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

Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 584 posts

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#91

Post by CalRobert »

Supernaut wrote: post #68
watwut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, a typical person will become a skilled and highly productive software engineer only through spending several years working full-time at the profession, ideally with the assistance of one or more mentors. Having only a basic grasp of the concepts behind programming does not enable anyone to achieve anything particularly useful [...] You can create basic good looking iOS or web or android app without all t…

> You can create basic good looking iOS or web or android app without all those years and be extremely useful. We obviously have differing definitions of the word 'useful'.

Several years ago I worked in ad ops for one of the biggest publishers on the internet, making a bunch of ad placements by hand using Dart for Publishers, which was a dreadful product. I also was taking a night course in Java mostly for fun. At that point I didn't even know what functional programming, Big-O notation, or any of your other highfalutin' CS stuff was.

All of the company's ads (thousands of different line items at any given time) had been entered by hand in to Dart. Things like "make every add weight-based-bulk with weight 100", etc.

I wrote a craptacular Java app using Swing and the Dart API to get a handle on them. I mean - this thing was AWFUL. "Paste your username and password in to this box and type the name of the site you want to work with in that box and click something in this row of 14 buttons" level stuff. They used it to fix their waterfall.

The first month it was an extra 80 grand or so in revenue. The next month I had a new job.

This is based on what I learned in a few months of tinkering as a kid, and a few months of a Java course at Ohlone College in the east bay.

Perhaps you can provide your own, more helpful, definition of useful? Most of what's "useful" is taking something that was a pile of godawful spreadsheets and making it manageable; not something meant for consumers.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#92

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#93

Post by josephagoss »

meuk wrote: post #26
foo232323 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is far beyond the US (regarding cs saleries, I mean), but in e.g. Germany it's not that bad. I've a masters degree and about 3 years work experience and am at around 6k a month (+ vacation bonus +christmas bonus +personal performance bonus +company retirement plan) which is quite average in southern germany at least for bigger company and engineering/technical roles.

This seems more sane IMO. The pay in the US seems just crazy. Programming an sich is absolutely not something you need an extensive training for. On the other hand, I spent a huge amount of time and effort on my eduation. While I could not do this without financial support from my parents, I also made a lot of sacrifices, and I am a little bit bitter that friends who dropped out as undergraduate make more than I do.…

What did you study?

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#94

Post by stochastic_monk »

gaius wrote: post #46
kenhwang wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. How different is a MechEng writing FORTRAN for mechanical engineering from a MechEng writing RoR for trendy widget bean button SV startup? I'd argue they're both programming, which is sufficient to reap some of the benefits of automation. Software engineering can be described as applying engineering to programming. Any company that benefits from programming would also be…

How different is a MechEng writing FORTRAN for mechanical engineering from a MechEng writing RoR for trendy widget bean button SV startup Because in scenario A the main skill being applied is mechanical engineering and in scenario B the main skill being applied is RoR. If everyone who ever writes a line of code is a "software developer" would you include an Excel VBA 10-liner writer? Probably not, and nor would that…

I don’t typically think of web developers as software engineers.

I think of work like FFTW and the Tensor Algebra COmpiler (TACO) as software engineering.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#95

Post by dx034 »

js8 wrote: post #31

Maybe the whole U.S. is becoming bimodal, geographically. I also think that the software "productivity" is in fact "multiplicative". That is, more software written means more complexity which takes more SW engineers to maintain. I actually think that there might be too much software. This is similar to lawyers, who can generate more work for other lawyers (supply generates its own demand). Weapons also have this prop…

> Maybe the whole U.S. is becoming bimodal, geographically.

That's been the case for at least a century. A lot of people at the coasts with few in the middle.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#96

Post by phkahler »

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…

So you're pointing to the ability to manage complexity? I had not heard it put that way before but it feels right to me. From TFA the author said

"How is it possible that programmers are paid so well without these other barriers to entry that similarly remunerative fields have? "

My initial thought was that there are people who get it those that don't. But you can teach many people the tools of programming. It's using those tools to do something interesting that seems to be the challenge. By interesting I suppose I mean something exceeding some level of complexity.

This makes sense, I don't see our schools teaching anything too complex - it tends to be compartmentalized.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#97

Post by dx034 »

ddorian43 wrote: post #87
gurkendoktor wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Probably 250/month for health insurance plus 20% pension contribution and few unemployment benefits.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#98

Post by nvarsj »

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…

> In engineering, bimodal distributions are the sorting of people that naturally have the ability to easily reason about complex distributed systems with many concurrent moving parts and people that cannot. Increasingly, the market is discriminating on this characteristic and it is reflected in wages.

What faith in the system :). The truth I think is "it's who you know" more than "what you know". The best paid engineers are ones who spend a lot of time positioning themselves to get well paid. Why that is bi-modal I can't be sure - but my guess is that once you hit a certain network effect you start to make a lot more.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#99

Post by athenot »

I think the reason for high compensations is that software is the enabling factor for capital.

If software can automate, reduce inefficiencies and generally be the means to accomplish the business goal, then it makes sense for the business side to invest heavily into what is essentially a competitive differentiator.

The bimodal compensation reflects a growing split between software activities that are seen as an necessary operational burden, and those which are the "secret sauce" of the business. That's why fintech has traditionally been the highest paying field, as the return on investment is the most obvious for them.

Edit: typo (thanks tzahola!)

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#100

Post by dx034 »

ju-st wrote: post #79
tatami wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6k is far above anything I have heard of yet. The boni sound like a big company, is this a software or industrial one?

6k is even above IG Metall pay schemes, you will never get 6k in Germany 3years after graduation. I call bullshit. It may be possible if you have a PhD or for some not engineering related reason are rising ranks very fast.

I know a few people across different CS disciplines in Germany and none of them has IG (i.e. union) based wages. €72k a year is realistic with 3y experience in southern Germany or one of the big cities. You can start at 50k if you look around a bit after Uni, no PhD needed. The step to 62k is then easily done by changing companies once after 2/3 years. That sector has seen a lot of wage inflation in recent years.
Post reply on HN