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

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

#171

Post by alttab »

analog wrote: post #159
jrockway wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. Good/Great programmers do it because they like to. They could go a million years and never make any money with the software they write (assuming they don't need to pay bills) because there is value in the process for them.

To the business, even in a software company where development is tier 1, and not a traditional "cost center" and bundled in with IT, development still needs to produce tangible business results. This requires skills that do not directly overlap with development skills.

Programmer: I can build it, I should get paid more

VS

BA/PM: I can tell you what to build so we can attract paying customers and both get paid.

Software is needed. But so are customers. Getting customers is a more valued skill because its the blood of the business. Programming is necessary, but I'd say 95% of the problems needing to be solved are not technology problems.

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

#172

Post by alttab »

stephencanon wrote: post #32
nickbarnwell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A programmer high on the compensation scale will typically have decided to stay on the "Individual Contributor" track and top out as a "Distinguished Engineer" or similar title, but still be considered as a programmer. A PM who has advanced to a similar level, on the other hand, is likely to be some sort of VP or SVP and considered an "executive". That is to say the PM compensation track divergers, while the Engineer…

Let me be more clear: I'm talking about something like an MTS or Senior Engineer, rather than a Fellow or Distinguished Engineer (and FWIW, at many firms, a Fellow/Distinguished Engineer may very well have compensation comparable to a Director/VP).

Only if you are Bruce Lindsay and you invented Joins would it be comparable. Directors or VPs often get quarterly options

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

#173

Post by brazzy »

mistermann wrote: post #167
brazzy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

> 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 . This makes no sense to me, what makes you think that?

Because in those companies, a BA needs in-depth knowledge of the domain that is as hard and slow for a programmer to acquire as it is for a non-programmer to learn programming.

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

#174

Post by roel_v »

vacri wrote: post #112
roel_v wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To be on the offensive" means "attacking something" or "being aggressive towards something", not that the person who is "on the offensive" offends somebody in the sense that that somebody's feelings are hurt - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/go+on+the+offensive . It's arguable whether or not a PM should be that aggressive, but I'd say his expression made sense.

"A good PM is on the offensive" and "A good PM is offensive" are two different comments, the latter much more ambiguous and easy to misconstrue.

Yes that's right, because the person I was replying to used "to be on the offensive" I didn't go back and check, but yes the OP used "offensive" which is quite different. My bad.

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

#175

Post by dwc »

Hominem wrote: post #121
dwc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a job some years ago I got SMS messages from system monitoring almost continuously, around the clock. Most were spurious "this is an indicator that something might possibly go wrong" status messages, and I worked hard to smarten up the monitoring. Once I was only getting messages when something actually was going wrong , I worked hard to make the system more reliable so that I could get a good night's sleep. The m…

Most of them were due to an outage we had on a "legacy application" due to some sort of screwups with the VMs it was running on. This caused reps to hammer me with questions about our SLAs. Of course I had no answer. Many more emails were from offshore devs from a project I'm not normally involved with who didn't understand our specs. There were also a smattering of issues with reps getting calls that our app was dow…

Sounds like that's mostly outside the PM's sphere of influence, which is a good sign.

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

#176

Post by brazzy »

mistermann wrote: post #168
yashchandra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?" Seen many.If you understand business domains, have experience dealing with lines of business, managers, executives, you can freelance. Not everyone needs to (or should) write code.

But a freelance BA or PM cannot produce software independently, whereas a developer can. A developer has all of the skills of a developer, and many of the skills of a BA/PM, the reverse is not true.

Only if you choose your definitions to support your preconceived result by counting anyone with any programming ability whatsoever as "developer", no matter their primary field of work and expertise.

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

#177

Post by dennisgorelik »

imgabe wrote: post #28

Long story short, PMs are closer to the money. When you're managing a project, you know you have a budget of X dollars to get it done. If you get it done in X-P dollars, you can take that to your boss and immediately show that you made, or saved, the company P dollars. As a programmer or engineer, you may not even be directly aware of what the project's budget is, so it's harder for you to demonstrate how much value…

Accountants are even closer to the money. That does not make accountants to earn more.

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

#178

Post by GFischer »

nsoonhui wrote: post #157
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.

Some of them think that they can change the world inside an organization that gives them the tools and power to do so - one of the best programmers I've met works for Microsoft, he loves Haskell and all that, but worked for the C# team and has moved around inside Microsoft, doing interesting work.

I don't think he'd be a good fit to try to change the world by himself, but he can buy a good vision (or a well-sold bad one maybe :) ).

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