The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company. This very website, sneered at in the article, is littered with examples of people who have built something at the side. I'm not sure knowledge workers can make the same complaints about class struggle that mechanical labourers can. We tend to get more valuable with age and experience.
An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
21–30 of 353 posts
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#22> Documentation: The entire point of documentation is to make it easier for the people who come behind you to work. You should write as little documentation as you possibly can.
Ah, so no change then?
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#23Earlier today I wrote on HN: "We can see it coming now - the Final Solution to high tech salaries. Expect to see a huge downward salary trend in the web front end/back end sector. That stuff is a solved problem. Expect salaries for new hires to drop below $100K and old hires being gradually pushed out."
This new post says that's already happening.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#24I mean, apart from the highfalutin class warfare nonsense and generally bad advice, this is a pretty decent post. I completely agree that over the past 30-40 years, companies have been pushing down engineering salaries. It's not really as incendiary as the author might have you believe, though. Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it'…
Do you have any evidence that tech salaries were high in the 80s and 90s? I thought Apple, Sun et al conspired to keep salaries down. As the son of an electrical engineer with a 45 year career in software we never lived, and he doesn't have the pension, that a junior engineer at Meta or Google would be able to provide today.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#25I mean, apart from the highfalutin class warfare nonsense and generally bad advice, this is a pretty decent post. I completely agree that over the past 30-40 years, companies have been pushing down engineering salaries. It's not really as incendiary as the author might have you believe, though. Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it'…
Offshoring and H1-Bs have definitely kept programmer wages lower than they would have been otherwise.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#26Had me in the first half, lost me in the second. Why not try to create unions instead of "don't document anything because you're making yourself replaceable"?
Lost me in the first half. The whole capital vs. labor thing is a false dichotomy, particularly here where we're talking about highly skilled tech workers. Your skills are capital, and your pay for using those skills is mostly return on capital, not "labor cost".
The real dichotomy here is simple: it's between people who understand that they own capital and work to maximize their return on that capital, and people who don't.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#27I mean, apart from the highfalutin class warfare nonsense and generally bad advice, this is a pretty decent post. I completely agree that over the past 30-40 years, companies have been pushing down engineering salaries. It's not really as incendiary as the author might have you believe, though. Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it'…
> Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it's becoming more like being a plumber.
Did it start that way though? I feel like from the 50s-70s, outside of a narrow slice of academia, companies were mass hiring (and training!) people to program.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#28Yes, I agree 100%. Do not help those who seek to devalue you. Extract as much value for as little work as possible. The people who run these companies are not your friends and they’re not your family, take advantage of them at every opportunity you can. Don’t care if the company fails, don’t pay any mind to burning bridges, don’t bother giving two weeks, and certainly don’t do anything more than the bare minimum. All…
> Do not help those who seek to devalue you
Excellent statement. The rest only applies if you can confirm that your company is seeking to devalue you. That is becoming more common but I don’t think it’s universally true.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#29I don't live in NY or Seattle. The tech sector is much smaller where I am. I've never seen it be advantageous to treat other people as someone I'm in competition with. I've been laid off. Yeah it sucks, but no job is forever, and being nice to people means I get to sleep at night. I've also never seen anyone who can't be replaced. Time and time again something wasn't documented, and other devs/dbas/admins stepped in…
Fine, I'll play the political officer here and try to help you understand the error of your position. /g
Your post is entirely singular and individualistic in perspective. We could look at the situation differently, from the perspective of OP. In this case, it would be you and your politically aware colleagues who understand the necessities of the situation. To put it boldly, it is a revolutionary movement that seeks to introduce a much needed balance into the equation of capital and labor in the age of thinking machines. You and your colleagues will get along just fine, if you are clear eyed comrades.
And you will sleep even more soundly, knowing that you are not only helping your contemporaries, but also laying the foundation for a more equitable society for your progeny.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#30This reads as someone who gets most of their left theory from Instagram.
I agree class warfare is real and is being waged, but based on even the author's description of the term "capital" I don't think they have a good grasp on what class war looks like. Everything they advocate runs counter to any and all notions of worker solidarity.
Instead this article seems to be an instruction manual for how to be an unwitting saboteur to your fellow employees' quality of life to no real benefit of your own. It's not like you are going to ingratiate yourself to the company acting this way, nor that earning accolades will make them more likely to promote you to the ownership class.