Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#221

Post by bobthepanda » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

khalilravanna wrote: post #209

jimbokun wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sane architecture is the only relevant part. Real world "10x" developers are almost always in that class because they can solve the same problem with 1/10th the code of a 1x developer. Ability to solve problems with less code will always outpace faster typing.

To be clear, you don’t mean code golf levels of code-shortening, right? E.g. they’re also not sacrificing on clarity and readability of code to shorten it. They’re just removing unnecessary work. I think this is definitely good and creates a net gain for other devs. Because the people who shorten code at the cost of clarity are some of my least favorite people. I once saw “half = num >> 1” instead of, say, “half = fl…

Code golfing is mostly a exercise in asininity.

But personally, short, standard, and sweet is preferable to crazy newfangled mental model. I've seen way too many real-world examples of the idiom "it takes a lot of skill to write Java in every language."

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

sammorrowdrums wrote: post #57

chii wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you'll find that the work and value being created is required to support the high salaries. Imagine a super-market checkout person or a waiter - i'm sure they talk about their wages too. Why don't they get higher wages just by talking and negotiating?

Well scarcity is generally the best indicator. For a long time software developers have been a scarce resource and therefore hiring good engineers is competitive. It's true that some market forces and potential value of what is created are factors else nobody would pay for the premium, but he generally scarcity rules here. For a contrived example, why is caviar astronomically more expensive than bread? It's not the c…

Caviar is astronomically more expensive because it is both scarce AND people willing to buy it are able and willing to pay a high amount for it. Ability and willingness of buyers to pay is just as important as low supply.

If caviar was scarce, and the only people interested in buying it had no money, then it would simply be unavailable. Or maybe whatever little supply there is would sell for as much as the buyers could afford.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by fma » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

fyfy18 wrote: post #174

ditonal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason for that is way more variability in developer compensation. A company hiring a senior SWE in SF might be paying 130k or 400k. But until recently there wasn’t much transparency. My buddy is a nurse in Bay Area with a CRNA, it’s pretty much understood you make 225k plus any overtime so there’s not much more to discuss.

$225k for a nurse? And I thought there was a lot of desperaity of tech wages between Europe and the US... The average salary of a nurse in the UK is £25,000.

CRNA is an upper extreme of nursing salary, and education/experience requirements

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#224

Post by bobthepanda » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #123

bob33212 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reed is taking that into account. Reed and Netflix have been creating software for many years. They certainly have had "Rockstars" who could bust out functional but unmaintainable code. Those people are not valuable to Netflix because Netflix is looking for long term success. A 100x engineer exists in the context of a global company like Netflix. Because if a developer makes something just 1% better that translates i…

> Because if a developer makes something just 1% better that translates into millions of dollars of savings or increased revenue because on the margins just 0.001% increase of new subscribers is thousands of customers. Generally, the idea of an N x programmer is comparing programmers on their output, not their outcomes. Otherwise you go from trying to compare levels of skill to levels of luck.

Yeah, you can do terrible programming work on an extremely popular product, or do good programming work on a product that nobody wants or cares about. And no one is 100% correct about what customers want 100% of the time.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#225

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

sammorrowdrums wrote: post #57

chii wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you'll find that the work and value being created is required to support the high salaries. Imagine a super-market checkout person or a waiter - i'm sure they talk about their wages too. Why don't they get higher wages just by talking and negotiating?

Well scarcity is generally the best indicator. For a long time software developers have been a scarce resource and therefore hiring good engineers is competitive. It's true that some market forces and potential value of what is created are factors else nobody would pay for the premium, but he generally scarcity rules here. For a contrived example, why is caviar astronomically more expensive than bread? It's not the c…

Does caviar even taste that good? Just seems like one of those things rich people buy to show how rich they are. I find it hard to believe that they actually taste good enough to justify the price.

Like...I had foie gras for the first time a few years ago, and while I thought it was pretty good, it definitely wasn't mindblowly good, and definitely wasn't worth the price.

(Later, I looked up what foie gras actually was and decided I'd never eat it again)

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by pjmorris » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

d23 wrote: post #146

pjmorris wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If a programmer is indispensable, get rid of him as quickly as possible." - Weinberg, Gerald. The Psychology of Computer Programming.

That's a great quote. I'll have to check that book out. Is it worth the read? I think about the psychology involved and our brains as part of the system far more often than I ever see it discussed.

