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You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

theregister.co.uk

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Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#11

Post by wtvanhest »

kiba wrote: post #9
wtvanhest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of your post doesn't really have anything to do with the article but... Very cynical view. If this is what's happening across companies, than the market system wasn't efficient enough or was impeded to make a change. It is a cynical view, but another way the author could have stated it would be to say that in order to have people know who you are, you should do projects that matter to people and make sure th…

but another way the author could have stated it would be to say that in order to have people know who you are, you should do projects that matter to people and make sure they know you are doing them. In my view, it is only about visible progress that they can see, but they cannot easily see invisible progress that actually matters. The worst people I have worked with, on teams, as employees etc. are the ones who deci…

Having a backup system in place is important, and I think most management understands that and would like to "see" it be built.

If someone is ultra technical and working with someone ultra non-technical that will create friction if they are talking about future potential problems, especially due to scale.

But, I would assume any company you are working for as a technical person generally has someone technical in charge of you.

I would never run a company as a business person with a lot of technical knowledge without a strong technical cofounder who can manage the technical team.

I am probably making an assumption here that everyone thinks like that, and most likely that is a bad assumption.

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#12

Post by wtvanhest »

kiba wrote: post #9
wtvanhest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of your post doesn't really have anything to do with the article but... Very cynical view. If this is what's happening across companies, than the market system wasn't efficient enough or was impeded to make a change. It is a cynical view, but another way the author could have stated it would be to say that in order to have people know who you are, you should do projects that matter to people and make sure th…

but another way the author could have stated it would be to say that in order to have people know who you are, you should do projects that matter to people and make sure they know you are doing them. In my view, it is only about visible progress that they can see, but they cannot easily see invisible progress that actually matters. The worst people I have worked with, on teams, as employees etc. are the ones who deci…

Also, I went to your games wiki, looks pretty cool.

You should add Red Alert series to RTS & WarCraft II to RTS

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#14

Post by ajross »

kiba wrote: post #10
epo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try reading the article, it might give you something else to write a banal rant about. Or should I say rants, each sentence seems to be about a different subject. Your final exhortation about pies is just baffling, "don't compromise the size of the pie" is something I might just put on a T shirt.

Well, I thought "expanding the pie" versus "taking a larger portion of the pie" are particularly common metaphor for growing economy versus taking advantage of the economy.

Around here, the somewhat more technical terms "production" and "rent seeking" will probably serve you better. Folks on news.yc have already passed Randian Thought 101.

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#15

Post by theoj »

Depends where you get hired. This article seems to deal with getting hired at a company whose main line of business is not technology (say finance, which Dominic seems to recruit for). In that case, your employer will not care about your beautiful C++ code or super-efficient way to do X -- unless you can tie it back to the company's main line of business and making money for the firm. An internal squabble about the more correct way to do X will mean nothing to the non-technical upper management in a non-tech firm. Non-tech firms don't care about technology for the sake of technology because they don't sell technology -- the firm has other priorities and IT is just a side show to help get the firm's mission done.

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#17

Post by csomar »

They key here is that you’re making a difference when it hits the fan, that’s not someone they want to lose.

The crap getting paid too much is the author of this article. Your job as software developer (or any other field) is to do your job the best you can. You are offered the salary before you start the work and you agreed on it. The market will define how much valuable you are to the business. You can see that in the last year, our salaries have increased considerably.

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#18

Post by georgemcbay »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #13

That EDS video was funny, haven't seen that before. Fwiw, the author Dominic Connor is a pretty well known financial engineering/quant recruiter. The 'Related Articles' section at the bottom has some other funny ones by and about him.

The EDS video was a Super Bowl ad from the peak of the dot-com boom back in 2000. I remember it well because that was the year virtually all of the ads aired during the Super Bowl were dot-com related.. lots of money spent on lots of ads by companies that mostly don't exist anymore (see also: the infamous Pets.com sockpuppet guy).

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#19

Post by EliRivers »

csomar wrote: post #17

They key here is that you’re making a difference when it hits the fan, that’s not someone they want to lose. The crap getting paid too much is the author of this article. Your job as software developer (or any other field) is to do your job the best you can. You are offered the salary before you start the work and you agreed on it. The market will define how much valuable you are to the business. You can see that in…

Actually, for what I do, they are paying me too much. They'd know if they were able to monitor what I do all day.

Re: You're crap and paid too much for the little work you actually do

#20

Post by jrockway »

This is sarcasm, right? All of these things are clear warnings that it's time to flee that company for your life.

You get paid what you get paid because someone else is willing to pay you more. The market is competitive and you're being hired by your peers, who recognize the value of "making the backup 50% faster".

If you wear a tie and are trying to become a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, then yes, you need to play this bullshit game. But in that case, you're not getting a "pay rise" for your value to the engineering organization, you're getting paid for your ability to keep the status quo alive and well.

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