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Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

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Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#101

Post by _8j50 »

shortcake27 wrote: post #96
_8j50 wrote: post #94

Not a software engineer myself but I fully disagree with you OP. People get paid for how hard it is to replace them and how much they are needed not for the hard or more tangible work they do. There is nothing pampered about WFH or Rust vs Go. I feel like you are despising software engineers to make others look better? It is not a competition and you can praise others without putting down software engineers. Would yo…

> Most people don't want to be stuck in frony of a computer working om intangible code either and that's why you get paid more. I feel like this hits the nail on the head. Neither me nor anyone else I know would work as a software engineer if the pay were significantly lower. I daydream of stacking shelves. If that paid half, I’d absolutely take it over software engineering. But it only pays 1/4, so I kill myself in…

FWIW, I would work in tech even if I won a huge lottery so it isn't none just not most. I did work physically demanding and outdoory jobs, not for me. I need constant cerebral engagement with little human drama.

I spent many evenings and weekends doing techy stuff to be where i am. I spent and am spending all of my holiday season offtime learning/studying.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#102

Post by petodo »

playingalong wrote: post #85
spicybright wrote: post #54

Over the past few years, I've been taking driving very seriously in terms of skill development and practice. One ritual I've started doing is thanking my car after every drive. For the privilege I'm afforded by being able to drive freely unlike most of the world. For the car itself for holding up so reliably. And for the hundred+ years of engineering man hours and passion given to get where we are today. In any popul…

You seem to suggest cars save more lives than they take. I am not sure that's the case. Especially knowing the car injury stats and secondary effects of different kinds of pollution.

It's quite simple math, for instance ambulances deliver every year thousands of people in life threatening conditions, while road deaths are in low hundreds, there is no noncar alternative to ambulance really. Regarding pollution it would be very complicated to calculate, but I think you overestimate impact of public and personal transport on pollution, it's negligible compared to other sources of pollution calculated per capita.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#103

Post by keewee7 »

amelius wrote: post #97
syntaxing wrote: post #30

Mech E here. The reality we’re paid less is because it’s harder to make a profit (but to be fair, MechE in tech get paid well still). Making good margins is really hard. You have one shot to do anything. Worse of all, anyone can take apart your design, reverse engineer and sell your product by 20% less because they don’t have to worry about recovering R&D. Most Americans won’t even bat an eye, they’ll just buy whatev…

Yeah, but you have patent protection. Software engineers don't have that in all parts of the world.

China doesn't care about patents and will manufacture your design for 1/3rd of the price.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#104

Post by starwind »

shortcake27 wrote: post #95
SimianSci wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are vanishingly few places in the US where you can occupy space without paying money. If you don't believe it is all that matters, you will quickly be reminded of how wrong you are to believe that.

My favourite example of this is Christopher Knight. Fed up with society, he lived alone in a forest for almost 30 years. He broke into people’s houses when they weren’t home to steal batteries and when he was caught and charged, a condition of his release was that he was to re-integrate into society; he was not allowed to return to the forest. This is a really good reminder that you are only free to do what you want…

In your example I think it's more like "If you don’t stop stealing, the country will find a way to force you."

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#105

Post by starwind »

zb wrote: post #83
polishdude20 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why we say "giants" here. It would be more accurate and empowering to say "everything was built on the shoulders of our ancestors" they weren't giants. They were regular people.

It’s a quote from Newton, so that’s obviously why we say it. The reason he said ‘giants’ is supposedly that it was a dig at Robert Hooke, who was famously short. Impressively, if true then he both managed to get this dig in and to be remembered for his humility as a result of it.

Newton is a fascinating guy. Did way more work in alchemy trying to turn lead into gold than he did in math and physics (the mercury he used probably made him nuts). He took a day job running the British treasury where he investigated counterfeiters which was punishable by death at the time. And he was responsible for setting the exchange rate between gold and silver. He messed up, all the silver was worth way more melted down and used to make things like utensils than it was as currency so it disappeared from circulation which was critical for creating the gold standard that would last the next 300ish years

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#106

Post by gloosx »

>"real world" engineers need to be paid way more

Why so? Sounds silly to me as a soft engineer, cause software dev is:

1. A lot of the time – connected to the "real world" engineering, so it is just as real, modern real world and civil engineering can't function without software.

2. A lot more abstract, so we literally build whole factories in our brains, sometimes just one or two of us while real factories are built by hundreds of men

3. Well, a modern-day thing existing for less than a century, where real-world engineering in accumulating knowledge for centuries, essentially turning soft.

IMO all real engineering will eventually turn software and cloud, in decades it will be possible to design real-world production and logistic pipelines just with code and abstracted robotic resources, like in factorio

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#107

Post by [deleted] »

auxym wrote: post #71
syntaxing wrote: post #30

Mech E here. The reality we’re paid less is because it’s harder to make a profit (but to be fair, MechE in tech get paid well still). Making good margins is really hard. You have one shot to do anything. Worse of all, anyone can take apart your design, reverse engineer and sell your product by 20% less because they don’t have to worry about recovering R&D. Most Americans won’t even bat an eye, they’ll just buy whatev…

Correct. Software companies have very little cost other than engineering. For hardware, once your engineers have created a design, you still have to operate a factory, pay for expensive manufacturing equipment and expensive labor required to actually build the design. Thus, you get much less "margin per engineer" and the available portion of gross margin that can be paid to engineering is much smaller. Still, thank y…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#108

Post by cod1r »

wavy-dingo wrote: post #82
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #51

Hats off to just... non-engineers in general. Some of the most important people in society like nurses, teachers, and drivers get paid absolutely terribly and are being forced to fight tooth and nail just to get a pay rise that matches inflation. We tap keys on a keyboard and drink coffee in air conditioned offices (or at home) and get paid stupid amounts.

Plumbers, garbage men, the cooks, the doctors. The people who take care of our land and skies. The people who protect us. The scientists solving harder problems. So many people should be appreciated

absolutely 100 percent.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#109

Post by gardenhedge »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #51

Hats off to just... non-engineers in general. Some of the most important people in society like nurses, teachers, and drivers get paid absolutely terribly and are being forced to fight tooth and nail just to get a pay rise that matches inflation. We tap keys on a keyboard and drink coffee in air conditioned offices (or at home) and get paid stupid amounts.

* in the United States.

Lots of commenters are living and working in Europe or somewhere else outside the USA. We're not on the same salaried. More comparable to accountants and marketing.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#110

Post by gardenhedge »

skrtskrt wrote: post #91
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s hard to switch jobs in all cases and I doubt any universal rule applies. Software engineering is more than writing Pascal. It’s like saying you can be a mechanical engineer because you learned physics in college.

disagree, at a base level almost all engineering is systems analysis. Understanding a system of queues is not massively different from a system of forces or a system of chemical reactions in terms of what sort of thinking it takes. Coding and using coding tools is a bump in the road and then eventually that all fades into the background and you’re thinking just in terms of systems again.

That's wrong. Coding and using code is a skill in itself.
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