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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

#41

Post by sambeau »

thiele wrote: post #22

The lack of interest in "Stock Options/Profit Sharing Program" should be a sobering reality for business people looking for technical co-founders/employees.

I would have answered this question very differently 10 years ago. Since then I have seen every option I have ever own disappear through dilation, redundancy or through the company going down.

Sadly, options are generally worthless and shares are only worth something in a profitable company on the rise (and if you can actually sell them).

Bonuses are better for people with houses, cars & children. But again only if they are paid as promised. So often I have met targets and seen no bonus: bonuses are on the whim (and often performance) of others.

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

#42

Post by sambeau »

amcintyre wrote: post #24
thiele wrote: post #22

The lack of interest in "Stock Options/Profit Sharing Program" should be a sobering reality for business people looking for technical co-founders/employees.

I wonder...is it a complete lack of interest, or is it, "I'm not interested in the tiny amount of equity/sharing I typically get offered?"

The latter leads to the former.

Everyone starts out young and enthusiastic and thinking that they can build something cool that will make everyone rich. Young, clever guys do what they think is the hard work: designing and building a cool product. They think that they are sharing their talent with some lucky money guys and everyone will benefit. Sadly, they learn that they were giving their talent to the money guys and the money guys got rich.

I've been bitten four times now. I've never seen a penny from an option. Every time I've wanted to buy some, the rules have changed and I have to wait another year and then realise that my options have been diluted again without my say-so.

So at first I assumed that my options would make me rich. Now I assume that my options are just an unobtainable carrot dangled in front of me.

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

#45

Post by jeroen »

perfunctory wrote: post #30
nod wrote: post #28

Pie charts for comparison?! Here, I made you some bar charts instead: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Country Thanks to gavinballard for the CSV link. If you want to see different breakdowns, just download the workbook/software and play with it yourself.

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Experience Where do developers disappear after 8 years? And then pop back up after 12.

I think the right question is: what happened 12 years ago?

The answer could be that the bubble burst.

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

#46

Post by mdkess »

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 worked at a major tech company, which gave pretty good stock options. The problem was, they then counted their value toward your salary if it went up while determining raises.

Stock goes up, no raises this year - look at how much you made! Stock goes down - standard raise this year! (And presumably, stock falls off a cliff, layoffs). Because the company was doing well, new hires out of college were making more base salary than people who had been there for several years and performing well. So it's just unstable income, effectively.

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

#47

Post by Cherad »

perfunctory wrote: post #30
nod wrote: post #28

Pie charts for comparison?! Here, I made you some bar charts instead: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Country Thanks to gavinballard for the CSV link. If you want to see different breakdowns, just download the workbook/software and play with it yourself.

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Experience Where do developers disappear after 8 years? And then pop back up after 12.

I think there is a natural tail-off, but the 12+ year category rolls up this long tail into a substantial total.

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

#48

Post by troels »

perfunctory wrote: post #30
nod wrote: post #28

Pie charts for comparison?! Here, I made you some bar charts instead: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Country Thanks to gavinballard for the CSV link. If you want to see different breakdowns, just download the workbook/software and play with it yourself.

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Experience Where do developers disappear after 8 years? And then pop back up after 12.

kids?

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

#49

Post by michaelochurch »

perfunctory wrote: post #30
nod wrote: post #28

Pie charts for comparison?! Here, I made you some bar charts instead: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Country Thanks to gavinballard for the CSV link. If you want to see different breakdowns, just download the workbook/software and play with it yourself.

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/wpw/Experience Where do developers disappear after 8 years? And then pop back up after 12.

"12+" is a wider bucket than "9 to 11".

The half-life of a software engineer is about 5-6 years. To understand this, keep in mind that most of "software" isn't working on cutting-edge problems using high-productivity languages. It's Java/C++ legacy maintenance and crufty business logic. A substantial fraction of law and business school students are programmers who landed in enterprise Java jobs and bored out after a few years.

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

#50

Post by michaelochurch »

spamizbad wrote: post #6
nbclark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, yo…

I don't think anyone solid would take a sub-1% slice as Engineer #1. A pre-funding, pre-code startup is worth $4 million, tops (and that's generous). Vested over four years, that's not nearly enough to compensate for the lower compensation and higher risk of a business at that point.
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