Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#91

Post by WilliamEdward » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

rch wrote: post #47

sharkweek wrote: post #15

I dunno about a bubble, implying it will pop in some catastrophic way. But will market forces correct the above average salary? I think so. More young students than ever are learning to code, which is naturally going to increase the labor pool. The supply of software engineers is going to go up in the next 10-20 years (as will the demand, though! But I still think supply will outpace). This seems like it would mostly…

Lawyers have been around for a while, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of them, and the average salary is still relatively high. However the distribution of starting salaries has trended towards being bimodal ( https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib ). I could imagine the same thing happening for programmers over time, if it hasn't already.

How is law anything like programming? the potential is endless in software and tech... Law careers have extreme limitations.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#92

Post by duderific » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #64

sciencewolf wrote: post #20

How many software engineers are truly making over $300k as a rank-and-file? Let's be generous and say there's about a dozen or so companies that routinely pay engineers that well. Each FAANG will have on average, 10k engineers? So that's around 120,000 out of an estimated ~20 million developers (from a quick google search). That's around 0.6% earning pay in a "bubble" situation, the rest being senior folks or executi…

There is a bubble on salaries in the Bay area. Only because of the real estate bubble that has been artificially created there. It will eventually burst as more companies will seek to hire in cheaper areas.

There is nothing artificial about the real estate "bubble" in the Bay Area. Prices are set by supply and demand, both in salaries and real estate.

Real estate prices are high, because the Bay Area is a very desirable place to live, there are people who can and will pay the high price, and the supply of housing is low.

Salaries are high because big companies are fighting for talent (demand), and the supply of talent is low.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#93

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

isthispermanent wrote: post #77

Bubble, no. Supply is going up for engineers, traditionally trained or not. So it all rests on demand, which I don't see calming. The real cliff for programmers is when code starts to write itself.

[deleted]

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#94

Post by magduf » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

jdmoreira wrote: post #4

Well. I live in Sweden and I don't make anywhere close to these values. Not even remotely close. I have been programming for 12 years and I like to think I'm not half bad at it. So is peak programming just in the valley or should I be worried as well?

It'd be interesting to see a large, comprehensive salary survey of programmers in various countries to see how pay varies by nation.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#95

Post by gniv » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #37

jdmoreira wrote: post #4

Well. I live in Sweden and I don't make anywhere close to these values. Not even remotely close. I have been programming for 12 years and I like to think I'm not half bad at it. So is peak programming just in the valley or should I be worried as well?

Poland, 7 years, less than $50k here. If there's any bubble then I don't think it'll affect the "value proposition" that we ultimately are.

How much do doctors and lawyers typically make in Poland?

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#96

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

someone454 wrote: post #87

wffurr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's how markets work when wealth is distributed incredibly unevenly, and a weak social safety net makes it intimidating to work for yourself instead. In other words, markets work that way because that's how the bosses and capitalists want it to work, and have so far been successful at thwarting attempts to use the government to change things.

The simplest and most accurate statement is that it’s an emergent result of the principles of capitalism combined with human nature and not a plot to keep us down.

It's both.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#97

Post by howard941 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #59

sciencewolf wrote: post #20

How many software engineers are truly making over $300k as a rank-and-file? Let's be generous and say there's about a dozen or so companies that routinely pay engineers that well. Each FAANG will have on average, 10k engineers? So that's around 120,000 out of an estimated ~20 million developers (from a quick google search). That's around 0.6% earning pay in a "bubble" situation, the rest being senior folks or executi…

> Each FAANG will have on average, 10k engineers? That's..really low. FB has around that many, Google has like 50k, and from what I've heard Amazon has about the same number or more. Considering that everyone I know got >= $100k base out of undergrad regardless of location I don't think it's as uncommon as you would think anymore.

>= $100K outside of a major city for a green undergrad doesn't seem typical. Do you hang with grads from big name schools?

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#98

Post by _bxg1 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

1) I think part of this can be explained by the disproportionate living expenses on the west coast, especially in The Valley. I wonder how those numbers on doctors and lawyers would play out if you constrained them to San Francisco?

2) I do think there's a partial bubble, though. What I tell people is, programmers today are like literate people in the middle ages. You can do hard things with reading and writing, but reading and writing aren't inherently hard. It's just that they weren't taught to the masses back then, so you could be hired as a scribe simply because you knew those basic skills. I think once public education catches up (or affordable education; the bootcamps you see everywhere now are starting to close the gap), the basic ability to code will quickly drop in value. There will still be high value placed on skilled programmers (the poets and technical writers of the programming world) - though their salaries will probably see a bit of a correction too - but I think the bottom will drop out beneath them, and you'll have to do more than just learn JavaScript to be valuable.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#99

Post by cobookman » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #21

shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

If anything good programmers are underpaid. If you are making your company a mil, you should be getting 1/2.

Sales people don't get anywhere near that kind of commission.

Most SWEs I know are not making more than they bring in profit.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#100

Post by spamizbad » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #90

spamizbad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nah, that's like wondering why is this ice block sitting on a hot plate and still solid. The answer is: because it just got put there, and it'll melt in a moment. So too, will end high salaries, as most low-hanging fruits get eaten by software, made by mass-produced cohort of programmers. Our industry has its share of cycles, but this, in my view, is largely wishful thinking on the part of people. Nothing wrong wit…

I have not noticed these technical shifts per se. What I have noticed is that mature engineers move on and do other things and new ones reinvent the wheel with some new fancy language or term which then becomes the new way of doing things, and the cycle repeats. Sometimes there is a great deal of value when a new level of abstraction happens but I wouldnt call this a shift, it's just progression. Many of the underlyi…

When I talk about shifts, I'm referring to things like the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, which increase the net-demand for software and along with an entirely new specializations of knowledge.

While there are some key concepts to things like databases, the fact remains that your 1985 database would not be considered sufficient in todays world: It would have too many limitations, lack features we now take for granted, would not scale to modern data requirements, etc. Supporting all that "modern" functionality is non-trivial and requires a huge amount of effort. You can't just say "Well, we figured out space and computationally-efficient hashing, so relational databases are well on their way to being feature-complete"

There's a reason we haven't stuck with 1.0 on our platforms, and it's not just security or a desire for a bigger version number: New demands required new functionality and new ways of building things.