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Stop complaining and pay programmers more

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Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#101

Post by binaryfinery »

damoncali wrote: post #45
jasonlotito wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best programmers I know seem to be indifferent to cash. No, they do care about cash. How do I know? >They work on the most interesting project they can find that pays them enough to live. There. That's why. If they weren't making enough money to meet their needs, they'd be looking to trade up. Money isn't the only answer. Everyone likes to talk about how money isn't the solution. I'm pretty sure every one is ma…

Yes, but offering more money to someone who feels like they already make enough is amazingly ineffective. My point is that, in my experience, great programmers place a much higher value on doing interesting work than they put on making more money.

If you've offered them more money to do a less interesting job, certainly. Also, good programmers are often quite loyal, and don't want to leave their team in the lurch. There are plenty of reasons why you failed to recruit said programmers. Given that I enjoy my job, and I'm paid "enough", why would I even bother looking at your offer? Offering me a shit-ton of money because "this job will require an elite programmer" will get my attention. Not offering me more money tells me that either a) the job is no more challenging than my current one or b) you're the usual manager who doesn't want to pay a programmer what he's worth.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#102

Post by GBond »

raffi wrote: post #40
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.

I read a great article in the Harvard Business Review about what defines a profession. Their question: are managers a profession akin to Doctors and Lawyers? The author defined a professional as someone whose work you have to take on faith. Not being doctors or lawyers ourselves, we're usually unable to evaluate the quality of legal advice or medical care we're receiving. The best we can do is seek another opinion. T…

Your comment peaked my interest to read the HBR article you mentioned. Thanks. http://hbr.org/2010/07/the-big-idea-no-management-is-not-a-p...

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#103

Post by [deleted] »

mkramlich wrote: post #69
fleitz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

[deleted]

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#104

Post by [deleted] »

hello_moto wrote: post #57
damoncali wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but offering more money to someone who feels like they already make enough is amazingly ineffective. My point is that, in my experience, great programmers place a much higher value on doing interesting work than they put on making more money.

I'm interested to know who they are. I'm dead serious. If "great programmers" work attitude is based on mood swing, business owner will be in danger hiring "great programmers". Cause what you just said boils down to human's mood to perform. "I'd like to do this because that's what I want to do now, I don't like to do X,Y,Z" where X,Y,Z are usually "testing, documentation, and mentoring".

[deleted]

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#105

Post by binaryfinery »

coffeemug wrote: post #68
waterlesscloud wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course we are. We just need more :)

So you've found all the ones who have low expenses. Well done. I have a family, a mortgage (or high rent), extremely expensive car insurance, and a shit-ton of experience. I love programming no less than I did when I was 10. If you would like to hire me, and people like me, you will need to offer more money. But if your business can handle being understaffed, by all means keep offering the same salary.

$125k to work in Silicon Valley? Will that even cover my rent? I used to work in Palo Alto - shared a 1 bedroom apartment - took turns on the couch. It was fun, when I was straight out of college.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#106

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#107

Post by Rantenki »

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…

A ten year old can slit their wrists as easily as the next person, that doesn't make them a doctor, no matter how earnestly they have studied an anatomy book.

Similarly, poking around on a keyboard doesn't make a ten year old a programmer, merely an enthusiast (no matter how gifted).

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#108

Post by cheald »

xenophanes wrote: post #47

How exactly does offering a higher salary prevent hordes of unqualified candidates from applying?

Why are you concerned about who applies? Wouldn't you be more concerned that offering a low salary is going to have the same hordes of unqualifieds applying, without the benefit of the actually qualified people applying as well?

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#109

Post by mkramlich »

pfisch wrote: post #84
mkramlich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

What are you talking about? When you roll a new version of a high volume web app if it has bugs that don't get caught in certain scripts then you can literally cost people hundreds of thousands of dollars before it is fixed. eg. A trading platform, an advertising platform, etc. This is not that rare.

Disagree, I think that's rare across the whole spectrum of programming work that's done. The vast majority of websites have perhaps 100's of users at most. The majority of software written has anywhere from 1 user to 10's, sometimes 100's, and more rarely thousands to millions. For every hedge fund trading platform I bet there are 1000's of Bubba's blogs and Joe's file-munging Perl scripts. The latter is the general case, not the former.

Almost every doctor or pharmacist you deal with on a daily basis can say something or do something that, if mistaken, can end up getting you dead or seriously sick -- or at least fail to prevent you from becoming so. A dead website can be fixed and brought back to life. Dead humans cannot. Well, for now anyway! :)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#110

Post by binaryfinery »

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…

Actually, all the studies talk about incentives in the sense of "additional compensation that is conditional upon performance" not base pay. Here's why more money works: not everyone has the same expenses. Some of the best are married with kids. I don't like to spend time away from my kids or my wife, but knowing that when I take two weeks off its to go visit the wife's family that I'm paying to fly to Hawaii makes my life, and hers, that bit more bearable when she hasn't seen me for days. Yes, a low salary will get you some young qualified programmers, or some older ones with no life. But you will increase your hiring pool by offering more money. No, it doesn't solve the problem of how to tell the good ones from the shit ones, but it does increase the total number of good ones available.
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