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Stop complaining and pay programmers more

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Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#231

Post by mehip »

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?

A good start is not to use words like "incentivize" around reasonably intelligent people :)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#232

Post by kmak »

mkramlich wrote: post #62
scumola wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

I think it's just an easy way to justify hiring -- if the hire turns out to be awful, you can say, "hey, he/she had 10 years of experience!"

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#233

Post by rythie »

huhtenberg wrote: post #111
noonespecial wrote: post #93

The same thing is (and has been) happening with nursing. They complain endlessly about the "nursing shortage" unable to figure out why people might be unwilling to do a hard job for long hours requiring extra education and incurring outsized liabilities for extremely low pay. The really bad news is its starting to catch up with many doctors as well.

> for extremely low pay Not sure where you are from, but here in Canada nurses lead very cushy lives. Salaries of 80 to 120K are not uncommon, and that's with 4 weeks of vacation, 1 day in / 3 days out schedule, etc.

Not like that in the U.K. I think

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#234

Post by JoachimSchipper »

mmt wrote: post #225
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be hard to buy extra vacation, though.

I can't imagine how, since "vacation" just means being paid for not working. Buying vacation would just mean not being paid for that time. Here in California, vacation/PTO is treated just like wages for regulatory purposes, including final paycheck. What I can imagine being hard to buy is company holidays, but I'd rather have the "vacation" (read: cash) instead.

In your experience, is it actually as easy to get unpaid time off as you make it sound? Certainly, not being paid for not working is entirely possible, but it's much less desirable if you lose your job for it...

(My job allows you to "buy" extra time off, so it's not an issue for me; but I figured this was uncommon, especially in the States.)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#235

Post by damoncali »

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".

There are three that come to mind right now, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to name them. Two of the three could literally double their salaries if they took crappier jobs, but they don't because they have great gigs and don't care much about making more money.

Getting people to perform always comes to getting them in the right mindset! The more complex and creative the task, the less money matters in doing that.

If your work is mind-crushingly boring and repetitive, you'll go to the highest bidder. (That seems to be pretty much how investment banking works). But if your work is something you love, involves intricate problem solving and creativity, it will take more money to pull you away from a good job.

And for some reason I don't know, most (but not all) the great programmers I've come across haven't been all that interested in money in general.

The sooner people stop equating money with compensation the better off we'll all be. Money is but one small piece of the the puzzle.

Also, I think you're right - it's not always best to hire a great programmer, regardless of cost. If you can't keep them interested and engaged in the right type of problem, they will underperform under the crushing boredom. Get the right person for the job.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#236

Post by SoftwareMaven »

fleitz wrote: post #89
stretchwithme wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and I don't think everything a doctor or lawyer does is then thoroughly tested. And if you fail to meet the high barriers to entry for doctors and lawyers, the likelihood that you'll make disastrous errors is pretty high.

Is it? Or is it something we just believe? Doctors used to think that having paramedics would result in disaster. I think the vast majority of times one needs to use the services of a doctor could be handled by someone with far less training and certification.

The industry is moving in that direction as well. Nurse practitioners are now the common entry point into the medical system, with doctors reserved for follow-up. Even LPNs are being phased out in favor of medical assistants.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#238

Post by ww520 »

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #180
roel_v wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(2.25% of everyone's contribution on the high end) I'm probably dense, but what does that mean?

They offer stock options.

Which means wall papers if it didn't work out. If the failure rate of startup is to be taken into account. It should be divided by 10X to 50X.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#239

Post by r3570r3 »

Most companies have highly stupid standards and requirements. Most of them prefer older platforms and frameworks just because their customers require older versions. Top notch enterprise solutions are still using IE6 to check compatibility of their products. That gives them all the possible negative Karma. On the other hand, innovative tech giants like Google are using their closed proprietary technologies, which is not doing the world any good. MS actually seems to be the better one here allowing people to use their Visual Studio, making a product out of it. Every language has its weaknesses. A developer proficient in programmer should not stick to a company for his development works and venture off privately. That will create the likes of DuckDuckGo and all the good that is out there changing the way we look at the tech world right now.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#240

Post by JoachimSchipper »

ww520 wrote: post #238
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They offer stock options.

Which means wall papers if it didn't work out. If the failure rate of startup is to be taken into account. It should be divided by 10X to 50X.

Certainly, but it does mean that. Besides, 2.25% of a company is a meaningful amount, so at least a senior developer would make some actual money if RethinkDB hits it big.
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