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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

#71

Post by ambicapter »

p1necone wrote: post #60
crazygringo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. A friend of mine wanted to give back and started teaching programming to disadvantaged kids. He was shocked to ultimately discover that for most of his students, they simply didn't seem to be fundamentally capable of the abstract thought required, and it didn't matter how much time he spent with them. He came away from the experience fairly disillusioned, and I also never expected the difference in ability to…

I wouldn't be surprised if abstract thought/problem solving and critical thinking need to be taught quite young to stick. Sort of similar to how much easier it is for young children to learn new languages compared to adults.

Wasn't there a HN post recently arguing about the lack of difference between adults and children learning languages?

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

#72

Post by aey »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #58
rayiner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explosion in cost of living in places like SF has severely distorted peoples’ views of what is a reasonable salary in the vast majority of the country. $40k/year is a good salary almost anywhere in the US. It’s above the median starting salary for college graduates. For a couple, that’s probably $60,000-70,000 in household income. In my county you can get a 3BR house in a good school district for $200-230k, which…

" 3BR house in a good school district for $200-230k, which is affordable for a family making $60k " Maybe if you have no children, live in a low-tax area, have an awesome deal on homeowner's insurance and a fantastic health insurance plan, and neither you nor your spouse ever get laid-off or injured. Otherwise, that's cutting it pretty close.

At 60k a year, $1k a month is totally fine for a house. At that salary with a mortgage I would guess that you pay almost no tax.

Areas with cheaper housing typically don’t have $30/hour nannies.

The risks are that the house price and the job are usually super correlated.

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

#73

Post by neilv »

nostrademons wrote: post #42
jaabe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is fixing Wordpress really bottom-tier programming jobs? I know people who do that as freelance consultants, and they have a lot of freedom in their lives. Compare that to some enterprise developers who get hired right out of the university to build exactly what they are told, when they are told for long hours until they turn 36 and get replaced. I mean, the latter requires a higher education, which is something that…

I think he's talking about the skill level, defined roughly as how much background knowledge you need to perform the job + how much judgment & concentration + how much creative/analytical thought. This doesn't necessarily correlate with either remuneration or work environment. There are plumbers in the Bay Area who make more than a theoretical physics post-doc and deal with a lot less stress, but most people would ag…

I don't think plumber vs. theoretical physics post-doc is a great example.

Plumbing is critical skilled work, taking years to master, and is paid accordingly.

I imagine plumbing is also very stressful, at times, such as when you're being careful not to flood a building, or avoiding breaking something that would require ripping open a floor to fix.

Though plumbing guild training sounds not entirely different than academia. (And postdocs tend to get paid poo because the market, and their guild, permit it.)

We should also be careful of to avoid the oopses of: "Brain Surgeon - That Mitchell & Webb Look, Series 3 - BBC Two" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

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

#74

Post by thelasthuman »

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.

I will never understand people's innate desire to pull the ladder up behind them after they've achieved a comfortable life.

Then again I've never strived for comfort, just the rarest thing of all... equality.

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

#75

Post by jstewartmobile »

aey wrote: post #72
jstewartmobile wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 3BR house in a good school district for $200-230k, which is affordable for a family making $60k " Maybe if you have no children, live in a low-tax area, have an awesome deal on homeowner's insurance and a fantastic health insurance plan, and neither you nor your spouse ever get laid-off or injured. Otherwise, that's cutting it pretty close.

At 60k a year, $1k a month is totally fine for a house. At that salary with a mortgage I would guess that you pay almost no tax. Areas with cheaper housing typically don’t have $30/hour nannies. The risks are that the house price and the job are usually super correlated.

No need to guess. In most states, unless you're retired, the property tax is the property tax.

I sold real estate in Alabama (with some of the lowest property taxes in the country) 15 years ago. Even back then, on $230k, you'd be looking at around $1500/mo at today's rates, ~$1500/yr property tax, ~$2000/yr homeowner's insurance.

Unless a person is 100% OK with being a wage-slave, cracking a $21,500 nut every year--when you've only got $60k/yr pre-tax--is not a good situation.

