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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#201

Post by vinceguidry »

The article gives as a potential reason for high developer compensation the possibility of a shortage of talent. That seems obvious to me, but the author goes on to suggest that if there was a shortage, you'd be seeing more people go into development.

Does this actually happen? My understanding is that skill supply is simply not elastic in this way. Kids generally pick what to do based on their aptitude and what they like to do, remuneration is a distant secondary concern. Changing careers is something people only do when they absolutely have to.

It appears altogether clear to me that supply and demand explains programming compensation perfectly, and that these dynamics aren't going to go away any time soon, for the same reason doctor and lawyer compensation stays healthy, lawyers less so.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#202

Post by ryandrake »

meuk wrote: post #141
sheepmullet wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have two bachelor degrees and two master degrees What does that have to do with what you should be paid? My degree has provided a small and consistent boost over my career. It didn't make me significantly more valuable as a new starter. I think Western Europe has a harmful fixation on a persons credentials. In the time it took you to gain four degrees an American dev could have gained 6-8 years of experience and…

> What does that have to do with what you should be paid? I would expect that my effort would have at least some positive effect on my starter's income. > I think Western Europe has a harmful fixation on a persons credentials. I think so too. At my work I am doing similar stuff as when I started programming at 12. The main difference is that I had significantly more enthusiasm and energy back then. I did learn a lot…

I haven’t in my life seen a programming job that requires skills that are only available through university.

The only employers (USA) that I’ve seen even care about or ask about degrees are the ones that practice “alumni nepotism” (we only hire Stanford grads, etc.). Nobody else gives a crap.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#203

Post by ashleyn »

yomly wrote: post #198
yAnonymous wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

And with higher quality will come higher labour costs.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#204

Post by riskable »

barrkel wrote: post #177
bjourne wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbt, I haven't seen that much evidence that correlates developer ability with salary. For example, developers living in the Silicon Valley are paid the most. Not because they are the best, but because they are living in the Silicon Valley. Geographical factors play a much bigger role in compensation than developer ability.

Have you investigated the correlation between developer location and developer ability? Do you think developers who are very good want to work with the best, thinking the best are in SV, then move to SV? Or perhaps they think they'll get the best return on their effort if they're working on software with big impact, and software with the biggest consumer impact is mostly written in SV?

This is highly dependent on personality. As an anecdote, I know a developer that does not like working with "the best" because they make him look bad (even though he's not a terrible developer).

Given, he works at a company with stack ranking so I guess that company is self-selecting for developers like him.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#205

Post by jarsin »

Clubber wrote: post #144
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…

Not only is it hard, but the landscape changes frequently. You wouldn't design a system like you designed it pre-mobile, and you wouldn't design a system pre-mobile like you designed it pre-internet, and those are just the big shifts. Cloud is another big shift. A lot of people read how so and so design a system. So and so is successful, so I will design my systems that way. That's rarely ideal. Also, designs can cha…

Whats this thing you call "good specs"?

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#206

Post by specialist »

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.

Quality declines as the gap between customer and devs increases.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#208

Post by d0lph »

badpun wrote: post #200
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.

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.

Great example, very representative. Largest global tech company vs. your average offshore developer.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#209

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #145

> Another possibility is that U.S. immigration laws act as a protectionist barrier to prop up programmer compensation So, US operating as a country (an entity with citizens, which it prioritizes other foreigners) rather than some arbitrary free-for-all geographical space?

[deleted]

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#210

Post by ryandrake »

kamaal wrote: post #133
luckydata wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineer turned product manager here: there is way too much yak shaving involved in bring a software engineer. Dealing with all the poorly written libraries, unpredictable bugs and shitty APIs made me realize it wasn't something I wanted to do 12 hours per day for the rest of my life. I enjoy the intellectual challenge but I enjoy less figuring out which version of which package crashes my app

But as a programmer wanting to getting into a management role of some sort. Lets be frank here, the true reason most people want to do is because, the pay as a manager is just way too good, the working hours are next to nothing. And there is a default master-slave relation ship between a manager and a programming, despite the skill, output and intellectual value of the programming being many orders of magnitude more…

I’ll let the parent commenter correct me but being a product manager (or project manager) does not mean you are in a management role. I have had both titles and never had people report me. I probably make much less as a project manager than I could as a software engineer.

The real money appears to be in people management which is tougher to break into.

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