Stop complaining and pay programmers more • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#261

Post by starkfist » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 3:29 AM UTC

binaryfinery wrote: post #256

starkfist wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to recruit and hire people and have been working with early stage companies for over a decade. The two companies I've worked with who tried this sort of hiring scheme blew through all their cash within 18 months, and they had a lot more money to burn.

I worked at a company that paid us fuck-all and still managed to burn thru $300 million. Are you in a position to tell us that the companies you worked with blew their cash on salaries, or are you just drawing making two causally unrelated statements in the same sentence?

Yes, they blew all the cash on salaries.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#262

Post by regularfry » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 5:31 AM UTC

alextingle wrote: post #155

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.

We should not seek to emulate doctors or lawyers, but cabinetmakers, watchmakers and joiners. Programming isn't a profession, it's a craft. The trouble is that traditional crafts are not really valued any more, as their purpose has largely been supplanted by mass production. So, we have no current role models for how to organise ourselves.

The way I see it, it's both - more like surgery in that regard. How you do it involves a huge amount of craftsmanship. Knowing what to do and why you're doing it is what makes it a profession.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#263

Post by billswift » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 5:53 AM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #79

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…

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.

And if you DO meet the high barriers for entry, the likelihood that you'll make disastrous errors is pretty high. The statistics vary wildly depending on sources, but it is quite possible that iatrogenic and nosocomial diseases cause more deaths per year than auto accidents.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#264

Post by billswift » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 5:59 AM UTC

raffi wrote: post #223

adamc wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a name for that phenomenon, where people hear terms in use but map them to the wrong words? Or the opposite, where people learn words through reading but mispronounce them?

Linguists call them real-word errors. They're very common in writing and spell checkers do nothing to protect against them. I work on a free browser extension called After the Deadline. It picks a lot of this stuff up. It didn't pick up this particular example, next time I deploy an update to our service it will. You may want to check it out, it works here on HN too: http://www.afterthedeadline.com (as a note, I tend…

Actually I suspect that spelling checkers have made them more common. I know I see them a lot more often on the Web, and have been seeing them increasingly frequently over the last few years.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#265

Post by billswift » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 6:20 AM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #174

ulrich wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not attend a long interview process if the salary is completely unknown. The least I do is to tell the possible employer what my expectations are and check whether this is ok for them. Of course it would be better to make them define a salary range, but until now I was never able to do this.

As the parent pointed out, in some areas/countries it's completely uncommon to announce salary ranges in job ads. What are you going to do then? Never apply? Move to another country?

Ask?

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#266

Post by lief79 » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 6:54 AM UTC

ido wrote: post #164

ulrich wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not attend a long interview process if the salary is completely unknown. The least I do is to tell the possible employer what my expectations are and check whether this is ok for them. Of course it would be better to make them define a salary range, but until now I was never able to do this.

The first interview (at the end of which you'd talk about the salary) is only an hour or 2, so I don't think it's that bad.

It's a question of supply and demand. An hour or two for someone who is already working can be quite annoying when it's a dead end. On the other hand, it may lead to future opportunities.

Once you reach senior level development in popular technologies, companies are often eager to come after you. (At least, that's what the recruiters and help want ads seem to indicate about senior level J2EE developers around the Philly area.)

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#267

Post by pointernil » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 9:50 AM UTC

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…

I mostly agree, except for the part claiming "programming" to be the first discipline encountering this "issue".

I think this is true for most professions based on knowledge and using mostly mental capabilities: scientists, journalists you name it...

Rating mental work is very hard and still quite a new requirement for our societies, thus we are really missing reliable and acknowledged "frameworks" to handle this.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#268

Post by flsvilling » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 10:24 AM UTC

alextingle wrote: post #155

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.

We should not seek to emulate doctors or lawyers, but cabinetmakers, watchmakers and joiners. Programming isn't a profession, it's a craft. The trouble is that traditional crafts are not really valued any more, as their purpose has largely been supplanted by mass production. So, we have no current role models for how to organise ourselves.

Programming is not a craft. A craftsman produces some product, whereas a programmer designs some product that is then produced by a compiler or by copying a file. That the production of software is trivial and fully automated, doesn't mean that there is no distinction between production and design.

We already have mass software production.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#269

Post by fsniper » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 3:33 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #78

Well how about the other side...how do employers take mediocre to crappy programmers and teach them to shine?

This never happens. 1. Employers do not have the incentive and time to educate employees in the first place. 2. Employees, most of the mediocre ones, do not want to learn more, do more or work more. Because, the process is always about practicing and working.

Re: Stop complaining and pay programmers more

#270

Post by wake_up_sticky » Fri, Jul 02, 2010, 3:53 PM UTC

Obviously I worded some things wrong in my original submission. I realize that offering a (much) higher salary won't necessarily (or even probably) prevent a "horde of unqualified candidates" from applying. What I meant was that if a hiring manager places an ad which fails to attract an adequate number of qualified candidates--the ratio between qualified and unqualified candidates being of secondary importance--he would have to be incompetent not to offer a better salary the next time around.

Also, the main point of the submission wasn't that programmers ought to be paid more. It was that I find it offensive when people claim that there are no good programmers out there but don't even seem to consider offering higher salaries. I'm reminded of the woman who is asked out five times a week by reasonably good-looking men of average social status, rejects them all out of hand, and then laments, "There are no men out there!"

Actually, this is worse. The woman may not be able to alter her personality or appearance enough to attract the caliber of man she's interested in; but companies can always offer higher salaries.