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Want good programmers? Then pay them.

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Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#221

Post by nickik »

rmc wrote: post #180
dr_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors don't have infinite sick days, many don't have 30 vacation days (I barely take a week off a year), and most don't have 40 hr work weeks.

Yeah no-where on earth are there 30 holiday days per year and 40 hour maximum. No-one works that. Except several EU countries which have that as the legal minimum… (e.g. France: 35 hr legal working week, 25 days holidays and ~ 13 paid public holidays per year)

Funny how people allready say EU countries instead of countries in Europe.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#222

Post by lifeisstillgood »

malandrew wrote: post #132
mikecaron wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, to command six figures, you've either many years (10+) of experience under your belt, a masters + experience or you're applying in NYC or LA/SF where cost of living is astronomical. In the midwest, you'd be hard pressed to find a starting salary at 6-figures except at the very bottom of that 6-fig range.

You shouldn't get paid based on your cost of living. You should get paid on value added. TBH, I don't see why living in the midwest should drop the salary a company owes you that much. If you are a good developer, you should command a salary comparable to the value you add plus a profit margin for the business. The only two explanations I can see is that, collectively, software engineers in the midwest are simply not…

The problem with this is viewable on freelancer.com and other sites. Once you can be sure a coder will do good work remotely, then you can get a coder to do some work from anywhere on the planet, and those who have a much lower cost of living will happily undercut those who dont.

It may be the single biggest driver against the growth of cities.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#223

Post by njharman »

$$ gets you more programmers, not necessarily good ones.

Just look at dot com era (if you're old enough to remember). Tons of money, thrown at everybody and anybody. The vast majority of which were not "good" programmers. Many weren't even programmers just good at faking it, till they made it.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#224

Post by jshen »

Avshalom wrote: post #204
jshen wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week." Should we take him at his word or assume that he isn't precise when speaking? Both are bad signs.

Precision isn't accuracy, and pedantic precision isn't super common in casual conversation anyway. Look I can't speak for the OP, maybe ze would quit the first week ze's expected to work 40hours and 1 minute. Saying "no more than 40 hours, unless a tornado hits the data center; or my close friend and co-worker's mother dies and he asks me to stay a little late to finish some of his paper work; or a bomb will go off k…

pedantic precision should be common for a programmer. This is really easy, he could have said, "I will only work overtime in exceptional cases, and those should be very rare." This is what I usually say in interviews.

"under no circumstances will I work overtime" has a very clear meaning.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#225

Post by nickik »

zeemonkee wrote: post #33
pmjordan wrote: post #13

Some context/perspective on the Austrian employment situation: * Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate (6%, no social security contribution, IIRC, vs 37.5% lowest marginal rate). * There is no fixed minimum wage in Austria. Instead, there is a collective bargaining system, which set…

I've had a similar experience in Finland - the shitty salaries (and lack of interesting work that isn't somehow tied to the sinking ship that is Nokia) are one reason I avoid Finnish companies like the plague, and just work for foreign clients. This is the reason Finnish companies don't advertise salary, which is common in the UK and US for example - it's all collectively bargained in some way out of your control.

I just saw a add of a firm that wants to get a clojure programmer wiht a Ph.D. in robotics, computer vision or something around there. I got the first part down at least :)

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#226

Post by randomdata »

Evernoob wrote: post #201
randomdata wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are boring though. If I have to take a programming test, I'd rather take that time build a real feature onto your product, even if for free. If you like the results, at least I've created real value for my time, not just played a silly game. There's a risk that you won't like the results and it will be thrown away, but that's a reasonable gamble.

No way. I'm not going to do free work for your company to make money off in the hopes that you'll give me a job later.

What if you did the work for free, but the company would have to pay you for your work if they liked the results, even if they ultimately did not hire you?

Wouldn't that still be better than working on some contrived game that has no real-world relevance for free?

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#227

Post by ajross »

frobozz wrote: post #39
mgkimsal wrote: post #6

most companies don't know how to value the contributions of software developers. i'm not actually sure they know how to value the contributions of most employees, period, except for salespeople. However as a dev, I'm biased some. I do think the potential for high value contributions, and the ability to avoid even costlier mistakes, is higher in the IT/dev dept vs other corporate departments. Several years ago I was o…

I'm not even sure they know how to value salespeople's contributions. Compensation in sales is often in the form of a lower salary combined with percentages of sales and/or bonuses for meeting targets. When a salesperson makes a sale, what percentage of that sale has the salesperson brought in? How much of the sale was actually generated by marketing, design and manufacture? Similarly, if they fail to make a sale, ho…

That's just saying that companies cannot value the contributions of salespeople vs "non-sales". Which is isomorphic to "companies cannot correctly value non-sales employees" anyway. You're not arguing with the case, just restating a corrolary.

Between salespeople, you can certainly tell who is making more money than their peers.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#228

Post by yxhuvud »

adrianhoward wrote: post #29

On occasion I have long complicated discussions with companies about how hard it to find developers. Assuming they're actually asking for a sane skill-set the problem is usually down to two factors: 1) Not paying enough 2) Not doing interesting work (with the very occasional 3 of "having a bloody awful reputation") The trick is, of course, finding a non-blunt way of getting this across :-)

4) Doing interesting work but not being able express that to prospective developers.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#229

Post by solsenNet »

Apreche wrote: post #219
Apreche wrote: post #93

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets. Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this. Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you…

Oh, I want to add one more thing, since everyone seems to like my comment. You can pay me too much money. If you give me say, a million dollars a year, I will work for one year, and then you will never see me again. I will go home and live my life as I please, and only code what I want to code. The code may or may not make money. I may or may not try. If I work at a startup that cashes out big, then I will travel the…

maybe you should start your own company?

seems to me you chaff quite a bit about being a "wage slave"

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#230

Post by weavejester »

nickik wrote: post #221
rmc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no-where on earth are there 30 holiday days per year and 40 hour maximum. No-one works that. Except several EU countries which have that as the legal minimum… (e.g. France: 35 hr legal working week, 25 days holidays and ~ 13 paid public holidays per year)

Funny how people allready say EU countries instead of countries in Europe.

Why is it funny? Not all countries in Europe are in the EU.
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