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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?

#261

Post by ralphc »

spamizbad wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

Preach, brother/sister! My career started in the early '80s and I say this all the time in comments here on HN. You had less to work with but less was expected of you.

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

#262

Post by walshemj »

username90 wrote: post #204
est31 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the side of the employees, unions have proven themselves to be good means to improve the situation for employees. Here in Germany they definitely have helped in many industries. My comment was more about the companies though which may form cartels to drive down employee wages. Companies forming cartels is illegal, while unions are legal in many places.

Unions are basically legalized price fixing. What happens is that the union negotiate a "fair" price, and then all companies decide to pay no more than said "fair" price. See for example (original is in Swedish): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

That just seems to be reporting the wage levels in Sweden which is one thing unions do price discovery for workers - run surveys.

I suspect your posting in bad faith here and in the usa SAG minimum rates doesn't effect the higher rates that successful actors get.

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

#263

Post by angarg12 »

mac01021 wrote: post #123
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…

> Whenever the next stock market crash comes, almost half of that compensation (the equity based one) will almost vanish. You're saying the value of (for example) Google stock will plummet to 10% or less and then not recover at all over the following few years?

Amazon went down over 90% from peak to valley after the .com bubble. It then took 7 years to recover to peak valuation.

I don't think a 90% drop is common, but I also don't think it's outrageous.

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

#264

Post by walshemj »

cobookman wrote: post #99
devoply wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good ones do - the Oracle one that sold a large company I used to work for a company wide licence allegedly retired on that single deal.

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

#266

Post by dominotw »

moate wrote: post #255
dominotw wrote: post #18

four ppl from my extended family have quit their jobs and joined "code school" to become programmers this year. None of them have any programming background.

I did that once. It was great. Got me to my dream job (spoilers: I do not write code for a living).

curious, what do you now?

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

#267

Post by drdeadringer »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #256
drdeadringer wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has like 50k Does this include the now >50% TVC "non-headcount" as recently reported?

TVCs at Google are not writing software. They are making sandwiches.

Personal, professional, and direct experience informs me otherwise.

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

#269

Post by Jach »

nouveaux wrote: post #32
devoply wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm all for programmers getting paid more. However, by your logic, if the company is losing money, should programmers contribute from their own pockets to keep the company afloat? Starting your own company (not self employed contractor) gives a really good perspective on what it means to be owner and employee.

How is this his logic at all? The logic is more similar to a sales person. When a company starts losing money, it doesn't try to claw back commissions from its top sales agents to keep afloat. It might lower %s / do layoffs / something else, but money paid is money gone.

The logic is that programmers tend to produce far more value than they capture -- so that gets captured elsewhere, a lot of it typically by management. Except the value can be hard to quantify when the company is old and so is the software, how much of the value is employee #3701 making fixing a bug that's making the product not work for one customer in one instance vs employees #107, #85, and #150 who in their past team's life created the original version of that system to begin with to make the new customer even consider using it? There's no point to moaning about how much you "should" get paid. Just ask for more if you feel underpaid, but be aware that because of competition and because people usually want to hear what more you'll do to justify it, you're not going to always get it.

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

#270

Post by criddell »

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…

> they program to accomplish other tasks in their domain of expertise

My kids have mentioned that they might be interested in a degree in computer science because and I've encouraged them to combine that with a second area of specialization. Programmers are everywhere, but a programmer that also knows chemistry or biology or economics or art history or just about anything stands out.

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