We will never have enough software developers (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#131

Post by keewee7 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #123

BigJ1211 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a perspective that's exclusively silicon valley (perhaps large parts of the US) based. Not at all true in Europe at the least. Not that it's a bad job by any stretch of the imagination, but even low six figures is really rare in the EU for Software Development. Easiest is also highly subjective, if your job is making wordpress templates/sites then sure. If you're working on complexer systems then thi…

My company has noticed that good developers in Germany are cheaper than in India. Good is key here, you can get bad developers in India for very cheap (this might be good enough). The highest paid software positions in Germany are non-union jobs and the majority are not willing to leave the union for more money, which means they are refusing to do the work of a senior engineer, and this in turn means we can't use the…

I remember reading Indians on r/DevOps who were surprised they were earning more than Germans in DevOps/Ops positions.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#132

Post by Gigachad » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

fileeditview wrote: post #125

Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

Your comment already has a lot of responses but one thing I didn't see mentioned is about the tough physical labor. It is often neglected that working at the computer is really bad for your body. Sitting for hours is unhealthy and creates all kinds of problems: obesity, disc prolapse, bad circulation, so much more. Also your eyes suffer a lot and become worse much faster than in most other jobs. I agree that being a…

You do not need a 5+ year degree. I have no formal qualifications and have no issue securing six figure jobs. And I have seen many others do the same.

You also have the ability to get a standing desk and take breaks to walk around.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#133

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

bruce343434 wrote: post #46

quickthrower2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes up in value. Also interests rates decreasing means more immediate money in lower living costs.

You can't pay for groceries with those unrealized gains. You'd have to sell your house. Wait, where will you live?

True but you can borrow against the house to invest, for example

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#134

Post by rainboOow9 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

weatherlite wrote: post #61

I think the problem of ageism wasn't mentioned at all and it should be. People who love the field have no problems keeping up to date. Sure some job posts will mention Hadoop or Kafka but whatever, a good dev will have no problem learning these in a few days. Does he get a chance though if he's 50?

Ironic thing here is that Hadoop is mostly already outdated.

Which is btw one of the depressing thing for a lot of data engineers: we used to play with those cool distributed processing frameworks, and now? We are mostly writing some terraform to deploy cloud resources, most of the distributed part being handled by those cloud providers.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#135

Post by rainboOow9 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #12

>High-ability workers are faster learners, in all jobs. However, the relative return to ability is higher in careers that change less, because learning gains accumulate. This is not the only reason for the quick learner -> high dropout thing. By the article's definition, I'd be a "fast learner". Most of the industry expects me to come in already knowing what they want me to know, while most ways to obtain said knowle…

This is spot on, and personally, the main reason why I decided to move to an engineering manager after 10 years as a developer.

And even as an engineering manager, I do not feel safe. I think only once you reach director level, you are protected from market hype and newest frameworks trends.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#136

Post by trashtester » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #114

trashtester wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people see that some other group of people, with identity traits different from themselves, are doing better than themselves on some metric, it often induces resentment. That's just a fact. Whether its justified or not, varies with circumstances and what ethical system people have. When black people in the 50's felt that way about white people and their privileges, most people today would see those concerns as j…

I have a hard time believing the reaction would be any different if a bunch of older white collars would stare at young Hispanic software devs making more instead of Asian devs. Only difference being they couldn't hide their jealousy behind politics.

I don't think it makes any difference to most "older white collars" whether those devs are hispanic or asian. Boomers were born at a time when racism against asians were much worse than racism against (non-black) hispanic people.

There are, I would say, two main forms of racism. One is directed at those people see as inferior. Typically, that is right-wing racism. That one is created when some other group, on average, performs worse (or appears to do so) than the group the racist identifies with. Such a racist may see the hated group as sub-human. They may not feel threatened outright, but may be concerned if the population of that hated group grows too quickly.

The other group, is resentment racism (or sexism or other similar identity-group-ism), which is triggered when confronted with groups that do better than the group the racist person identifies with. This is more common on the left*. This kind of racist will see the hated group as outright evil. And if they feel sufficiently threatened by the hated group, may attempt outright genocide, since they may feel they are fighting for their life.

* Nazies were full of both kinds of racism. They saw Roma people as virmin, Slavic people as merely inferior, while they were accusing Jews of attempting to seek world domination. In other words, Roma and Slavic people were sub-human while Jews were seen as Evil, inferior only for moral reasons. And as we know, the hatred against to Jews was by far the strongest. Mein Kampf describes this in detail.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#137

Post by highwaylights » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #59

cs137 wrote: post #10

There isn't a shortage of software developers. The pay isn't great--the kids getting $300K packages out of Stanford are an exception; it's a marketing expense. In fact, if you control for the level of intelligence it takes to be any good, SWEs make less (and get far less autonomy--do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets?) than any other professional, and they hit a salary/challenge plateau quick... after which, the…

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

On one hand, I agree with you that on the whole we're a bunch of spoiled crybabies. Totally grant you that.

On the other hand, saying that the majority of the population is grinding in tough physical labour is just not true. Most other jobs are generic office jobs that don't need to be done (just like 80%+ of software engineering jobs don't need to be done).

Most of us are just doing things for money. Are most people working hard? Not usually, because it mostly doesn't matter. Spreadsheets idle in inboxes, meetings lead nowhere and achieve nothing, brown-nosers and family members get promoted into jobs they're incompetent at. And the world continues to spin regardless.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#138

Post by ctvo » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

> Programming-related jobs have high rates of skill turnover. Over time, the types of skills required by companies hiring software developers change more rapidly than any other profession.

There's a reason I still strongly prefer candidates with a computer science degree to someone with 9 months at a bootcamp for some roles. New tools, frameworks, programming languages, and libraries constantly enter this industry. I believe knowing the fundamentals and having a deep understanding of how computers work allows you to more quickly pick up new things.

I understand there are curious graduates that come out of bootcamp programs who will dive deep and fill in the gaps and there are universities with subpar computer science departments. I still prefer the latter in general cases.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#139

Post by trashtester » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

speed_spread wrote: post #113

trashtester wrote: post #2

Just wait for gpt 42, it will be better than most of us at coding.

Just wait till you have to debug GPT42-generated code produced by offshore subcontractors fulfilling GPT43-generated business requirements beamed straight down from Orbital 4B.

By "debug", you mean shooting up all the drones that ended up being created with some instruction that had as a side effect that humanity would go extinct? (Perhaps something like: "Collect all H20 from Earth, and bring it to Orbital 4B")

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#140

Post by treis » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

t_mann wrote: post #73

Some really good points on the ultra-fast depreciation of SE tech skills. A relative of mine is a mechanical engineer, well past retirement age and still going strong in his 2-man consulting shop because that's what he loves doing. He works with precision manufacturers, automotive suppliers,... all very cutting-edge stuff, helping them develop new product lines, manufacturing processes,... He says the core skills tha…

>I was actually surprised because I heard so much about crazy new materials like carbon fibers, graphene, technologies like 3D-printing,... but apparently what makes a machine break are still the same things: mechanical stress, heat dissipation, friction,... new materials and processes might change the coefficients, but not the (mostly Newtonian) physics (my interpretation btw, not his words).

I don't really see the difference between that an programming. Writing code is still a bunch of "if" statements, the same underlying data structures, same algorithms, etc. There's some new technology being added on the top akin to carbon fiber and the other things you mentioned but it's fundamentally the same.