Times are great for programmers now. How does it end? • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by analyte123 » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

blindmute wrote: post #521

As far as I'm concerned, the ride stops when the masses realize how easy the profession actually is. You can take any office worker and train them to an entry level competency in 3-5 months, when they will get a job for at least $75k. They are then in a new career path and will soon make 100k. I find it impossible to convince non devs that being a developer is easy. They can't fathom why we get paid so much if it's e…

At a very high level a typical set of office worker tasks includes performing business processes, modifying processes in response to changing needs, optimizing processes, discussing and planning the future with co-workers, all in the context of the business domain and organizational structure + strategy. It frequently includes some kind of automation in the form of Excel sheets, e-mail / document templates, and the like.

This broad description basically sits on a spectrum with what many programmers do, even more so if RPA catches on in these type of jobs. Doing this stuff today isn't always a cakewalk, and there are plenty of full-time office jobs that already pay $75k sans writing code.

I'm pointing this out because there is a lot of cloudiness in what "the profession" is, what a "dev" is, what an "office worker" is. Someone with the title "software developer" could be working on firmware, cloud systems, or they could be scripting business logic & setting up processes for other workers. Someone with the title "market analyst" could be writing a couple emails a day and dragging files and folders around -- or they could be coding automated reports, constructing data feeds, and collaborating on VBA/JS macros in Excel.

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

#552

Post by rixed » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

rixed wrote: post #461

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

Not only are devs micromanaged by any figure of authority with not much tech knowledge and sometime not even business knowledge and freshly landed from a different industry, if not from school, but devs are also happy to be, quite frankly, considered as mere children. Other skilled professions do not either communicate with memes, have slides and swings in the office (as seen in some Google offices), etc. If part of…

Forgot to mention the most obvious childhood markers of all: toys and treats! Again, I'm looking at you Google, which offices are (were?) loaded with nerf guns, stuffed animals and treats... at least, in the engineering buildings.

To some degree I believe management do this on purpose.

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

#553

Post by twblalock » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

disambiguation wrote: post #505

twblalock wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is what's very different now: https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-pe... 2009: 5% 2020: 50%

That stat alone doesn't tell us much about the nature of remote work. Yes, more people in India have internet access now, but that is not a recent development and it predates the pandemic.

2019: 48.48%. The year before that, 38.02%. In fact it's been around 34-35% since 2016, which was 6 years ago. No change in the amount of outsourcing so far!

Having internet access is not going to magically turn everyone into software developers, and even if it did, all the other challenges of outsourcing wouldn't disappear.

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

#554

Post by flibblercorn » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

blindmute wrote: post #550

sage76 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. I have experience with all 3 of those technologies and it's nearly impossible to even get an interview.

There's something wrong with your resume or other personal information then. I was in the job market recently, I live in the boonies, and there is nothing impressive on my resume. There were literally not enough waking hours to schedule a call with every recruiter flooding me through LinkedIn. I had at least 5 interviews per week. I don't know what you're doing wrong, but it's something.

lol I found the same awful experience at the above poster when I tried to look for something to bump my salary recently.

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

#555

Post by thehappypm » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #486

schwartzworld wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you accept a salaried position, you understand that there are going to be weeks your "effective hourly" fluctuates. Some weeks I have lots of work. Some I don't. I have sympathy but that's not wage theft. Actual wage theft is very common in food service. As in, you earn the money and someone else takes it.

Most software positions have a never ending backlog of work that can easily fill 40hrs of any week. Meaning a salary set at 40hrs/wk is pure downside to the work as your actual job expectations have a floor of 40hr weeks but sometimes 50-60hr+ weeks during crunch times. It's essentially legalized wage theft. Thankfully I get paid hourly, but still when I do overtime it's only paid at a x1 multiplier because the dinos…

Counterpoint, almost every tech worker I know works like 30 hours a week in all honesty.

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

#556

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

mirchibajji wrote: post #523

lm28469 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no dehumanisation intended. Everyone has a place and a function. You don't let a car mechanic drive during the race, or a jet pilot do the maintenance of his plane, well same for a programmer, you don't let them make project/business related decisions, because it's neither their job nor their responsibility and most of them are inept at making decision out of their little world, that's why we have project ma…

Your analogies are not helping your point :) Programmers are not the ones driving the plane or flying the car - they are the mechanics and engineers.

[deleted]

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

#557

Post by bluGill » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

blaser-waffle wrote: post #512

bluGill wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If in the course of one's work one becomes blocked, would one really wait until the following day's stand-up to tell anyone about this? There is hard block and soft block. Hard block means you have no clue how to continue and so of course you should get help right away. Soft block means you have ideas and are working on it, but - unknown to you - someone else on the team knows exactly how to solve that problem and…

Never heard those defined before. Is there a source, or is this just a pearl of wisdom? edit: to be clear, I think they're good definitions, just never heard a definition

I don't know if I've heard it before, or made it up on the spot. Probably a combination: the ideas have been said before, but that exact wording is mine - maybe.

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

#558

Post by mslate » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #252

mslate wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 already happened in 2020 with Uber & Lyft significantly cutting their engineering workforce (but not fully like a bankruptcy might entail). I remember feeling concern about the local SF job market at the time, it was totally unfounded. The demand for software engineers that can ship product is very deep. FAANG engineers might not like the non-FAANG offers they might get at smaller firms, but they are solid jobs &…

Isn't 70 y/o pretty old to retire by previous standards? The concern I have is if anywhere is actually going to hire a 65 y/o programmer that can't afford to retire. Obviously, age discrimination is illegal but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I referenced 70 because I checked & that's the age at which you withdraw max social security benefits.

Looks like actual average in the US is ~64 y/o:

https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IB_18-10.pdf

I would worry more about age-ism, but I earnestly see very few "senior" candidates period (i.e. >35 y/o+) at all.

It may speak to where I've worked, but I think it also speaks to how young the field still is.

Once engineers hit their 30s I think the job-hopping rapidly slows down.

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

#559

Post by solaire_oa » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #469

bluGill wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have come to really like kanbahn methods. No two weeks sprints, no committing to work you will get done (thus needing to sandbag to ensure you meet them - management will measure this to ensure you hit your commitments 100% - though to be fair SCRUM itself says don't do this, but it happens anyway), just get take the more important story off the stack and work it, and repeat. If management changes priorities then r…

It's really weird. I have resorted to reducing my workload from sprint to sprint to avoid the drama when estimates aren't met. Management is much happier now, they see "work done" and equate it with better performance. And Scrum has always been like that for me whereas Kanban types of work create a much saner work environment.

This is also my main method of improving work life. Inflating the cost of sprints lets me spend more time "working"- on chores around the house, side projects, childcare, etc.

As long as you complete what's "agreed" to (which is transparently a conflict of interest: engineers stating what can be accomplished; the ones who have to do the actual work), then everyone seems bizarrely happy.

The reduced working hours I qualify as increased salary, which prevents me from jumping ship for a better salary. I also qualify the reduced work as metal health recompense for perpetually dealing with scrum narcissists.

It's Putts Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt%27s_Law_and_the_Success... - but somehow management's impotence is becoming increasingly transparent.

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

#560

Post by schwartzworld » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

maxwell wrote: post #418

schwartzworld wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I was responding to someone saying that stand-ups === being managed "no better than a burger flipper". I don't agree with that point, especially since food service has the most toxic management of any industry.

What restaurant(s) have you worked for or are you citing?

I worked in various restaurants for about 12 years, but its not just my experience.