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

#76

Post by killjoywashere »

> Training, mentoring and counseling people — often from disadvantaged backgrounds — is not a mass-production process.

Yes, yes it is. It literally is. Maybe you need some additional sorting of raw materials in, maybe the machines (the teachers, the mentors) have a relatively low number of cycles in their lifespan (number of students they can teach), maybe there's more sorting on the output (just like chips are sorted after production), but at nation-scale software engineers are definitely mass-producible.

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

#77

Post by njepa »

crazygringo wrote: post #45
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…

Indeed. A friend of mine wanted to give back and started teaching programming to disadvantaged kids. He was shocked to ultimately discover that for most of his students, they simply didn't seem to be fundamentally capable of the abstract thought required, and it didn't matter how much time he spent with them. He came away from the experience fairly disillusioned, and I also never expected the difference in ability to…

I will disagree with most of the comments and say that the barrier to entry in programming isn't abstract though or critical thinking but quirks, inconsistencies and obscurities. That is really why programming favors having an interest in it. Because you need to some extent be excited about banging your head against the wall, in one way or another. That is why very smart people with PhDs aren't necessarily good programmers. And why if you don't have some relationship with programming, or something related, you might just think it is stupid.

So I do think it is to a large question of motivation and time. That is why so many programmers, even those with qualifications, are self-taught. Of course it helps to be smart, but programming isn't unforgiving enough that you can't be average. So that isn't really the barrier.

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

#78

Post by javagram »

mynameishere wrote: post #31
javagram wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Out of curiosity, what compels people to use terms like "liveable salary"? ("Living wage" used to be more common, but whatever.) The median salary in the US is less than 32,000/year. Do you think half the country is failing at "living" in anything but a totally fantastical definition of the word "living"? It's a cheap propaganda term--obviously--so why use it? Is it just habit? ( https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central…

Median salary may be less than 32,000 but keep in mind a lot of people get welfare assistance. EITC, food stamps, Medicaid, and many other programs are available for the people making very little.

Personally I started my career on what was probably a similar salary to this person’s 40k (adjusting for inflation.) I had my own experience in mind when I used the term liveable - thinking about being able to afford an apartment on my own and eventually save up to buy a car rather than use public transit/bike exclusively.

Obviously, people do make do with less. Sometimes that means stuff like spending 4 hours a day commuting on multiple buses or something, or juggling multiple jobs and increasing stress levels, etc...

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

#79

Post by harryh »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #75
aey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 60k a year, $1k a month is totally fine for a house. At that salary with a mortgage I would guess that you pay almost no tax. Areas with cheaper housing typically don’t have $30/hour nannies. The risks are that the house price and the job are usually super correlated.

No need to guess. In most states, unless you're retired, the property tax is the property tax. I sold real estate in Alabama (with some of the lowest property taxes in the country) 15 years ago. Even back then, on $230k, you'd be looking at around $1500/mo at today's rates, ~$1500/yr property tax, ~$2000/yr homeowner's insurance. Unless a person is 100% OK with being a wage-slave, cracking a $21,500 nut every year--w…

For a 230k loan (which means zero down payment which is unusual) to be $1500/mo you're talking about 6.8% interest. Rates are not that high on a 30 year mortgage.

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

#80

Post by jstewartmobile »

harryh wrote: post #79
jstewartmobile wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to guess. In most states, unless you're retired, the property tax is the property tax. I sold real estate in Alabama (with some of the lowest property taxes in the country) 15 years ago. Even back then, on $230k, you'd be looking at around $1500/mo at today's rates, ~$1500/yr property tax, ~$2000/yr homeowner's insurance. Unless a person is 100% OK with being a wage-slave, cracking a $21,500 nut every year--w…

For a 230k loan (which means zero down payment which is unusual) to be $1500/mo you're talking about 6.8% interest. Rates are not that high on a 30 year mortgage.

My bad. Used online mortgage calculator. Didn't notice they were including estimate of taxes and homeowners in the monthly.
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