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Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

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Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#3

Post by semisight »

I think the most interesting question is not what the "average" programmer (this study is likely skewed) whats, but what they're willing to do to get it. That 93% would take a significant cut to work somewhere is better is staggering to me (although I'd do the same). Money certainly does not buy happiness.

Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#4

Post by nbclark »

semisight wrote: post #3

I think the most interesting question is not what the "average" programmer (this study is likely skewed) whats, but what they're willing to do to get it. That 93% would take a significant cut to work somewhere is better is staggering to me (although I'd do the same). Money certainly does not buy happiness.

I'm not surprised by taking a 10% paycut for a better fitting role. I was surprised that having equity or options in the company was one of the least important "wants".

Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#5

Post by cheez »

nbclark wrote: post #4
semisight wrote: post #3

I think the most interesting question is not what the "average" programmer (this study is likely skewed) whats, but what they're willing to do to get it. That 93% would take a significant cut to work somewhere is better is staggering to me (although I'd do the same). Money certainly does not buy happiness.

I'm not surprised by taking a 10% paycut for a better fitting role. I was surprised that having equity or options in the company was one of the least important "wants".

That's because options are worth less than the paper they are written on, in the end.

Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#6

Post by spamizbad »

nbclark wrote: post #4
semisight wrote: post #3

I think the most interesting question is not what the "average" programmer (this study is likely skewed) whats, but what they're willing to do to get it. That 93% would take a significant cut to work somewhere is better is staggering to me (although I'd do the same). Money certainly does not buy happiness.

I'm not surprised by taking a 10% paycut for a better fitting role. I was surprised that having equity or options in the company was one of the least important "wants".

I took the survey and rated equity/options pretty low. My rationale (which may very well be wrong):

1) Options offerings are typically a fraction of 1%: even for the first engineer at companies with no technical co-founders. This (I think) is a carry-over from the dot-com era where IPO exits came hot and heavy. These days, if you're lucky, you're looking at a low-7 to mid-8 figure exit. And to become fully vested, you're going to have to stick around for 3-4 years.

2) Even with a big successful exit, you never know if the company will pull a Skype/Zynga on you.

With that said, I wouldn't scoff at them, I just won't be weighting them heavily in compensation talks.

Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#9

Post by alexholehouse »

I'm shocked at how many people are in start ups - does that perhaps reflect the fact that if your a start up you're typically building your own tools from scratch in areas you're less familiar with, so perhaps need access to experts you don't have locally (i.e. in your company)?

Re: Results of Joel Spolsky's "What Programmers Want" Survey

#10

Post by fragsworth »

It's somewhat unfortunate that there's no breakdown between the different levels of experience.

That is to say, those with 12+ years of experience probably have very different views of what is important to them in a workplace than those with 1-2 years of experience. The data for the survey should allow us see this breakdown, right?

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