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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#341

Post by jopsen »

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…

Once you've become a highly paid software engineer it's very human to try and justify your status by claiming that programming is exceptionally hard and therefore your status/salary is justified.

That's not to say that the job isn't hard... but lots of jobs are hard. Dealing with the constant loss of people around you if you work in a retirement home or hospice is also hard; but those jobs aren't rewarded equally.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#342

Post by terminalcommand »

giobox wrote: post #322
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…

> There are "law schools" and "med schools" to teach you all the knowledge required to become a lawyer or a doctor. Programmer now, gained a law degree in a previous life. Know lots of folks who studied medicine. The idea that med school or law school teach you "all the knowledge required to become a lawyer or a doctor" is laughable and a truly absurd statement. The sheer size of the problem domains these subjects co…

I am about to graduate from law school. I also agree that a law degree "hardly scratches the surface" of law.

That's why in most countries lawyer candidates are required to do mandatory legal internships. And even after becoming a lawyer, you need to gain a lot of experience before you can be trusted to practice law without the supervision of an experienced lawyer.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#343

Post by petercooper »

namelost wrote: post #158
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…

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…

Programmers have to remember a vast amount of domain knowledge.

It's even more elementary than that, I think. I've encountered lots of intelligent people who lack any sort of diagnostics skills - absolutely essential for being a programmer.

Things like.. the landline is broken. Well, then, get another phone, plug it in and see if it works. If it does, then it's the phone we need to look at, if it doesn't, we need to move further up the line.

It frequently boggles my mind how many people struggle with simple elimination, experimentation, and narrowing down to resolve problems, and I'm not sure such people could become developers without this ability.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#344

Post by Retric »

jnbiche wrote: post #245
wfo wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. The way the word is often used and even the word itself, absolutely that ruffles some feathers and rightly so. They do studies, if people are given massive advantages (e.g. rolling two dice instead of one in monopoly and starting with double the cash) that are obvious and explicit, people will still believe they deserved to win, they earned their vict…

There's a good reason many of us dislike current usage of word "privilege", and to your credit, you avoided it. Lots of times the word "white privilege" is thrown around by relatively well-off people in urban areas, and that usage is extremely hurtful and frankly stunning if you're a poor white person living in a small town in say, W. Virginia. You work multiple minimum wage jobs and still barely scrap by, watch frie…

Being poor and white is still an advantage over poor and Latino/Black. Look at conviction rates at criminal trials for example.

Now, it's not the kind of advantage that feels meaningful, but it really adds up over a lifetime.

Even +/- 1% sales can make or break a small business for example.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#345

Post by Symbiote »

d0lph wrote: post #194
kimdcmason wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I speak primarily from experience.

Are you including Canada in "offshore"? Europe?

That is implied, from the comment you replied to. You may need to rephrase.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#346

Post by peterjlee »

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…

Just anecdotal but all of my friends who majored in chemical engineering are somehow software engineers now..

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#347

Post by nvarsj »

Clubber wrote: post #116
nvarsj wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 engine…

It's both. You have to know people of whom you impress with your ability.

Sure, but I don't think the differentiator in the bimodal distribution is technical ability.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#348

Post by jimbokun »

jopsen wrote: post #341
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…

Once you've become a highly paid software engineer it's very human to try and justify your status by claiming that programming is exceptionally hard and therefore your status/salary is justified. That's not to say that the job isn't hard... but lots of jobs are hard. Dealing with the constant loss of people around you if you work in a retirement home or hospice is also hard; but those jobs aren't rewarded equally.

"Dealing with the constant loss of people around you if you work in a retirement home or hospice is also hard; but those jobs aren't rewarded equally."

That is a completely different sense of the word "hard" from "programming is hard". Working in the retirement home requires enduring emotional pain and sacrifice. Programming (at least some kinds of programming) requires a high degree of skill, knowledge, and intelligence.

The distinction being there may be a larger number of people with the skills to work in a retirement home, than there are people with the skills to write particularly difficult programs.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#349

Post by mathgladiator »

jopsen wrote: post #341
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…

Once you've become a highly paid software engineer it's very human to try and justify your status by claiming that programming is exceptionally hard and therefore your status/salary is justified. That's not to say that the job isn't hard... but lots of jobs are hard. Dealing with the constant loss of people around you if you work in a retirement home or hospice is also hard; but those jobs aren't rewarded equally.

Sure, but how much time does one need to invest to handle the constant loss at a retirement home.

I often get in trouble for saying things are easy or hard. For instance, building a website can be easy but costly. So what language would help here?

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#350

Post by jimbokun »

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…

"Of course I'm probably missing some hard stuff that pays well"

Hitting major league pitching.

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