Are coders worth it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are coders worth it?

#321

Post by finnh » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

oscilloscope wrote: post #296

finnh wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could upvote this twice, I would. Software engineering is a great profession, but it's certainly not overpaid (well, the bad ones are overpaid, but the good ones are often underpaid). There are many relatively straightforward routes to more $$; most people just don't know about them.

Where can I find more about these straightforward routes?

finance finance finance

commercial real estate also does pretty well, but you need a fair bit of capital to start.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#322

Post by gambomb » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 5:46 PM UTC

digitalsushi wrote: post #191

gambomb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be overestimating the capacity of the education system to change. I'm now a year removed from High School, but in my class of 350 there were maybe 10 who could program proficiently. Only two (myself and a friend) knew what linux was. I would say it wasn't treated as "cool", but certainly regarded with a wierd respect.

I don't accept that anyone can know how familiar everyone else is of a thing. It's possible that you're perfectly correct, but how you arrived at this was assumption. What if, out of the 348/350 other students you claim were unaware of linux, there were more than 0 of them that were happy to play with linux on their own without broadcasting it to you? My point in this is that hobbies may seem unique, and it's great t…

Yes there are some assumptions that play into my assertion. Were there others who may have toyed with linux on their own time, quietly? Quite possibly. However, I doubt it. When Lockheed Martin visited my school to mentor/start a cyber security (hacking) competition team, we were only able to get ~18 people (from multiple grades) to show up. I also know for a fact that there were only ever about 60 kids (across multiple grades) enrolled in the school's CS offerings during the year. I knew all of these kids.

I think you'll find that 300 is a much smaller number of people than it sounds. While I respect your challenge of my assertion, I feel it's mostly valid. The effect intended is that only a very small fraction of kids in my class were technically inclined.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#323

Post by jaegerpicker » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 6:15 PM UTC

xhrpost wrote: post #125

jaegerpicker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. I'm a decently skilled web-developer in Ohio (but not middle of nowhere) and I'd say decent jobs are pretty scarce. I've recently gotten more into the local tech scene and started on LinkedIn but it hasn't revealed any SV like opportunities. I keep wondering if moving to a large city is the answer but I feel bad for the area having suffered through a massive brain drain over the past few decades.

I will say that the closer I get to Cleveland the better the jobs are. Also I target startups pretty hard when looking for jobs. It's just my preferred environment.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#324

Post by nilkn » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 1:27 AM UTC

oscilloscope wrote: post #296

finnh wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could upvote this twice, I would. Software engineering is a great profession, but it's certainly not overpaid (well, the bad ones are overpaid, but the good ones are often underpaid). There are many relatively straightforward routes to more $$; most people just don't know about them.

Where can I find more about these straightforward routes?

They're straightforward, but not easy.

Like I wrote in the post above, one path is to get a Harvard MBA, then work at McKinsey as a management consultant, and eventually use the massive and extremely powerful alumni network of McKinsey to move to a company in a senior executive role. It's also fairly common for consultants to just get offers directly from clients they've helped.

You have to be an absolute workaholic to do it, but it's reliable if followed closely. You can substitute Wharton or a select few other places for Harvard, but overall the name of the business school you went to is by far the most important factor of your entire life-long education when it comes to this path. It doesn't matter even remotely whether you learned anything; you just need the brand name on the resume and you need to practice case interviews. It's one of the most superficial selection processes in the world. It's so extraordinarily superficial that most people wouldn't believe it's true.