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Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

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Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#131

Post by sightbroke »

mirawelner wrote: post #4

This sort of thing is why I decided to do research so I could work at universities and small startups! I figured that way I could be away from the corruption and selfishness that exists in large tech companies. Then my whole department got defunded. More fool me.

I would think there's almost more pressure in academia compared to private sector to sell your work as valuable.

By that I mean, in order to advance in ones career (assuming an intensive research track) one needs to bring in research money (i.e. regularly apply for funding) then publish research that came from that funding.

That funding needs to be managed (so basically a small business with allocating costs to equipment, labor, etc).

Then "sell" that published research at conferences.

Then manage/mentor a variety of students (because that's a key part of your labor supply).

And maybe even teach on top of that.

In private sector you just need to focus on your work making your boss/company money and if you want to manage people, learn how to communicate (listen and speak).

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#132

Post by PeterStuer »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #111
arijo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that was true 50 years ago, but in an increasingly complex technological world, problems simply cannot be solved without increasingly advanced engineering skills.

The overwhelming majority of software engineers are building garden-variety CRUD apps.

Which is like saying most software is reading, modifying and writing memory. Technically true, but not at the level it tells the story.

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#133

Post by Hjack »

The whole trend of cracking FAANG/MAANG interviews has made this notion of not having self-awareness/understanding of where money comes far more entrenched. Folks who crack these interviews feel like they are passing sermons from top of 'tech' hill to other noobs, not knowing in effect that their minuscule value is as long is company is making profit. The day that stops, everyone's job is on the line and especially folks who are away from centers which make money.

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#134

Post by utbabya »

Metrics for things like FCP, better screenreader and refactor are less straightforward so having the capability to correctly evaluate the cost and benefits, making the right judgement calls and communicating it to everyone is vital.

Not mentioned in the article but this implies the importance of hiring. Having the right people to build the culture together, sitting in the room to discuss the priority of these things can turn a filibuster popping clown fiesta into productively working out actual competitive advantages for the company.

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#135

Post by Hjack »

cdavid wrote: post #53

This article makes the naive assumption that "what is making money" is an objective thing. Once a company reaches a certain size, basically once it has a financial planning department w/ different VPs owning their PnL, who is making money increasingly becomes a social construct. "how to get promoted" by spakhm is much more closer to how a large, successful org works IMO: https://spakhm.substack.com/p/how-to-get-promo…

But still there are objective metrics by which you can track which products are making money and which are not. You can do ALL the financial manipulation to an extent, but everyone above bragging VPs/Directors know which product lines are making money yoy

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#136

Post by ozim »

saagarjha wrote: post #40
ozim wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also company actually is much better off when it is not held hostage by couple of technical employees. Also every employee should be able to quit at any time and not affect business. So I disagree describing all like it is some evil scheme - that’s how businesses work.

Is it better when it's held hostage by a couple of non-technical employees?

Non-technical employees are by definition replaceable.

Unless they are sales reps that have good relations with customers.

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#137

Post by woah »

poincaredisk wrote: post #39
sauercrowd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part?

If you don't want to feel like a cog in a heartless money making machine, all of it.

It is not the responsibility of the rest of society to pay you a handsome salary for a programming hobby. If your code isn't generating enough value that someone wants to pay for it, it's about as useful as model trains.

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#138

Post by no_wizard »

keybored wrote: post #129
ebiester wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but at some point, so is management. So is any human capital past your key positions. I feel like managers - even good managers - understand that better than most. That isn't to say there isn't variation in humans - choosing the humans right for your team and organization will help advance a lot, but it really helps us to think of organizations as ant colonies. One person can slow it down, but very few can spe…

Most labor is a commodity in this system “past your key positions” (overpaid execs).

I often struggle to understand what executives do all day. I work (and have worked in many different orgs) with executives quite a bit, see insight into their process, and often come away underwhelmed instead of more confident in leadership.

There are exceptions - I can think of a couple CTOs I know that are worth their weight in gold - but they are just that - exceptions.

I will say, the smaller the organization, the more having the right executives is important though, but it seems that only lasts while headcount is sub ~200 people or so and executives maintain an active role with all pillars of the organization relevant to their function (e.g., it isn't weird for an IC to talk to the CTO from time to time about how their job is going)

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#139

Post by woah »

thundergolfer wrote: post #93
sandbach wrote: post #63

These Silicon Valley folks really ought to read some Marx. If low-level workers are a 'cost centre', why don't companies just get rid of them? Wouldn't they be more profitable if they removed everyone outside the 'profit centre' of senior management? Obviously not.

I'm not sure you understand Marx. The author probably has read Marx during their philosophy training. 'cost centre' does not mean a place that a capitalist is unable to perform exploitation. A cost center in Marxist terms can be understood as a department that participates in the money-commodity-money' (MCM') flow but doesn't directly complete the circuit to M'. For example, delivering and receiving mail does not rea…

Marx was a techno-utopian sci-fi author who insisted his fiction was non-fiction and was proven wrong 100 years ago. Where is the dictatorship of the proliteriat?

Re: Knowing where your engineer salary comes from

#140

Post by thevillagechief »

shalmanese wrote: post #97
throwaway98797 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

make those with power like you and rewards will flow relation to company profitability is optional and often times counterproductive

OK, but the people who keep on harping on this never seem to mention that the boss "liking you" is not about you cracking jokes and bringing in muffins on Thursday. It's about you being low drama and helping them achieve their KPIs in a way that helps them get promoted so they can bring you along with them. It's the guy/gal who you know needs to be informed that the feature they've been painstakingly working on for t…

Thank you. I tend to be clueless on office politics, and this is actually a really helpful reminder.
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