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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#191

Post by zebraflask »

fuggedaboudit wrote: post #180
namelost wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to know just how hard programming is, try teaching it to someone. Programmers have to remember a vast amount of domain knowledge. Consider the basic task of choosing where you are going to store some data, well first you need to know which options exist and there's dozens of them (do you want Postgres, SQLite, Redis, LevelDB, ..?). Then you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each. And I hope you…

I have an issue with that: law school and medical school certainly do not teach you how to practice law or medicine. Computer science sounds akin to both: you get theoretical underpinnings (many of which are outdated or will be unneeded for your specialty) but all your actual learning is on the job.

Agreed. I've done both law and programming. Law school categorically does not even try to teach aspiring lawyers how to practice. The classic curriculum is designed to teach you how to "think like a lawyer." There are exceptions here and there, but if you want practical skills, you have to deliberately look for the handful of seminars and clinics that teach them.

Between learning to program and learning to practice law, once you get past your chosen programming language's syntax and a few core CS concepts - learning to program is much easier.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#192

Post by yAnonymous »

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…

Where's all the great Indian, Chinese and Eastern European software? Seriously wondering, because most software I saw from these regions was mediocre at best.

The whole world uses operating systems, browsers and development tools made in western countries.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#193

Post by yomly »

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…

I like your analogy.

To offer my own anecdote: In pure/theoretical Chemistry you conveniently ignore in-situ solvation effects to think about mechanisms of the organic reaction.

Then in the real world, you can't replicate someone else's paper because of humidity differences between your lab and the author's.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#194

Post by d0lph »

kimdcmason wrote: post #179
d0lph wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshore developed code is not usually the same quality. Not that we all deserve huge salaries, but code quality important.

"Offshore developed code is not usually the same quality." American exceptionalism and absolutely wrong.

I speak primarily from experience.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#195

Post by ryandrake »

ddorian43 wrote: post #109
dx034 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Programmers don't need unemployment benefits. You can always find a job. Maybe unable-to-work (like accidents etc) insurance.

Sounds like you’ve never experienced a tech downturn yet. Having been through two (and there are folks on this forum who have been through more) I can tell you with great certainty that you are wrong. I have been close to broke twice and am eternally grateful for what little safety net actually exists in the US.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#196

Post by riskable »

d0lph wrote: post #174
dipppy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Offshore developed code is not usually the same quality. Not that we all deserve huge salaries, but code quality important.

Let's ignore the fact that this may or may not be true (offshore code quality is bad) and just assume it's true...

Why is offshore-developed code not the same quality? What is it about living (growing up?) in the US that has developers producing higher-quality code?

I highly suspect that it's merely selection bias. US companies outsource offshore to save money and when your goal is to save money you've already decided that "the best" isn't really what you're going for. So the code we--as US-based developers--see from offshore development often looks like barely-working garbage.

Yet if we look at open source code written by offshore developers it's often of high quality (i.e. higher quality than the crap we see in the world of Enterprise software). Why doesn't it match our experiences with commercial software development?

It probably has a lot to do with incentives. Open source software is often developed for pleasure or as a learning experience whereas US companies outsourcing software development aren't exactly "driving excellence."

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#197

Post by fuggedaboudit »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #147
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…

I think there are two interesting correlaries: 1) programming seems to be one of the only "hard" professions that pays well (compared to math researchers, hard science researchers, or even things like some social work -- that's really hard in entirely different ways). Of course I'm probably missing some hard stuff that pays well 2) programming seems to be the "hardest" of the high paying jobs mentioned. Once you get…

I guess the grass is always greener. I'm a lawyer who lurks here occasionally. Most legal jobs involve 60+ hours of work, being on call 24/7, and there is pretty much no legal equivalent of a 10Xer because almost all work is billed by the hour. There is no way to make a contract that's 10x as valuable as your competitor's, and certainly no legal equivalent of scaling to the degree of Google or Facebook.

Law is incredibly challenging work - I know more than one lawyer who complains that they should have went into programming to work 9-5 at Google between free massages and endless burritos or whatever other perks you guys have. It's certainly not work you can casually do while watching youtube - especially considered there's such a thing as legal malpractice a.k.a. get something less than perfect and you could personally be on the hook for your license. Also, it seems like career longevity in software engineering is a lot higher than in law - most lawyers for the top firms (the Google/Facebook equivalents in pay) wash out by the 4th year and practically all do by the 8th.

I always wondered if I made a mistake picking law over software engineering. I don't have any strong passions and I was good at reading/writing so I went into law, but have been kicking myself for missing out on stock options and equivalent pay for a laid back lifestyle. Glad to see there are programmers who think lawyers have it easy.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#198

Post by yomly »

yAnonymous wrote: post #192
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…

Where's all the great Indian, Chinese and Eastern European software? Seriously wondering, because most software I saw from these regions was mediocre at best. The whole world uses operating systems, browsers and development tools made in western countries.

My experience is that culturally, places outside of North America and West Europe have lagged in attitudes to software development. Tech is still referred to as "IT" and engineers are still seen as code-monkeys or a cost-centre.

This is very much changing, especially in China, but I presume there is still some lag. The other thing worth bearing in mind is that Chinese products are very insular. They are slow to get localized if ever so unless you have a reason to be going out to download them, you are unlikely to ever be using them.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#199

Post by [deleted] »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #183
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…

Someone in my family has fought for the US in every war since the civil war. They have fought, bled, and died for this country, paid taxes, and helped build it from a weak country to the most powerful civilization in human history. They did it because they wanted their children and grandchildren to have a better life. Why should I feel guilty about this?

[deleted]

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#200

Post by badpun »

d0lph wrote: post #174
dipppy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Offshore developed code is not usually the same quality. Not that we all deserve huge salaries, but code quality important.

I don't think that the code created for example at Google Warsaw is worse than code created at Google Mountain View (you can even check yourself, people in Warsaw work on Kubernetes, which is open source). And yet, the Warsaw salary is maybe 30-50% of the salary in MV.
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