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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#161

Post by walshemj »

maccard wrote: post #126
vemv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that 'greater' SV salary for a junior developer can give you less purchasing power than a 'lower' salary for a senior somewhere in Europe, due to cost of living. Granted, money is 'absolute' if you use it to e.g travel around the world, but most people don't do that. In general money is 'relative' to one's environment.

Not true. If you're making 120k in SF, after taxes and pay 4k/month on rent, your remaining salary is still greater than most junior engineers gross pay in the UK.

Yes very few developers in London earn as much as the train driver who drives the train the developer catches to work (60k for a 4 day week 80k per year after OT )

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#162

Post by vemv »

maccard wrote: post #126
vemv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that 'greater' SV salary for a junior developer can give you less purchasing power than a 'lower' salary for a senior somewhere in Europe, due to cost of living. Granted, money is 'absolute' if you use it to e.g travel around the world, but most people don't do that. In general money is 'relative' to one's environment.

Not true. If you're making 120k in SF, after taxes and pay 4k/month on rent, your remaining salary is still greater than most junior engineers gross pay in the UK.

I was comparing Junior USA vs. Senior Europe

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#163

Post by LanceH »

zelos wrote: post #88
tomwphillips wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

To quote a Chem eng friend, "I don't know chemistry, all I know are flow rates."

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#164

Post by dipppy »

aphextron wrote: post #134

>Another possibility is that U.S. immigration laws act as a protectionist barrier to prop up programmer compensation. It seems impossible for this to last (why shouldn’t there by really valuable non-U.S. companies), but it does appear to be somewhat true for now. I feel like this is the real issue here. The reason that the US has great companies is simply from the availability of large amounts of capital. And if the…

Seriously. A lot of comments in here are "Well it's hard so we deserve it!".

There are thousands of developers making fractions of what their equally talented counterparts make in the US.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#165

Post by humanrebar »

aphextron wrote: post #134

>Another possibility is that U.S. immigration laws act as a protectionist barrier to prop up programmer compensation. It seems impossible for this to last (why shouldn’t there by really valuable non-U.S. companies), but it does appear to be somewhat true for now. I feel like this is the real issue here. The reason that the US has great companies is simply from the availability of large amounts of capital. And if the…

> In that sense it feels perversly exploitative and priveleged to make so much more money than practically anyone else on earth due to nothing but the physical location I was born.

Is it perverse to go swimming because you were born near a beach? Is it perverse to visit the Louvre if you are Parisian? Is it perverse to go to a good university because the universities in Elbonia aren't good?

You're not entirely wrong, but that's a very limited view on how the world works. It's not all random. We're not all rolling dice and separating into "haves" and "haven'ts".

Once upon a time: Somebody's parents moved to the coast. Somebody's predecessors funded and built the Louvre (and managed to keep priceless things safe despite war, disease, famine, etc.). Various parties spent decades (or centuries!) of history recruiting and utilizing world-class talent, raising world-class capital reserves, and building world-class facilities for their universities.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#166

Post by bobzibub »

YPCrumble wrote: post #122

A good answer to why software pays more than industries like law or medicine is that profit per employee in software is enormous. Of the 12 American companies on this chart of the highest profit per employee, 6 are software companies: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-facebook-alphabet-most-... I would love to hear an economist explain why this might or might not lead to higher salaries. My hypothesis is there is…

Not an economist but B.A. Econ here. (Comp sci degree/career came later.) The difference is the product. In the products these companies sell, especially for us, with web based software, the marginal cost of selling to one more customer is very low. An EE could design an excellent device, but the marginal cost of selling that device is still high. As are the services offered by Lawyers etc. It is the efficient scaling of products that make them so valuable. Those companies that have scaled (or have the potential to scale) their product typically have a lot of money to throw at building it. Those individuals which have the capacity to build scale-able products are in high demand and hence have high pay. My two cents anyway.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#167

Post by xevb3k »

Supernaut wrote: post #62
xevb3k wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like it could quickly descend in to self congratulation. So to cast this in a different light perhaps another way to think about this is that programming is just becoming a basic skill, like reading, writing, basic mathematics required for all disciplines. Most dedicated software engineers exist because this new basic skill hasn’t yet gained widespread adoption as a basic skill in other disciplines. But wi…

It takes a child several years in full-time education to learn how to fluently read and write. Basic mathematics takes even longer. 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 ena…

I don’t see the equivalence. Yes, the skill you listed take some time to acquire. But few master them to a professional level, yet still use them regularly in their jobs.

I think programming is on the same trajectory. We might not even recognize many of the tools as “programming” (they might look more like spreadsheets). But I think general up take of programming skill will increase.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#168

Post by geodel »

rossdavidh wrote: post #149
foamflower wrote: post #139

One (semi-pedantic) quibble with the article: there absolutely are barriers to entry for programming. Programming is hard! These barriers may not be artificial, but they are real. To use a non-software example, there are barriers to entry to chip manufacturers and power companies even under anarchy. Fabs are tremendously hard to build. Power plants are extremely hard to build. Building up knowledge and skills about c…

In Electrical Engineering, which the article often mentions as a counterexample, the 10-year veteran is not nearly as likely to drop out of the profession. Programming has a constant bleed-out of people who learning how to program, became veterans, and then were dismayed to discover that they were going to have to do it all over again, because the libraries, frameworks, languages, etc. were different. Some just do it…

You are right. Now thinking about that It seems to me generic Software world seems more comparable to interior designing or fancy restaurants where patrons keep spending because tastes change faster than requirements.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#169

Post by christophilus »

aphextron wrote: post #134

>Another possibility is that U.S. immigration laws act as a protectionist barrier to prop up programmer compensation. It seems impossible for this to last (why shouldn’t there by really valuable non-U.S. companies), but it does appear to be somewhat true for now. I feel like this is the real issue here. The reason that the US has great companies is simply from the availability of large amounts of capital. And if the…

This is true. I recently applied for a job in the US and one in the UK. In the US, I got a ridiculously good salary offer. The UK job's compensation was maybe half what the US job offered. My cost of living is also lower than the folks in London, so it's just perverse no matter how you slice it.

I honestly don't think it will last, though. Economically, it just doesn't make sense. My recommendation to any of my fellow US developers: save as much as you can while the money is good.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#170

Post by mattferderer »

rossdavidh wrote: post #149
foamflower wrote: post #139

One (semi-pedantic) quibble with the article: there absolutely are barriers to entry for programming. Programming is hard! These barriers may not be artificial, but they are real. To use a non-software example, there are barriers to entry to chip manufacturers and power companies even under anarchy. Fabs are tremendously hard to build. Power plants are extremely hard to build. Building up knowledge and skills about c…

In Electrical Engineering, which the article often mentions as a counterexample, the 10-year veteran is not nearly as likely to drop out of the profession. Programming has a constant bleed-out of people who learning how to program, became veterans, and then were dismayed to discover that they were going to have to do it all over again, because the libraries, frameworks, languages, etc. were different. Some just do it…

In my experience, while there is a new library/framework/language every day, most of them aren't introducing brand new concepts that the developer has to worry about. A lot of the patterns they implement are also common in other language/frameworks. Nothing against React, but every other day someone posts a new concept that is very similar to a pattern that has existed for years.

Edit: I should note, on the last sentence, this may be done by a veteran developer who knows better but is trying to introduce the concept in a new light. It could also just be a developer figuring out a common pattern on their own. I've heard the actor model pattern was developed by several different people at the same time who were unaware of each others work. I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

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