I heartily endorse it. Someone once compared Weinberg's writing to a coal mine; "there's something worthwhile in every shovel-full." 'Psychology of Computer Programming' was published in the early 70's and shows some signs of age. As illustrated by the quote, many of the situations it describes and addresses are perennial. It's $9.99 at Leanpub and Amazon, give it a shot!

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6

andrew_ wrote: post #2

Color me dubious on this fella's assertions after his tirade against remote work.

I have the same feeling. After he said he sees no any benefit of remote work, I stopped being interested in anything he has to say.

That's not exactly what he said was it, he was talking about the interplay you get with every one in the same room.

Ill give you an example I did a RAD (agile) project with one other developer back in the early web days two of us flew up to Edinburgh and given a clean room and with a co located team produced some thing that another group had quoted two years.

Netflix are not paying some one 500k to half arse JIRA tickets here.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by chris11 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #151

jcadam wrote: post #144

I interviewed at Netflix several years ago. It was a fairly standard SV interview. That is - whiteboard questions on basic data structures and algorithms (I'm 40 and I still absolutely suck at those). Failed of course :) But they put me up in a really nice hotel, so there's that. In the years since, I've definitely lost all interest in working in SV (the fact that I've failed every single interview I've had with SV c…

I think if you don't break into major SV companies early in your career it becomes extremely hard to do so later on because people start assuming you must have already tried and failed so aren't at the right standard.

It also seems like pay and experience are also a huge factor. I worked at a F500 once headquartered in the midwest. I was paid really well. I brought up wanting to move out to SV and the COL adjustment they mentioned would have been a paycut.

Plus it seems like major tech companies downlevel you if you don't have relevant experience at peer companies. And salary negotiation is harder if you don't have competing offers.

I was single and was fine renting a small apartment, so the COL hit wasn't too bad. But moving out west if I had a family or owned a house would have been a major lifestyle change.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by city41 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #132

city41 wrote: post #115

I left Netflix about 2 months ago after over 5 years working there. Overall I would say the average developer there is about on par with any other company I have worked at. But the great ones were truly, astonishingly, great.

Interested to hear more about this. Technically great? Great leaders? Great thinkers/architects/high level people? All of the above?

All of the above, the great qualities came in many different ways. But I think a common theme was the ability to increase leverage and have a multiplicative effect.

Sometimes this meant being an expert on a certain technology to better leverage it (especially important on teams that need to go deep such as video encoding, CDNs, television hardware, etc). Or looking at needs and pain points across teams and building high level solutions that raised productivity across the board. A willingness to question things and push for better ideas and really seeing them through. This could be at a technical or human level. Some people were really good at improving team cohesion and empathy, causing teammates to work more effectively. Others pushed hard for internal education and sharing learnings to help raise everyone's game. The culture of the company helped enable all of this. Some people excelled at improving culture, which has a leveraging effect as well.

I have seen the above at just about every company I've worked at. But I would say that at Netflix people took it further and were more successful than I've seen elsewhere.

That's just my experience, I've only worked at a handful of companies. I have no doubt many companies have employees that do all of this.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by bird_monster » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #205

98codes wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean doing the work _again_. I had all the algorithm stuff down cold out of college and maybe for another 5 years after. Now after 20 years of rarely needing any of it and having it be a web search away when I did, I couldn't come up with any of it on demand. "Doing the work" meaning having to study to relearn a thing that I'll maybe use sparingly in my work means the interview process is broken, not anyone's mot…

Lots of things are broken. The question is do you want to work hard enough to overcome it? My guess is you’ve got a good enough job already, so it’s not worth the effort.

I think that, as you get older (or maybe further into your career? More tenured? I don't know that it's inherent with age as much as experience), you become less interested in doing ridiculous things just to prove that you can. That's not to say that other people shouldn't, just that, the value-add seems less and less worth it as time goes on.

It is possible (and in fact common) to lead a full and successful career as a dev, where A.) you don't ever work for FAANG or SV, and B.) You make plenty of money, have plenty of freedom, build high profile, successful technology, have plenty of career mobility.

So, if you believe those things, "Learn these things that you learned in college and then never really touched again directly" seems like an absolute waste of time. You've seen them, and you've seen that while you were _actually building things_, they didn't really come up, or at least directly. And when the value add is "Work for big fancy company for a couple % more money per year", it doesn't really seem like that much of a value add.