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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#81

Post by Sammi »

meuk wrote: post #37
clintonb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't care much for my internships and early work. I felt like a cog in a machine. I always wanted to be the guy designing the machine. After a few years I was that guy. Not all entry work has to be mundane, but you learn a lot doing some of that work. The fact that you are spending multiple days, rather than hours, building a controller hints to me that you haven't really mastered that work. Perhaps the task migh…

I don't have time to implement a tool for implementing CRUD. Wouldn't it be better to not have so many layers of abstraction that you need a tool in the first place? Let me elaborate on what it took me to implement a CRUD controller. I had to implement a repository interface, a respository a context, a service interface, and a controller. Then I had to understand how to write the swagger documentation. Then there is…

Look, work is always pain. That's why they give you money for doing it. The real question is what kind of pain are you willing to endure and why are you willing to endure that pain? Is there a problem that you think needs solving, that you are willing to endure pain for?

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#82

Post by [deleted] »

ddorian43 wrote: post #75
arximboldi wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I did the math in the past because I seriously considered moving to the US cuz I got an offer there. In my estimates, you would end up spending the same % of your salary in surviving, but of course the remaining let's say 30%, is simply a lot. Also a lot of things are not really that expensive (most things that are not housing, or maybe eating out.) And when you get out of the Junior level, I think the di…

Get a remote US job ? Harder since you compete with many people but doable.

[deleted]

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#83

Post by e_b »

xstartup wrote: post #67

1. You do not need a degree - This puts more pressure on the developers who are employed, now they've to face pressure from uncredentialed people who for some reason fell in love with the software craft. So, quite a lot of people feel inadequate and practice relentlessly to keep their skills sharp, improving visibility. Some are practicing DS/Algo daily while contributing to opensource, improving their GitHub. Boosti…

>Fast nearly free exponential distribution

Just because you make an app and publish it to the App Store doesn't mean that it is "distributed" to anyone at all. There are massive costs to marketing apps because apps are commodities.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#84

Post by cvsh »

eksemplar wrote: post #3

As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. In our educational system the increase in short-length programming classes at academy level has exploded and I doubt the market will keep up. Really great comp science or engineering students won’t ever have a problem, but I fully expect the short-length, autodidact or mediocre students to be entering a saturated market within the next f…

>I fully expect the short-length, autodidact or mediocre students to be entering a saturated market within the next five years.

That cuts against every labor demand projection.

Frankly, even mediocre programming jobs are a great option for most people. The lower mode is still much more than most entry-level jobs pay.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#85

Post by atoko »

meuk wrote: post #37
clintonb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't care much for my internships and early work. I felt like a cog in a machine. I always wanted to be the guy designing the machine. After a few years I was that guy. Not all entry work has to be mundane, but you learn a lot doing some of that work. The fact that you are spending multiple days, rather than hours, building a controller hints to me that you haven't really mastered that work. Perhaps the task migh…

I don't have time to implement a tool for implementing CRUD. Wouldn't it be better to not have so many layers of abstraction that you need a tool in the first place? Let me elaborate on what it took me to implement a CRUD controller. I had to implement a repository interface, a respository a context, a service interface, and a controller. Then I had to understand how to write the swagger documentation. Then there is…

Most software is moving data around. All the abstractions you mentioned have a purpose. It makes sense to test each in isolation. For example, a controller whos’ service is a mocked implementation. You can test that your controller and its routes make the correct service calls without ever hitting a database.

About the documentation, maybe you’re the one to take initiative and spin up a wiki? Maybe you’re the person that consolidates logging into a reusable internal library?

Related to the topic, maybe this is not what you should be doing. There is good work out there, but as cliche as it sounds, you have to show passion for them to find you.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#86

Post by baud147258 »

billysielu wrote: post #39

Developer salaries in the UK are very modest. Companies don't even know how to identify good developers, so they have no hope of competing over them.

Apparently, UK IT salaries are still above those in France, even if there is an (apparent) lack of IT professionals in the current market.

Source (in French): http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/emploi/metiers-du-numerique-les...

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#87

Post by ddorian43 »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #78
expertentipp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being contractor in Germany one still pays the social contributions the same as a person on employment contract, it's hardly the lightweight variant. Contractor in large business in Germany is at the complete end of the development chain (hourly rates 30-80 EUR/h). Have some super old system in obscure technology/stack? Outsource it to PL/CZ/RO/UK. The super high earning rockstar contractors are some unicorns I'm yet…

Independent IT contractors in Germany don't have to put any money in a retirement fund, but hopefully they do, plus they pay 100% of their own health insurance, IT equipment (sometimes), insurance for their business (occasionally required)... A contractor making 10,000 a month is not comparable to an employee making 120,000 a year, probably closer to 90,000? I didn't mean to imply that it's a lightweight model, it ju…

Isn't health insurance, like, 100-200 month ??? You all acting like it's a big deal. (nl stats, student DE pays 80/month)

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#88

Post by zelos »

tomwphillips wrote: post #74
jandrewrogers wrote: post #17

Yes, it is. And the example used in the article of chemical engineering reinforces the point. It ties into computer science quite nicely. To become a chemical engineer, you first have to complete the course work for a degree in chemistry. Chemistry as chemistry is an extremely modular subject matter; you can solve most problems in discrete steps in isolation. In a computer science sense, chemistry is about pure funct…

>To become a chemical engineer, you first have to complete the course work for a degree in chemistry. That is incorrect. Look at the programme of study for a chemical engineering undergraduate degree [1]. It doesn't cover anywhere near the same content as an undergraduate chemistry degree [2]. [1]: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/chemical-engineer... [2]: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/chemist…

I was typing a similar response. I did a 4-year MEng in ChemEng and there were only a few non-elective courses in organic and physical chemistry. The bulk of the content is fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, vessel design, safety, control systems, mathematics etc.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#89

Post by chrisweekly »

xyzzyz wrote: post #15
banku_brougham wrote: post #13

To the puzzle about developer comp outstripping EE or other engineering disciplines pay (ie Civil Engineering god help me), I agree that the student in those fields could apply themselves to become able programmers. So why the huge disparity in pay? I have two ideas: 1. Lots of technically able people still don’t enjoy plugging their mind into a machine. Its probably hard to believe in the HN community but many peopl…

AMZN 220; MSFT 69; FB 33; SOXX 4.7; XOM 25. Investors are paying more to fund the work of programmers than most other industries. Large compensations enjoyed by engineers in the AMZN, FB, or MSFT is not derived from "investors paying more to fund their work", as these companies haven't been dependent on investors' capital in a long time.

"Investors paying more to fund [developers'] work" strikes me as the wrong perspective for analyzing compensation. As an alternative, consider "revenue generated per developer".

Anecdote: I worked on a team where gross revenues per FT software engineer were north of $4 million USD.

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