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Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

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

#181

Post by lordnacho »

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…

> It feels like finance to me.

Former quant dev, ie straddling the industries.

The amount of people who study CS or can learn on their own is surprisingly limited. You won't get a job just by knowing how to write some if statements.

By contrast, there are load of history majors in finance. There's plenty of ways to act like you understand it. Plenty of bullshitters. Also the role of luck makes some of them seem smarter than they actually are.

Engineers who can't code will be uncovered sooner or later. It's hard to know beforehand at an interview, but it's a lot easier to discover with that person present for a few weeks.

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

#182

Post by esoterica »

driverdan wrote: post #156
angarg12 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put it another way: we are looking at the top 1% of software engineers. Is it surprising that they have incomes in the 1% range? For comparison, in Amazon, Senior and above engineers count for ~20% of the total, and those are the ones pulling +300k regularly. So only the top 20% of one of the top companies are getting such compensation. And to follow the article, this won't last forever. Whenever the next stock…

> we are looking at the top 1% of software engineers Working for a big company that pays well does not mean you're at the top 1% of software engineers. It means you're willing to do what it takes to secure that job and maintain it, including moving somewhere many don't want to live.

It means you're in the top 1% of software engineers in the only metric that matters.

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

#183

Post by why_only_15 »

pcstl wrote: post #67

As long as the demand for skilled programmers stays as high as it does, I don't see this alleged "bubble" popping. And it does not seem like software will stop eating the world. In fact, as someone (I think it was Marc Andreesen) said, we're just at the "end of the beginning". Software is in the final stages of eating the media industry and will now progress toward heartier fare. This will be accompanied by further g…

Ben Horwitz said that. The talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF5VIwDYIJk

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

#184

Post by godot »

Perhaps one way of thinking about FAANG pay level is where the money is coming from. FAANG can pay engineers a lot because they make a lot of money (in a very indirect way, it's like what people always said about "If I make my company a million dollars, I should get a portion of that", just very diluted through many layers). FAANG makes a lot of money because they're huge companies that make money from the entire world. This is unlike most startups and smaller/mid-size tech companies in the US (where FAANG originated). In a way, they're companies who've globalized successfully. The money that they pay engineers, come from money they made from other people all around the world. (maybe citation needed -- I didn't do any research on this claim, don't know % of money a Google/etc would make from the world vs from the US.)

When you think about it this way, FAANG pay isn't truly a bubble, it's more of an effect of their globalization. In that sense, I don't think they would "pop" per se on a timer (although they may eventually pop if their business falls over for one reason or another, like how AOL/Yahoo/Pets.com etc. did back in the 2000).

It's also a little bit unsettling that when thinking about it this way, it's somewhat of a transfer of wealth from people across the world, to a small set of people in Silicon Valley. True, the companies are providing something of value to the world, so maybe it's not so much a transfer, but the end result is still that money was collected from people in other countries, and paid to SV engineers/employees.

Again note that I may be completely wrong in my framework of thinking. Just something I thought up while reading the article, no reference or research on any of the claims.

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

#185

Post by esoterica »

BjoernKW wrote: post #126

First, salaried rank and file software developers on average certainly don't make 300-400k per year. Those working at Silicon Valley FAANG companies still account for only a minute percentage of software developers in the US and certainly in the world. How that is supposed to constitute a bubble is beyond me. Then, payment for work isn't (or shouldn't be) about (perceived) equality and it isn't about compensation for…

Pay is about the intersection of supply and demand, which is influenced by but not purely a function of the value created by the work. Insane work hours props up wages by decreasing supply since lots of people don't want to work 90 hours a week.

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

#186

Post by joshuamorton »

convolvatron wrote: post #117
spamizbad wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

i'll just leave this here https://books.google.com/books/about/Distributed_Databases.h...

This predates the formulation of the cap theorem by ~15 years, so I doubt it contains everything relevant to a modern distributed database.

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

#188

Post by joshuamorton »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #168
esoterica wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If unions are the best way to improve compensation why do un-unionized FAANG employees get paid so much more than unionized developers in Europe?

You're replying in a thread about how those very same FAANG companies colluded to keep engineer compensation artificially low.

Yeah but even at that point faang (or well at that point apple, Ms, google, Netflix didn't exist and Facebook broke the cartel) compensation was significantly more than people in Europe were making.

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

#189

Post by tluyben2 »

ken wrote: post #158
devoply wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said good programmers are underpaid. They should figure out how much they are making their companies and ask for more. The market can often afford to pay more, if you just negotiate better. You can also unionize to get your employers closer to what you are worth to them rather than what they are worth to you.

> just negotiate better In every other aspect of computers, the industry has finally embraced usability as a desirable goal, and not just for end-users. On my first computer, you had to read a 100-page user manual and learn exactly what commands to type. In my first programming language, you had to manually allocate (and worse, deallocate) memory. With my first database, we used to have to go type VACUUM regularly. N…

> On my first computer, you had to read a 100-page user manual and learn exactly what commands to type.

Flipside: I can still write software for my first computer without looking anything up, over 30 years after reading those 100 pages. I still know the memory layout, opcodes, assembly etc by heart and it is still the best way today to program that particular computer (which still works in my man cave) today. Yes, today it is all simpler, but the 100 page example I find a plus, not a negative. Maybe you were referring to something but my 100+ page manual was usage and at the same time programming (using was programming beyond the basics) as that was the only way to use the system.

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

#190

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #25
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…

> 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. Good programmers I know also overestimate the skill needed to earn high salary in this job. You don't have to go up the learning curve much; these days, you just learn yourself JS a little bit and go for a webdev job, making shit cod…

So then when are doctors going to start making less? And investment bankers, too?
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