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Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

neomindlabs.com

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Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#161

Post by danudey »

Bootvis wrote: post #132
wry_discontent wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this still exactly market forces, though? In your example, Google is just driving up the market price for somebody who works on self-driving cars. In what way is it a deviation from market principles?

In the same way as offering products below costs would be to drive out competition and become a monopolist. I'm not sure I think this is bad but I believe this is the argument.

It's the "invisible hand of the market" vs. the "invisible hand of rich monopolists". I think one is (conceptually) good, while the other is (provably) bad.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#162

Post by thereare5lights »

sjburt wrote: post #129
thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

Monopolies are a part of a market too but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Identifying anti-competitive tactics practices is a good thing.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#163

Post by nhumrich »

sjburt wrote: post #129
thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

The correlary is that McDonalds could offer free burgers for a year, they have enough money to handle the cost. They could do it just so that other business cant stay affloat.

This doesn't mean that the market price of a McDonalds burger is $0

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#164

Post by s1artibartfast »

cptskippy wrote: post #64
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

>The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value.

Employee value generation isn't fixed. It is entirely possible that the employee can generate more value in the same role at a different company. For example, if the product is more valuable, so is the work.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#165

Post by bananaface »

WWLink wrote: post #126
JPKab wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that hits me is the "$500k+/year in the valley". Is this really a thing? Am I a giant dumbass for staying in Colorado? Even factoring in my stock grants, I'm nowhere close to that number.

I feel the same way about being a dumbass for staying in los angeles lol. Here I am getting low 100k and some linkedin recruiter tells me about a 400k job. Wait WHAT?! Man I'd happily take up one of those Google jobs, but being an embedded software guy, I'm not even sure what they'd want me for. It seems like a lot of silicon valley companies are a great place if you're a web dev, or use C#/Java all the time.

Server optimization is huge business at Google and anywhere that burns an expensive amount of power. It can be incredibly lucrative, I'd look into it.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#166

Post by Zenbit_UX »

staycoolboy wrote: post #55
rl1987 wrote: post #19

Realistically speaking, isn't getting hired by Netflix et. al. a practical impossibility for 99+ % of software developers?

Yes, it is. And the high salaries at netflix are for top performers, not someone who did a full stack, once. Like you said, 99% of software developers are NOT the top 1%. ;-) EDIT: I removed some snark after reading Zenbit_UX's reply.

In response to your assertion that 99% of devs think they are in the top 1%, I'm not sure if that's true...

Here's my case:

Devs who work in a team with others are constantly exposed to the skills, cleverness and ingenuity of their colleagues. Most interns and juniors look at sys architects and senior devs with awe, not down on them.

Obviously we're all exposed to incompetent dev's at similar rates, but I feel like when you become the best dev in a company most realize they're unlikely to learn much more and should consider moving on, if not out of à desired to learn more, than likely out of frustration.

The wildcards are the "1 man shows", a dev in a department of 1. These people are often either incredibly brilliant and don't need any help or so stunted in their development and inflated I'm ego that they genuinely do believe they're the 1%.

As a 1 man show dev myself, I often have to remind myself I have no baseline reference for how good I am - despite my talents being sufficient for my employer to not need to hire others. To combat this, I just have to read HN and get a frame of reference for what others in the industry are accomplishing. It's quite humbling.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#167

Post by sJ646U9k6c6gME9 »

bluedino wrote: post #120
game_the0ry wrote: post #23

I agree with the author's point about using popular tech stacks to alleviate the ramp-up time for new hire productivity, but that is not the optimal solution. The optimal solution is for management to not let high-productivity talent from leaving - increase their comp to whatever offers they might get in the open market. That's how labor economic works - it's a market. Investment bank and management consulting figure…

>> The optimal solution is for management to not let high-productivity talent from leaving - increase their comp to whatever offers they might get in the open market. >> Investment bank and management consulting figured this out a long time ago. That only works if your business makes piles of money, like investment banks. Or FAANG. The rest of us have a % of money to spend on talent.

> The rest of us have a % of money to spend on talent.

If the % of money allocated to talent is so low that the business cannot survive, then the business has no intrinsic right to survive. One possible exception to this would be a mission-driven non-profit, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#168

Post by codegeek »

sjburt wrote: post #129
thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

I would argue that FAANGs have the ability to overpay in many cases and still acquire talent which skews market wages. A FAANG can possibly pay 200K to an average developer who would otherwise may be make 120K in a regular company. So now the developer thinks they are worth 200K everywhere.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#169

Post by blktiger »

JPKab wrote: post #86
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

The thing that hits me is the "$500k+/year in the valley". Is this really a thing? Am I a giant dumbass for staying in Colorado? Even factoring in my stock grants, I'm nowhere close to that number.

Keep in mind that the cost of living in silicon valley is drastically higher than Colorado. You can use something like https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare... to estimate the difference and it's pretty staggering. You'd probably have to at least double your salary to consider moving.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#170

Post by mumblemumble »

sjburt wrote: post #129
thomascgalvin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

In this case, it's a market distortion, and is arguably an example of anticompetitive behavior.
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