's not _entirely_ about money, but at the end of the day, mostly it is about money, especially for people who can accept other negatives.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#65

Post by danudey » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:02 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #25

mkn wrote: post #18

If you've been around yc for more than a month, you've doubtless seen a number of links to articles on motivation as it pertains to creative activities like software development. The consensus is pretty clear. Incentives hurt productivity in creative activities. This seems to have something to do with the relationship between creative effort and intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. The prospect of an incentive seems t…

I don't think that's necessarily the case. If you're looking for very talented programming, chances are they'll already have a somewhat decent job. To pull them from that job to yours, you'll have to offer at least as much as they're already making. Sure, 60,000 USD a year may be plenty, but someone making 65k will probably immediately subconsciously ignore the ad (unless of course they're very displeased with their…

Well, you'll have to offer them equivalent worth to what they're making. I left a high-paying job at a company that didn't appreciate its geeks to go to a lower-paying job whose entire staff (except for three project managers and the accountant) were geeks. The founder started the company doing websites in Perl in the 90's, and grew it into a small-scale hosting/app dev company. It's still private, it's still owned by the two original partners, and they still work their asses off every day at the company. The result is an environment that is not only geek-friendly, but geek-run.

Did I miss the large paycheques? Sure. Did I miss the stress? Or people breathing down my neck for results, a week after they said they'd get me the information I needed but never did? Or being denied my vacation pay because my previous management-approved sick days (most of which I spent working from home) were suddenly 'excessive'? I didn't miss that at all.

It isn't about offering people a better salary, it's about offering people a better package. If you only offer $60k to someone who's making $70k, but give them 4 weeks paid vacation, let them work from home three days a week, and let them expense their cellphone data plans and home internet, they'll be more interested.

Especially once you interview someone, you can sometimes figure out what kind of perks will most appeal to them. Mac fanboy? Offer to buy them a new iPhone on launch day every time one is released. You've just gone from $60k to $60.7k, but the employee is going to appreciate it a lot more, since he'll never have to budget for it again.

Does he like to travel? Offer up extra paid vacation, and then add to that $3000 of 'travel expenses' per year, for personal use. That's usually enough to fly two people anywhere in the world, return, so he and his girlfriend can take a nice long trip to Europe after you ship version 1.05 and everyone's ready to unwind. The idea that he won't have to budget for it - that he can just suddenly decide to go to Laos or Mumbai or Morocco, even if his bank account is on empty - will be appealing. It's like a 'get out of town free' card.

Tell all your employees you'll pay an accountant to do their taxes for them. It's a huge hassle for most people, and if you take that away tax season gets far less stressful.

So many programming jobs I've seen offer high salaries, but with minimal benefits. You get a stock health package, minimal vacation, and MAYBE you get to expense PART of your phone bill, if you're an admin on call. Take away all the junk that people don't want to worry about and let them focus on being geeks.

It's hard to offer this sort of thing in a job posting, but if you can lure the good people in to an interview, this is how you get them on board.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#66

Post by kranner » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:03 AM UTC

danudey wrote: post #48

dedward wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd imagine that, but you'd be wrong - there are a great many technical employees who don't realize they are way out of their league and will apply anyway.

"Hey, I've got 'two years of experience with .NET'! I remember, because it was my birthday last week and on my birthday two years ago I wrote a little digital clock app from a tutorial I found in a magazine. Man, who ever thought ten minutes in Notepad would net me a $100k job! I'm totally going to apply, and when I get this job I'm never working at another Burger King again!"

Upvote for satire!

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#67

Post by waterlesscloud » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:05 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #53

I suppose this refers to us (and our Will the real programmers please stand up post). If it doesn't, excuse our self-centeredness and kindly disregard this message. Our salary structure is designed to select for exactly the type of people we want to attract - the kinds of people that will go through walls to bend the world to their will, for some deeply ingrained reason unknown to anyone but them. For people like tha…

..and yet you aren't attracting the people you want.

Hmmmm.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#68

Post by coffeemug » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:07 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #67

coffeemug wrote: post #53

I suppose this refers to us (and our Will the real programmers please stand up post). If it doesn't, excuse our self-centeredness and kindly disregard this message. Our salary structure is designed to select for exactly the type of people we want to attract - the kinds of people that will go through walls to bend the world to their will, for some deeply ingrained reason unknown to anyone but them. For people like tha…

..and yet you aren't attracting the people you want. Hmmmm.

Of course we are. We just need more :)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#69

Post by mkramlich » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:07 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #61

mkramlich wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors and lawyers can't engage in their profession since the age of 10 or so, like programmers can. Doctors generally cannot be self-taught like programmers (what practice surgery on a neighbor?). Programmers can literally envision things in their minds, and then make them come to life after putting hands on keyboard -- there's no effective equivalent in medicine and law. (Biology/biochem/chem, sure.) Also doctors…

The only difference is in the protectionism of the other professions. Most of the barriers you mention are imaginary. Programming errors can have far worse consequences than medicine or law. I've never seen a doctor or lawyer make a rocket ship turn into the ground (Arian V) or oil pipelines explode (buggy versions of pipeline software stolen by Russia) or make airplanes refuse to execute commands ( airbus and apache…

The examples you gave are edge cases and exceptions -- relatively very rare situations. Most programming work is hum-drum, with errors being no big deal, and easily and cheaply caught and caught early. I was comparing cases "in the main" between these 3 professions. Also, by pointing out the cases that you did, you actually increased the strength of the point I was making: these 3 professions are very different and one cannot reliably draw conclusions based on similarities.

Agree programming has less barriers to entry. But the barriers to entry for doctors and lawyers are not imaginary. They're real. Are they arbitrary and "made up" via government rules? Of course, and perhaps that's what you meant. But they are real. If you willfully ignore or bypass them you will suffer real consequences to your person including fines and imprisonment.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#70

Post by ww520 » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 4:09 AM UTC

mikemainguy wrote: post #34

ojbyrne wrote: post #28

I have a simple theory. Most managers are still educated according to Taylor's Scientific Theory of Management, where the managers are more intelligent than the "factors of production," and their role is to "scientifically" direct their work so that they create additional value (which is multiplied by how many workers they have reporting to them). Their salaries reflect that model, and thus is proportional to the sal…

That's silly, physicians, mechanics, lawyers, and many other skilled tradesmen are just like programmers. The problem is that many folks see programmers as somehow different than these folks.

Doctors, dentists, and lawyers have legislated their jobs so that they can maintain monopoly through their guilds and licenses. That's why they can charge such a high rate. If programmers can get non-licensed programmers writing code go to jail, their rate would go up, too.