Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

programmers.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 178 posts

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#151

Post by codeonfire »

padobson wrote: post #80

There's a reason why we all aspire to be Rock Stars in our respective crafts and why the entrepreneur in us wants to hire the Rock Star. Give me a business analyst who knows his marketplace inside and out. Who can break down the value proposition our business offers to 25 different demographics the same way John Madden breaks down a cover-two defense. Who can see where the market is going before the market knows its…

Your view of business roles is flawed. The programmer has to do those things but also know the marketplace better than the business analyst. the programmer has to guide the less capable and new programmers on the team. The BA can't. The programmer has to set up the Continuous integration server, issue tracking system, source control repository, and use all of these things that the PM is reading about with amazement. In fact these things are an insignificant afterthought to the programmer, who has learned how to set up administer and use multiple tools of each.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#152

Post by CodeMage »

lmkg wrote: post #45
timsally wrote: post #10

The top rated comment on this question asserts that the reason why programmers have lower salaries is because they are logical, intelligent individuals who refuse to play the politics game and thus are hated by executives. Not only it this incorrect (have you seen the politics in certain open source software projects ?) but it plays into a narrative that programmers want to believe: business people are corrupt and pr…

Programmers tend to think that programming is the most important part of making software. However, managers think that managing is the most important part of making software, and business analysts think that defining business requirements is the most important part of making software. Asking a room of programmers about the value of business analysts is going to result in feedback that is heavily biased. As you say, w…

FWIW, I think the question should have been "Why do bad PMs/BAs frequently get paid more than good programmers?"

As far as I can tell, that question has traditionally been our motivation for inventing "a narrative of moral superiority". When you're faced with an ugly truth such as "it sucks that the world is not fair", you need something to make you feel better about it. That "something" is usually along the lines of "Yeah, but I am a better person!"

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#153

Post by gouranga »

m_myers wrote: post #72
AjJi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, SE mods are not picked based on karma, you can nominate yourself to be mod, and users will vote according to many indicators, not karma only. Elections: http://stackoverflow.com/election

While this is correct, I think his complaint is about the privileges that high-reputation users get. Most moderation is done by ordinary users, not by elected moderators.

Your assumption is correct.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#154

Post by brazzy »

trobertson wrote: post #81
brazzy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers. That's exactly the same kind of self-bullshitting your parent comment was arguing against. NONE of the parts of a business can really work effectively without the others. A bunch of super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes, no leaders and no clear requirements is going to produce a lot of efficien…

I realize this is an extreme case, but you should check out Valve's corporate structure. No one has a "title", everyone can move to whatever project that want to work on, and they still turn out excellent software.

And I'd bet you that every one of their projects with more than 10 people working on it has people doing mainly what is clearly recognizable as project management or business analysis.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#155

Post by brazzy »

scotty79 wrote: post #83
brazzy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers. That's exactly the same kind of self-bullshitting your parent comment was arguing against. NONE of the parts of a business can really work effectively without the others. A bunch of super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes, no leaders and no clear requirements is going to produce a lot of efficien…

BAs and PMs can't exist without programmer because they can't build while programmers can exist without BAs and PMs because they can as well as any human find out what is to be done. Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?

> programmers can exist without BAs and PMs because they can as well as any human find out what is to be done

Many of them may be able to do some of that, but most will be really bad at one or more aspects of it. What exactly is the problem with having people who specialize in these things?

> Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?

Lots.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#156

Post by kitsune_ »

brazzy wrote: post #78
photon137 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with this. I am a quant working at a bank writing trading strategies in C++. I have a colleague in "Infrastructure" (they call it) who sits two desks away from me and he writes C++ code that loads my code and runs it on a massive grid, does load balancing, interfacing and all kinds of cool stuff. Yet he's in a "cost-center" and I'm in a revenue-center when, basically, without his work my code would be…

> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers. That's exactly the same kind of self-bullshitting your parent comment was arguing against. NONE of the parts of a business can really work effectively without the others. A bunch of super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes, no leaders and no clear requirements is going to produce a lot of efficien…

It's not self-bullshitting. In many smaller companies the programmers already have to play the roles of the BAs/PMs.

Can you say the opposite for BAs/PMs? These positions are introduced after an organization or project reaches a certain size. It's simple specialization, you don't want everybody to do everything. When this transition happens, some programmers might become BAs or PMs. Alas, what about the opposite? How people that started as BAs ever make the transition to programmer? There is an obvious trajectory here.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#157

Post by nsoonhui »

padobson wrote: post #80

There's a reason why we all aspire to be Rock Stars in our respective crafts and why the entrepreneur in us wants to hire the Rock Star. Give me a business analyst who knows his marketplace inside and out. Who can break down the value proposition our business offers to 25 different demographics the same way John Madden breaks down a cover-two defense. Who can see where the market is going before the market knows its…

Those who are like what you describe above, are busy changing the world themselves. They are not interested to work for you.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#158

Post by brazzy »

kitsune_ wrote: post #156
brazzy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers. That's exactly the same kind of self-bullshitting your parent comment was arguing against. NONE of the parts of a business can really work effectively without the others. A bunch of super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes, no leaders and no clear requirements is going to produce a lot of efficien…

It's not self-bullshitting. In many smaller companies the programmers already have to play the roles of the BAs/PMs. Can you say the opposite for BAs/PMs? These positions are introduced after an organization or project reaches a certain size. It's simple specialization, you don't want everybody to do everything. When this transition happens, some programmers might become BAs or PMs. Alas, what about the opposite? How…

You're talking about tech companies where the business is basically programming. In a company that builds cars or medical devices or a bank, a programmer is about as likely to become a BA as the other way round.

As for project management, that's, well, a management position. Tends to have a better salary, prestige and career prospects than non-management positions. That fully explains why many people want to move into management and hardly anyone who's chosen it as their original career wants to move out of it.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#159

Post by analog »

jrockway wrote: post #135
demian wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But working software does not mean successful software. If it wasn't used, if it didn't helped people or solved a problem, how can it be considered successful?. ALL of those products/projects you list did required managment and business skills to be successful.

If it wasn't used, if it didn't help people or solve a problem, how can it be considered successful?. The team got paid. I've written a lot of software that nobody has ever used. It was fun so I consider it a success. Similarly, many clients have commissioned many silly projects that they paid for and never used. (I was once tasked with writing a fourm system for an insurance company's customers, where they could dis…

The team got paid. I've written a lot of software that nobody has ever used. It was fun so I consider it a success.

This sort of attitude is one reason why PMs and BAs get paid more than developers.

Re: Why do business analysts and PMs get higher salaries than programmers?

#160

Post by madaxe »

stephencanon wrote: post #9
ihodes wrote: post #4

What companies are these people working for? The ones I've looked at and the ones my friends work at pay their programmers significantly more than PMs and BAs.

This; in my experience median compensation for programmers is comparable to PMs, and the high-end of programmer compensation is significantly higher than that for PMs.

Correct. I run a software business. Our top coders are paid higher salaries than any "managerial" roles, by some margin. That said, the managerial roles have more upside in terms of bonuses, but that arises more as a result of how one goes about motivating people with rather heterogenous talents.
Post reply on HN