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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#391

Post by badpun »

Retric wrote: post #344
jnbiche wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Are there stats for convictions of poor white people vs poor black latino/black, or just all white vs all latino/black? I don't think the latter stats would be particularly helpful here.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#392

Post by joshuamorton »

malvosenior wrote: post #361
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…

> If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. I think plenty of people understand it, they just don't agree with it. Why wouldn't humans use every advantage available to them to succeed? It's a tough world out there and people want to thrive and survive, they'd also like to pass along the fruits of their labor to their offspring. That's how nature works. There will always be a will to be the be…

Generally, people don't say you should refuse to take advantage of them, but that you recognize them. That is, right now, you're misunderstanding privilege.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#393

Post by geodel »

jtolmar wrote: post #373

> The most common response I’ve gotten to this post is that we should expect programmers to be well-paid because software is everywhere and there will be at least as much software in the future. [...] Yet electrical engineering comp isn’t in the same league as programmer comp, [...] and there are more processors sold than ever before. What drives the demand for engineers isn't the number of things sold, but rather th…

Maybe it is not polite to talk about but I do not think most of Epic systems, or any generic IT employee can simply be hired by Google if they are willing to move where Google offices are present.

Most people I know in IT industry understand this deeply even if not talk openly that their 1/4-1/2 of Google pay is decent case scenario. It is also reinforced by the fact average salary for software engineer in valley is about $120K and not $500K + unlimited meals, bus rides and what not.

People here are select bunch and talk about 500K pay so often, it starts to look common when clearly it is not.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#394

Post by jnbiche »

Retric wrote: post #344
jnbiche wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

No argument, but is that really justification for wealthy urban whites to go around shouting about "white privilege" to poor rural whites? I mean, if you feel that way, continue, but I can guarantee you it won't be a net positive for our country, black or white.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#395

Post by bdcs »

tomwphillips wrote: post #74
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…

>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…

It was nearly correct in my case: While getting a BS in ChemE at CU Boulder, I also earned a got a minor in chemistry and biochemistry (and inorganic chemistry, but I was only allowed two minors for whatever reason).

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#396

Post by [deleted] »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #285
jnbiche wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can't speak to the GP's experiences, I'm guessing you're in SV (most likely), NYC, Chicago, RTP, or Austin based on your remarks on how quickly developers get snatched up. However, those of us living outside that handful of cities have a totally different experience, regardless of how good we are or how much experience we have. There just are far, far fewer jobs outside that handful of American cities. And ma…

I've had similar experience finding on-site work in a healthy market as I have as a remote worker. I don't think parent's advice is sound, claiming that software eng. is a dead-end path for most, with a five year fuse. Clearly if you're not excellent or willing to move to a city with jobs in your industry, you're going to be in for a rough time. Not specific to software eng.

[deleted]

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#397

Post by logfromblammo »

phkahler wrote: post #96
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 usin…

Also, because software developers are like soldiers or litigation lawyers. The more other people have, the more you will need.

If company X is your competitor, and they employ 10 software developers, sooner or later, whatever it is they're working on will release, and that might provide X with a massive competitive advantage over you. So you have to hire your own people to keep up with your side of the arms race. And sometimes, a brand new person comes along with a bunch of software folks to create company Y, and they devastate both you and X within their first 5 years.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#398

Post by infinite8s »

pathseeker wrote: post #387
giobox wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>furthermore I'd argue it's pretty insulting to insinuate that Computer Science is somehow more difficult in this regard Why in the world would that be insulting and who is it insulting to? If anything it's a reflection of how immature the industry is and how computer science degrees have minute overlap with software engineering.

It's insulting to all the people who are doctors/lawyers/any number of other fields where the degree is just the entry point to being able to work in it.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#399

Post by guelo »

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 studied Electrical Engineering in college and I've been a professional programmer for 10 years. EE is much harder.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#400

Post by dsacco »

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…

> If you want to know just how hard programming is, try teaching it to someone.

Continuing with the example from the article: law and medicine are also hard. Try teaching those to the same set of people.

> Programmers have to remember a vast amount of domain knowledge.

Programmers are not at all unique in their need to understand significant domain knowledge. Essentially every knowledge-based field, including those with licensing barriers to entry, also have this requirement (and arguably to a greater extent).

> And I hope you have been keeping your knowledge up-to-date because the answer in 2018 is very different to the answer in 2008.

Lawyers and doctors must also keep current with their field and the industry in general. If anything, the degree to which they must keep up with their respective fields seems to be a difference of degree when compared to software developers, not of category.

I don’t think any of this difficulty is the reason why programming enjoys high salaries, because (circling back to the article’s thesis), it isn’t distinct from other fields with higher barriers to entry in that respect.

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