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How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

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Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#351

Post by jazzyk »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #197
ahomescu1 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at the way so many programmers choose to dress and groom. Doctors/lawyers interact with clients/patients a lot, so they dress to impress; whereas programmers only interact with other programmers or managers, who don't really care. If you're a programmer, the code you write matters much more than the human interaction around it (arguably the same can be said about doctors and lawyers, but a lot of people wouldn…

> programmers only interact with other programmers or managers This is the problem half the time. Nerds in childish t-shirts want to sit around pecking out code in isolation instead of taking full responsibility for their work by putting on a jacket and working the organization. This is why IT projects are consistently such disasters and why executives have the idea to get cheap grunts to do this stuff under a layer…

Amen. It is the Jobs-Wozniak syndrome re-played again and again. We focus on technical issues and (mostly) ignore the business value we produce (aesthetics included). Guess what, the money is being made not because of code quality only, but from the business value it produces. So whoever presents him/herself neatly and can accentuate the awesomeness of the product (taking credit for your work), becomes the rainmaker and assumes power.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#352

Post by jknightco »

mattdeboard wrote: post #343
textminer wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Forty minute drive from Oakland to Menlo Park.

For about six months I commuted from south San Jose to Mountain View. It was a fucking nightmare. I will never in my life live in a situation that requires such a commute. Of course, now I live in the midwest and am hating the weather. My commute? Not so bad. But I miss the weather.

I came to the conclusion last time I was visiting SV that Northern California actually has terrible weather, everyone there just calls it 'traffic.' ;)

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#353

Post by danabramov »

msoad wrote: post #26

Engineers should make more money than what they are making now. The largest number I heard lately is $240k for a data scientist from Apple. That's too low! That person can make Siri better and make millions for Apple. Why aren't we getting paid like lawyers? If they win $20M they will get paid at least $2M. But if we make a product that generates $20M profit, at best we get $20K bonus. This has to change!

I first read your comment as being sarcastic, but then realized you're being serious. It's ridiculous how vastly different software engineer salary expectations are in Valey vs countries like Russia.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#354

Post by acdha »

sounds wrote: post #94
acdha wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Society's behavior just serves to convince us that the hacker ethos was right after all. … We are decentralized. No thank you to all forms of government. Well, I'm certainly convinced that pure optimism will trump powerful interests with huge financial reserves and far more influence with lawmakers and the media. How could this not succeed?

What exactly are you proposing? An alternative credo for hackers to ascribe to? Please specifically mention whether you are pro- or anti-union and whether you live and work in the US or not. Edit: I see you're using Windows, so would you mind also listing your tech experience?

> What exactly are you proposing? An alternative credo for hackers to ascribe to?

I'm proposing a basic understanding of how markets work, specifically in this case how they can be distorted by a power disparity. Huge companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. have an incentive and the means to do so, which means there needs to be some form of collective pressure to prevent that. This could be government regulation (i.e. what happened here), unions or something else but no ideological cult is going to make the problem magically disappear.

> Edit: I see you're using Windows, so would you mind also listing your tech experience?

I wasn't aware that pointing out the logical flaws in someone's argument required passing a shibboleth. I would also note that your observation could both be trivially answered if you put any effort into it so perhaps you should not be in the business of challenging the expertise of others.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#355

Post by cs702 »

pg wrote: post #223
cs702 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt we will ever be able to "measure" the effect. We can only guess and debate it with hypothetical scenarios -- "what if all these CEOs had had to compete for talented employees, instead of fixing the market for them?" Regardless of the effect, it is a shame to see that these leading CEOs, who for years have vociferously complained about media & telecom oligopolies for preventing competition, were for years simu…

This comment thread is like a micro version of the origins of the hard sciences.

:-) Yes, but unintentionally!

What I meant to convey with that first sentence is that any effort at measuring the effect is bound to be highly politicized and subjected to endless debate, so it's best to focus first on the documented actions of these CEOs, which are objective facts.

The most relevant questions right now, I think, are not about the magnitude of the effect, but about the actions themselves: who, what, when, why, and to whom?

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#356

Post by DamnYuppie »

eru wrote: post #174
DamnYuppie wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that I think your comment is missing is that if the vast majority of employers are colluding to drive down prices your feet will invariably lead you to a less profitable place overall. Also this response seems to indicate that an individual's actions will hold any meaning against the concerted and united effort of employers. Unless a multitude of others act in concert we, the developers, will be at a disadv…

The world is bigger than a few companies in Silicon Valley. Go work for a bank, in the worst case.

You believe that this ends at Silicon Valley. This most likely is common practice across a multitude of companies and industries.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#357

Post by alphadogg »

boobsbr wrote: post #337
patio11 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Facebook started aggressively poaching Google employees and Google responded publicly by giving every engineer a substantial raise and privately in ways substantially more expensive than that? And Facebook pretty much just laughed and matched offers? And every engineer in the Valley figured out simultaneously that $100k was a floor not a ceiling? That strikes me as persuasive anecdotal evidence of what…

I'm in Brazil and can only dream of BRL 100k/y, which is about USD 41k/y.

What are your living expenses, though. It's not top-line salary that matters, if you have to piss it away on renting a one-bedroom apt...

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#359

Post by AutoCorrect »

nerfhammer wrote: post #309
judk wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how employee A's salary is a factor in whether Employee B gets negotiated with.

From the article: > Google, like the others, used a “salary algorithm” to ensure salaries remained within a tight band across like jobs. Although tech companies like to claim that talent and hard work are rewarded, in private, Google’s “People Ops” department kept overall compensation essentially equitable by making sure that lower-paid employees who performed well got higher salary increases than higher-paid employe…

I'm in Atlanta, and our company does this too. So it's not just SV that is keeping salaries low.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#360

Post by kv85s »

I blame the spineless executives, who peed themselves and folded at the words "this means war". WTF did that hippy salesman Jobs know about war? Oh, you'll go and hurt someone's feelings at a meeting? Give me a F-ing break. That shitbag Jobs wasn't fit to scrape the muck off a real veteran's boot.
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