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Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

vaghetti.dev

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Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#101

Post by shagie »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #48
nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers and doctors in the US effectively have union-style control on the supply of lawyers and doctors, via the Bar Association and AMA. Developers have no such labor association. We also have headwinds like H1-Bs, that push down our wages.

H-1 is a good point. Where are the H-1 lawyers and doctors?

There are lots of H-1B doctors in the small towns and rural areas that are typically underserved by larger hospitals and networks.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/foreign-...

> Just over one-quarter of doctors in the United States were “foreign-trained” as of 2017, meaning that they received their medical degrees from schools outside of the United States.

This is one of the challenges of the H-1B visa and that tech specialities are dominating the lottery it makes it more difficult for other areas to get doctors willing to work at, well, rural doctor rates.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#102

Post by Thorham »

CydeWeys wrote: post #63
tupac_speedrap wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is not touching a programming language until college a bad thing? Some people just want to make a living out of software engineering and then go home and they aren't sweating over Web 4.0 or whatever we are on now.

18 is awfully old to start learning something for the first time. Imagine saying the same thing about math, reading, or history. It's harder to pick things up when you're older, and it leaves fewer people capable of it. See also: learning human languages.

Most professions are learned and mastered after people finish high school, so that's clearly not true.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#104

Post by gryn »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #48
nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers and doctors in the US effectively have union-style control on the supply of lawyers and doctors, via the Bar Association and AMA. Developers have no such labor association. We also have headwinds like H1-Bs, that push down our wages.

H-1 is a good point. Where are the H-1 lawyers and doctors?

if it's anything like where I'm from then you can't practice with a foreign license unless you convert it to a local one. the same organization that make a cap on the number of doctors/lawyers is the one that allows or reject the license conversions (permits). so foreign labors as a loophole does not work. when there were attempts to remove this the doctors went on strike. the justifications is removing the cap on number of doctors by allowing foreign labor would increase the variance in quality of the doctors and increase the risks to the patients.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#105

Post by twblalock »

balaji1 wrote: post #99
irrational wrote: post #83

> The markets are doing their thing. Everyone sees tech workers making money and just generally having a good time and they think: “Hey that sounds like a good career choice”. It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice. Can literally everyone (or even the majority) learn to code? Do they want to learn to code? In my experience, the answer to both quest…

A supply factor that this article doesn't consider - a big chunk of the new wave of graduates are software engineers in different parts of the world. And building a team in those countries will be a big trend. Rippling did this well, building a team in India. That should reduce the comp in the Bay Area.

People have been predicting that outsourcing would lower US salaries and take US jobs for over 20 years and it hasn't happened. Nothing is different now.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#106

Post by noogle »

ianai wrote: post #92
beckingz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system works! In reality, we will likely see some aspects of software development become less well compensated, while other aspects will continue to be rare and highly valued.

That’s where I thought it was headed…in 2001.

The median salary for software engineers is not that high. Still ~double the median household salary, but it's not the only profession that yields that.

So you were not completely wrong.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#107

Post by mindwork »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #48
nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers and doctors in the US effectively have union-style control on the supply of lawyers and doctors, via the Bar Association and AMA. Developers have no such labor association. We also have headwinds like H1-Bs, that push down our wages.

H-1 is a good point. Where are the H-1 lawyers and doctors?

Programming skills are more universal and don't depend on the country. Whereas lawyers and doctors have different standards and laws to operate on. It would be tough for immigrant to justify to spending 4-7 years studying laws of another country just to take a chance with H-1. If you fail to obtain that you virtually unemployable by your country and need to spend more time learning laws of you country

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#108

Post by theonething »

rubicon33 wrote: post #15
honkycat wrote: post #6

I can't remewthe last time my job bottleneck was writing code to implement requirements. The bottleneck is almost always migrating a legacy system, getting buy-in, interviewing users to design the system, or waiting on requirements to be finalized.

The bottleneck for me is always myself. Getting started can be hard sometimes. Getting into the flow of programming where code comes swiftly is tough. Getting stuck on problems by trying too hard to optimize / design / abstract is common. At the end of the day its really these things that prevent me from being a better programmer. I have nobody to blame but myself, yet nothing I do really seems to move the needle. Pr…

Your honesty is relatable and refreshing.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#109

Post by snowwrestler »

irrational wrote: post #83

> The markets are doing their thing. Everyone sees tech workers making money and just generally having a good time and they think: “Hey that sounds like a good career choice”. It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice. Can literally everyone (or even the majority) learn to code? Do they want to learn to code? In my experience, the answer to both quest…

It’s not hard to make a living writing code. That’s why people with a high school education can do it.

Obviously it’s not for everyone, but it’s also not reserved for a select few who have had a life-long passion for messing with computers.

Look at the medical profession where there are tiers of expertise / earnings. Not everyone can be a neurosurgeon, obviously. But many people can make good livings. And the profession attracts many people for that reason alone.

> It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice.

Yes, that is exactly what is happening.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#110

Post by neosat »

>> Higher salaries mean less profit. It’s just how the game works.

This is a false premise. As a counter argument it would be easy for a rational CEO to pay higher salary if the net incremental ROI on that salary is positive.

Then there are second order benefits. A players attract A players, and so on. So you have to also consider the non-financial ROI on the higher salary to attract the best talent.

There is a reason why the top companies are willing to pay higher salaries ...

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