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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#561

Post by regulation_d »

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…

Having been both an attorney and a programmer, the better jobs in both industries will be quite challenging. I personally find writing software much more rewarding than practicing law, but it's certainly not more mentally taxing.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#562

Post by regulation_d »

heedlessly2 wrote: post #304
TwoFactor wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that list is a fair way to determine an industry's profit per employee. Law firms aren't allowed to form C corps, which limits their size and would keep them off that list. I would expect top law firms to be in those ranges in for profit per employee, but they're much smaller so it isn't a fair comparison. 2 of the top 6 in that list are in medicine.

at my university's law school, which is a T14, the average starting salary is 125-150k. Which is a lot, but not as much when considering that most law grads have mountains of debt plus the opportunity cost of not being the workforce for 3 years. Plus they average 55+ hours per week. And usually cannot work from home. You're better off doing CS undergrad and working for a Big 10. The hours are on average and can be fl…

I do get the impression that the ceiling for attorneys is higher.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#563

Post by torstenvl »

heedlessly2 wrote: post #304
TwoFactor wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that list is a fair way to determine an industry's profit per employee. Law firms aren't allowed to form C corps, which limits their size and would keep them off that list. I would expect top law firms to be in those ranges in for profit per employee, but they're much smaller so it isn't a fair comparison. 2 of the top 6 in that list are in medicine.

at my university's law school, which is a T14, the average starting salary is 125-150k. Which is a lot, but not as much when considering that most law grads have mountains of debt plus the opportunity cost of not being the workforce for 3 years. Plus they average 55+ hours per week. And usually cannot work from home. You're better off doing CS undergrad and working for a Big 10. The hours are on average and can be fl…

That's likely the mean salary. Median starting salary in that space is likely $160k. Some market leaders have recently moved to $180k.

But yes. The debt burden is incredible. I am nine years out of school and - albeit primarily due to working in the public sector - I still have six figures in federal student loan debt. And 55 hours/week is on the low end. Most firms require around 2100 billable hours. If you figure 50 weeks worth of working days, that's 42 hours of real, substantive work per week, which you have to account for in six-minute increments, plus all of your normal basic admin and staff meeting nonsense. During busy times, we were told to aim for as much as 300 hours/month.

There's a reason burnout is so high among lawyers at large firms.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#564

Post by expertentipp »

ddorian43 wrote: post #536
expertentipp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always smile hearing this arrogant "programmers don't need unemployment benefits" or "programmers will always find a job". Not even tech downturn is necessary, just relocate (e.g. family reasons) to a different location where this profession is not appreciated, neither well rewarded.

.. so.. unemployment benefits will keep you forever when "profession is not appreciated" or you'll convert to a beekeeper or some other job ? Unemployment benefits, as I know, are temporary. You'll face the real-world in 2-3 years when it ends.

> You'll face the real-world in 2-3 years when it ends.

Just enough to catch up with nuances between different Angular versions and experiment with all cool newest React stacks... or screw it... pulls out a manual on constructing beehives.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#565

Post by imtringued »

hoosieree wrote: post #468
logfromblammo wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing software is not difficult. Anyone can do it. The hard part is learning to structure your thinking such that the software you will be writing will actually solve a problem as it currently exists in a cost-effective way. With that skill, you don't even always need to know how to write software programs. Sometimes, you're better off delegating specific tasks to humans. When someone hands you a problem like "make…

No real programmer would propose an O(N) solution like that. Here's O(1): elephant.invisible = true;

And now the world is filled with invisible elephant carcasses.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#566

Post by ForHackernews »

lr4444lr wrote: post #247
ForHackernews wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you did absolutely nothing to earn having good family members? Most people feel at least sheepish about their own success when faced with others, no less deserving, who experience failure.

This is a quasi-religious reversal of cause and effect. Parents create children. Children aren't assigned parents. People - real flesh and blood people, not abstractions - devote an enormous amount of their resources and waking life to doing the best possible for their next generation.

?

You're the one reversing cause and effect. As though I should feel proud and deserving that my ancestors (who, mind, I had nothing to do with) worked hard, got lucky, and gifted me remarkable advantages.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#567

Post by mncolinlee »

foamflower wrote: post #266
mncolinlee wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely true. I've claimed for years that programming is easy and it's not hard to teach to children, but I started when I was six. For older people, the field is hard to break into due to a cognitive barrier I've seen. "I don't know how to program and computers are mysterious-- therefore I don't know how to learn how to program." The biggest impediment to much larger participation in the top tiers of soft…

I think we're kindred spirits in a way. I don't find programming terribly vexing, either (I started when I was 12), but trying to teach others has given me more appreciation for how difficult it is to grok something so rigidly logical. That said, I have no patience for the "smartest boy" syndrome or the, as you say, "LeetCode-like problems" given in interviews. I suspect that these interviews do "work" in the sense t…

When I taught AP CS, I got around that rigidly logical issue by performing a very simple exercise on the first day of class to build an appreciation for algorithms.

The students were asked to write out instructions to build a paper airplane. One by one, I would follow their directions as loosely as possible and build lopsided airplanes. The lesson did a reasonably good job of explaining how computers handled algorithms and code.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#568

Post by sh_tinh_hair »

laythea wrote: post #412
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…

I don't think that is what he/she meant. I don't know what your professional software experience has been like, but software is applied and required to some extent in all industries nowadays, and therefore there is a broader scope required. It is also more of a moving target. I'm a contractor providing software engineering services. One contract I might be doing Subsea control systems, the next OpenGL graphics hardwa…

I don't know many ui programmers doing embedded programming for turbine controllers in asm.

This isn't a nit, this is an observation on the 'programmers are generally applicable' idea you seem to espouse. I'd argue further that with the proliferation of frameworks, IDEs and prerequisites for productivity in 'X' language the knowledge barrier is fairly high in jumping to a different domain when earning for a living.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#569

Post by timr »

doktrin wrote: post #535
timr wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the parent went to hospices and nursing homes as a counterexample, but your response is missing the point: lots of jobs are hard in the way that programming is hard, and don't have the same compensation levels. Of all the programmers I have met in my life, I would trust only a select few to do the things that most professional engineers do on a daily basis. For example, control system engineering, wh…

> Most of the well-paid programmers I know (including quite a few at AmaGooFaceSoft) can't wrap their heads around databases well enough to deploy a low-traffic web application. I honestly don't believe this. You did caveat that this is anecdotal, but it's such a bold claim of ignorance I think it should be qualified. > And this industry is now rather routinely hiring totally inexperienced people, right out of bootca…

"this is also dubious. It clearly does occasionally happen, but those candidates are also not as inexperienced as you imply"

Sorry, but no. It happens All. The. Time. Bootcamp grads are working everywhere, especially in SF. Throw a stone at the next Off the Grid, and you'll hit one, the stone will ricochet, and you'll hit another. These sorts of folks are readily employed in the writing of CSS and creation of web forms, which is ~99.8% of all day-to-day webapp work.

(Also: holding a physics degree and attending a bootcamp doesn't mean you're a competent programmer. Imagine suggesting that a BS in Physics makes you a competent structural engineer. The fact that you would imply this almost makes my point for me.)

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#570

Post by krschultz »

"One possibility is that we have a shortage of programmers. If that’s the case, you’d expect more programmers to enter the field, bringing down compensation."

This is true. I was a mechanical engineer professionally. I moved into software engineering, and the increase in compensation was a dominant factor. I know several other non-CS engineers that have made the same move. While it's not driving down compensation per-say, the difference in demand between disciplines is startling.

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