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Are coders worth it?

aeonmagazine.com

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Re: Are coders worth it?

#111

Post by jaegerpicker »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #33

"In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect." This might be true only by a VERY narrow definition of "world", specifically Silicon Valley. Or maybe I live in a very peculiar place, but the developers (Web or otherwise) here are in the low to mid income range, regardless of their skills and experience. And don't even get me started on freedom and respect...

Not sure where you are located but I'm in the middle of nowhere Ohio and my experience is fairly close to the Author's. Salary is scaled down but not a ton. I have had three emails for jobs this week and it's been at bit slow this week. Being involved in the community and active on different sites like linkedin help though.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#113

Post by disputin »

jumblesale wrote: post #6

Very well written article, I always enjoy reading stuff from the intersection of writers and coders. What I found startling was how different my experience has been to that of the author's at the start of the article. I've put up with some horrific jobs paying miserable money in some of the most uninspiring industrial parks you could imagine. I've taken work in dingy Victorian offices so cold that I've had to program…

Likewise. London. "In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect." Cannot relate at all.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#114

Post by fennecfoxen »

tcfunk wrote: post #98

A bit off-topic here but I am not sure where folks find these mystical $100,000+ web development positions. I am paid $40,000 a year with virtually no benefits to be a web developer.

I've had luck at places like careers.stackexchange.com, but that's me coming into the picture with four years of intensive real-world object-oriented programming experience in the likes of Ruby and Perl, and a smattering of exposure to Big Data. Also, you need to live in New York or Silicon Valley or a close equivalent.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#115

Post by leoedin »

elliottcarlson wrote: post #102
leoedin wrote: post #8

I think the real issue is that there's people with lots of money that are willing to fund a lot of different companies in the hope of stumbling across the next facebook. Result? A whole host of well funded but ultimately useless apps and websites. Meanwhile, the people who can make these websites are making lots of money. It's probably a bubble to some extent. Eventually, if the return from all these web apps is less…

Investments almost work on a loss leader model - while there is still decisions made on who to invest in (some VC firms/investors/angels making wiser decisions than others), they are still banking on the small percentage of those investments actually making a return on investment. This return covers the failed investments that they might eventually write off. The general rule is 1/3rd of investments will fail, 1/3rd…

The money will definitely slow down if the return from the industry as a whole (the industry being SaaS and web apps) is less than the investment levels put in. It's worth remembering that while the initial investors in Facebook have seen amazing returns which will subsidise other investments for decades to come, those returns are only because the hype in the industry as a whole has lead other people to buy into facebook. Facebook itself has fairly low revenues and they're struggling to grow them. Equally while anyone who'd invested in instagram would have walked away with a nice sum, the money to fund that acquisition came from the same Facebook investment.

There's a lot of hype about "tech" (in this context really only web apps) which has lead to a lot of money pouring in from people desperate to grab a slice of the pie. The reality is that while web apps and SaaS is a large industry, the size of the investment funds targeting the industry is due to hype and investors saying "me too" rather than a reflection on the available revenues. You have to look at even the success stories in this context.

The money won't run out completely, but if the money from investors late to the party slows down then the value of the successful web apps will fall to levels which reflect their revenues.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#116

Post by jiggy2011 »

drunkpotato wrote: post #59
dhimes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There are some that are worth a lot of money. But to be worth that kind of money you need deep domain knowledge. I won't pay $120/hr for someone to tinker with jQuery. I will pay that for a machine learning specialist. The fact is that 'coders' are today's version of auto mechanics in the 70s. The barrier to entry is low- an old box, a linux distro, google- and off you go. So everybody who can't do something…

Perhaps you've been very lucky or found some especially naive people (right out of grad school, perhaps). Your rates immediately struck me as the kind of rate you would quote if you'd never, in fact, tried to hire somebody skilled. I allow the possibility you have been lucky and successful. In general you'll be paying upwards of $250/hr for a machine learning specialist (sometimes upwards of $500/hr if they have a mo…

You can get people competent with jquery for much less than $120/hour. Much much less if you are willing to look at remote workers overseas.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#117

Post by kyllo »

jacques_chester wrote: post #51
einhverfr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. (Virtue corresponding to filling human needs, value being economic value.) Is entertaining people virtuous at least potentially? if so, then there is nothing wrong with selling video games, movies, music, or whatever. If not, however then you have a problem because while the world make seem nice on paper (no money to Ho…

> I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. This is an unproductive line of argument because either of us can just keep moving the goalposts until we're exhausted. Economic value clearly doesn't follow any "gut" virtue. Here's how an early moral theorist put it in a notoriously influential book: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the ba…

You line up the list of virtuous things (curing AIDS, feeding poor people) and the list of valuable things (Ruby on Rails programmers, inanimate chunks of metal) and discover that they just don't line up. At all.

Ruby on Rails developers are scarce and valuable just because there still aren't a whole lot of them, and because they can crank out CRUD apps (which are just data collection apparatuses) more quickly and efficiently than anyone has been able to before. Once someone invents an even faster/more automated way to design and deploy a data-collection tool than RoR (which might be just a future version of RoR), then that will be the next big thing for a while.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#118

Post by inthewind »

Retric wrote: post #58
jacques_chester wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. This is an unproductive line of argument because either of us can just keep moving the goalposts until we're exhausted. Economic value clearly doesn't follow any "gut" virtue. Here's how an early moral theorist put it in a notoriously influential book: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the ba…

You say this because we practically live in a post scarcity society. 500+ years ago people valued hard labor that brought food because food prevented starvation a vary real and horrible thing. Now, food is an evil that brings heart disease and obesity. Our desires for food and our well being are out of alignment. Value is now a function of are desires with little connection to our needs. Stealing from people was neve…

I follow the thrust of what you say, and it's nice to hear that the OP is doing so well. Some of us though are still living hand to mouth.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#119

Post by fieryeagle »

voodoomagicman wrote: post #97
fieryeagle wrote: post #88

I stopped reading about 1/2 way into the article. Brace yourself, the rant is coming... Too many red flags springing from a delusional, narrow-minded view which looked no further than the bloated world of Valley startups. Hope mr. Author could cast his eye to some other corners of the world (no, even other parts of the States) and witness the bleak reality of a career called web development. Startups are just a small…

Do you realize there is actual back breaking work - and coding isn't it? And that making $100k after 5 years is still about twice the median income for a family, and goes a lot farther in places with a low cost of living than it does in New York or the bay area. And that if you want a higher paying job, it is on you to find it and get hired?

Of course I meant in the industry itself. Project-based programmers working until midnight for $40k annum with no extras, that's back-breaking alright. Working 9-6pm, comparatively for $80k isn't.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#120

Post by hablahaha »

jimmaswell wrote: post #105
rdouble wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's particular to the New York startup scene. There is a lot of money sloshing around and startups have a different hiring strategy than in Silicon Valley. It's quick to hire, quick to fire. I've had six figure offers without even going through a real interview. This leads to a lot of churn. One place I worked at ran through three almost entirely different engineering teams in 18 months. It will be interesting to re…

I didn't know New York had a startup scene. Is it exclusive to the city?

Bbbbbrooklyn!
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