Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop complaining and pay programmers more

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 290 posts

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#181

Post by JoachimSchipper »

ww520 wrote: post #71
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…

Why don't you pay 200K for the positions and see what happen?

Because it's entirely feasible that they go out of business?

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#182

Post by Vivtek »

Looking at a lot of the posts on here, it seems that the bar to finding good programming staff is (1) finding good programmers and allowing them to find you and (2) weeding out the chaff.

Furthermore, it seems that weeding out the chaff is something probably everybody could agree on - that is, what would be nice is some kind of informal certification process or standard test. Nothing like an AMA board certification or the attorney's bar in terms of formality and obligatory nature, but perhaps some kind of hoops to jump through.

Perhaps some kind of list of programming tests and a way to administer them?

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#183

Post by JoachimSchipper »

ww520 wrote: post #97
kjksf wrote: post #41

There are 2 problems with your proposed solution. a) Salary is rarely disclosed in a job posting. Salary negotiations usually happen after a candidate was interviewed and deemed worth hiring. b) Even if you were to disclose a salary in a job post, an unusually high salary might make it easier to find a qualified programmer (because more people will apply) but it is not likely to increase an average quality of submitt…

I believe Rethinkdb did post their salary range and stock option at one point.

Yes, at http://rethinkdb.com/jobs/. It's quite public.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#184

Post by chrisbennet »

Employers: It's not about pay it's about value.

I agree with the original poster to the extent that I see some employers trying to get a "deal" on a great programmer without compensating the lower pay with great work, meaningful equity, or good work/life balance.

You've seen the job posting by Big Dumb Company that wants a "rock start programmer" but has strict policies that won't let them pay rock start salaries or give more than 2 weeks vacation their first year, telecommute, etc.

Then there are the small guys that want you work for peanuts in exchange for worthless stock options i.e. they want you to take $30K less pay per year and if they ever have a liquidity event your diluted stock would be less than that $30K you per year you gave up. If they fail (and they usually do) you'll get squat.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#185

Post by mister_chips »

cabalamat wrote: post #154
rosejn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am incredibly happy that this will never happen in software development. Elitist, protectionist mechanisms like this would dramatically limit the talent pool, slow down innovation, and restrict thinking to a set of norms agreed upon by a conservative organization intending to maintain the status quo. Programming is more of a meritocracy than in many other fields, and I think we should be proud of this. If people wa…

> I am incredibly happy that this will never happen in software development. Oh I don't know, the idea of programmers being better paid has a certain attraction to me :-) On a more serious note, the way that lawyers and doctors (and some other tradesmen in some jurisdictions) have managed to illegalise competition is wrong and needs to be stopped. Vets can perform operations for a tenth the cost doctors can -- is thi…

I don't think that the competition is illegal. I thought that if you are a private practitioner of either you could just set your prices lower. The fact no-one does maybe implies that either there is a shortage of these people or that they really just do it for the money neither of which are true. I'm pretty sure the entrance criteria do not also include "you must charge X for this service". But I think we see similar pricing weirdness with mobile phone plans - way over priced but here in a free market (at least in the UK) we don't see prices that are really that good for what we get.

I'm pretty sure that salary dose play an important part of people wanting to get into these professions so while you have bright people doing them it is not always what they would be best at. So there is a bottle neck when applying for higher education and I think the problem is when you are 18 you have no idea what will make you happy when you actually graduate. By that point your pretty well financially committed to the profession and thereafter you'll be saying t least the money is good.

Also while I don't like monopolies how you break them is important and hard to do.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#186

Post by dagw »

chime wrote: post #12
j_baker wrote: post #5

You have to understand: there's more to hiring programmers than paying lots of money. If that were the case, we wouldn't have had a dot-com bust and software companies would be dominated by MBAs. That's the hard part of hiring programmers. How do you incentivize the good ones to work for you? If you have a solution to that problem, I suspect you'll be a very much in-demand person.

> How do you incentivize the good ones to work for you? If you have a solution to that problem, I suspect you'll be a very much in-demand person. Bonuses, perks, and congrats on jobs well-done. If I spend 40 hours between Dec 31 and Jan 2 writing up a new wireless barcoding system because the powers that be decided at the last minute to begin the new year with a different process for warehousing, I better get a damn…

Bonuses, perks, and congrats on jobs well-done.

Speaking only for myself, non of those things would really swing it too much for me. Give me challenging projects in my preferred problem domain, sane working hours and environment, an opportunity to grow and improve my skills and surround me with brilliant colleagues to work with, and I'll happily forgo the perks and bonuses.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#187

Post by JBiserkov »

egometry wrote: post #159
roel_v wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh?

It makes sense in PHP. (Thinking in PHP is a terrible thing to do to your mind.) I believe OP is trying to say: Money is an incentive. But it isn't the only incentive. (== in php isn't the equality operator insomuch as the 'kinda like' operator.)

May be he was thinking in the good parts of JavaScript

http://www.jslint.com/lint.html#equal

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#188

Post by ianloic »

Hiring managers don't list a salary. If they do they're looking to hire really junior engineers who probably can't write a linked list reversal program anyway. In my 13 years working at startups I've never applied for a job that listed a salary range.

Ultimately, within reason, good programmers are worth whatever you have to pay them and bad programmers aren't worth what you pay them. There are way more bad programmers than good programmers and money isn't the way to attract the good ones. You have to attract them with interesting problems and a great work environment. If they're there for the money then they're probably no good anyway.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#189

Post by _urga »

JBiserkov wrote: post #187
egometry wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense in PHP. (Thinking in PHP is a terrible thing to do to your mind.) I believe OP is trying to say: Money is an incentive. But it isn't the only incentive. (== in php isn't the equality operator insomuch as the 'kinda like' operator.)

May be he was thinking in the good parts of JavaScript http://www.jslint.com/lint.html#equal

Yes, good link.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#190

Post by adamc »

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…

The "first"? I don't think so. Consulting engineers, lawyers, etc. have been around for a while; their productivity was always more a function of the individual than of their managers.

The primary problem is that organizations seem to want to treat developers like other office workers, rather than as professionals.

Oops, just saw someone else said this below. He is correct.

Post reply on HN