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Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#21

Post by geodel »

ellius wrote: post #5
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…

I disagree with this completely. Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. "The Mythical Man-Month" explains this well. Conceptual coherence is of the utmost importance in effective software systems, and you don't get that by just knocking out stories one-by-one like they're desktop support tickets.

> Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap.

Huh, it is already happening. I see everyday so many web services are created via auto generating scaffolding tools like Spring boot etc. One just fill in environment details, bits of JSON parsing and service is ready to be deployed.

Good for you that where you work people are intelligent enough to read Fred Brooks. Most places, including the ones with fancy gleaming buildings, open office floors, lounges with couches and organic smoothie bars are just making CRUD services with some cloud backed data storage. More so terminology I see at work is more inspired by factory floor not some intellectual venture.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#22

Post by frankbreetz »

I worked teaching factory workers how to use a software, and can say that no matter how much education and training the majority of these people receive they are not going to become software developers, and it isn't just the older generation. It takes a certain level of abstract thought to be a software developer. The kind of software development jobs that a typical factory worker is capable of are quickly disappearing if they aren't already gone.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#23

Post by javagram »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #18

" Today, Mr. Davis, 27, is a cybersecurity specialist working on an incident response team at the company. He earns above $40,000, more than twice his salary in retail. " Isn't that like what people at Costco make for running a cash register and being friendly? And who do you think has more job security? edit: To be less coy about it, if you are any good at this stuff and are only making "above $40k", you are getting…

Costco jobs are an outlier in retail as I understand it.

$40k/ year in Georgia may be a liveable salary, and if this is an entry level job for him there’s probably the possibility to increase that salary by a 1.5x factor or more over 5 years if he can continue career growth (not sure exactly what a cybersecurity job path looks like, but I assume there is some upward mobility or increased ability to transfer to other higher paying tech roles).

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#24

Post by ardit33 »

geodel wrote: post #21
ellius wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this completely. Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. "The Mythical Man-Month" explains this well. Conceptual coherence is of the utmost importance in effective software systems, and you don't get that by just knocking out stories one-by-one like they're desktop support tickets.

> Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. Huh, it is already happening. I see everyday so many web services are created via auto generating scaffolding tools like Spring boot etc. One just fill in environment details, bits of JSON parsing and service is ready to be deployed. Good for you that where you work people are intelligent enough to read Fred Brooks. Mo…

Great, looks like you have discovered "That one trick that all engineers hate!"

If all it took was some scafolding, some database columns and some html and sprinkle, you should be a millionare by now?

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#25

Post by Noumenon72 »

devoply wrote: post #10
eropple wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years , "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies . It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively f…

What should be talked about is what's actually the point of jobs. It's not as a means to get work done so corporations can generate profit. Jobs are a tool to organize society. Profit is a side-effect of that but an irrelevant part the primary function of jobs. This concept of jobs as a tool to organize society rather than a way to solve problems using human "capital" or humans as machines or tools for problem solvin…

You mean a tool to organize society like castes were? Or a tool to organize society so that it produces enough medical care and has a large enough army? The first one really doesn't fit with how dynamic jobs are, as they can be created at any income level or sector regardless of the impacts to social class.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#26

Post by eropple »

Chyzwar wrote: post #15
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…

> Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. Agile do not make developer replaceable. If anything it empower developers to become on equal footing with everyone else. > And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with…

Agile shouldn't make developers more replaceable, but in my experience that's the effect of Scrum when wielded by many kinds of management. Stuff like "story points" rigged such that a problem that would take a week must be reduced to smaller--preferably parallelizable--micro-stories that have implicit context but no explicit dependencies so that the decision of farming it out to many juniors can be upheld.

I'm not saying that this actually works better, to be clear. But I would bet it works cheaper for the time horizons that the folks making those decisions care about.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#27

Post by jstewartmobile »

javagram wrote: post #23
jstewartmobile wrote: post #18

" Today, Mr. Davis, 27, is a cybersecurity specialist working on an incident response team at the company. He earns above $40,000, more than twice his salary in retail. " Isn't that like what people at Costco make for running a cash register and being friendly? And who do you think has more job security? edit: To be less coy about it, if you are any good at this stuff and are only making "above $40k", you are getting…

Costco jobs are an outlier in retail as I understand it. $40k/ year in Georgia may be a liveable salary, and if this is an entry level job for him there’s probably the possibility to increase that salary by a 1.5x factor or more over 5 years if he can continue career growth (not sure exactly what a cybersecurity job path looks like, but I assume there is some upward mobility or increased ability to transfer to other…

I know some fairly credentialed people in the same field. Their pay is much better, but the job security seems very tenuous--especially for something so joined-at-the-hip with the defense industry.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#28

Post by blahblahthrow »

colordrops wrote: post #14
marsrover wrote: post #2

I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.

Just like manufacturing jobs, some software work could be completed by uneducated felons, and some work could only be done by PhD specialists. In fact I work at such a place that has an extremely wide gamut of both software engineers and production staff.

It's cool how nobody with a PhD ever committed a crime and only worthless, stupid people do crimes.

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#29

Post by paultopia »

devoply wrote: post #10
eropple wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years , "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies . It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively f…

What should be talked about is what's actually the point of jobs. It's not as a means to get work done so corporations can generate profit. Jobs are a tool to organize society. Profit is a side-effect of that but an irrelevant part the primary function of jobs. This concept of jobs as a tool to organize society rather than a way to solve problems using human "capital" or humans as machines or tools for problem solvin…

I find this a little bit confusing. The primary function of jobs is that it's hard for workers with specialized skills to extract all the value from their labor alone, so they get together in organizations to do it, and the people doing the organizing (and capital investing etc.) get to skim a healthy chunk off the top (too much in our current economy) for doing so. Is this the same as what you're saying, or different?

Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses

#30

Post by Kinnard »

frankbreetz wrote: post #22

I worked teaching factory workers how to use a software, and can say that no matter how much education and training the majority of these people receive they are not going to become software developers, and it isn't just the older generation. It takes a certain level of abstract thought to be a software developer. The kind of software development jobs that a typical factory worker is capable of are quickly disappeari…

How are you able to assess what they are capable of?
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