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Programming Is a Dead End Job

thecodist.com

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Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#71

Post by nnain »

I don't find this a good point of view. The article goes, "if you love to program and make a decent wage and enjoy your work..." -- How many people really get that sort of satisfaction! Enjoy it if you've got it all. You can't expect the world to gift you millions if you aren't doing anything different.

Moreover, if someone really is an amazing coder, then there's a good chance that he/she started the career at a good salary level, while people in other profession were still grinding at work. Why complain now if you didn't stop to brood over the situation then. That's Karma :)

If you want to stay in your comfort zone that's perfectly acceptable. But don't whine! Comparing a programmer and a CEO, asking why one should earn higher for seemingly equal amount of work is not right. Being the CEO means taking risk, putting together business plans, qualifying ideas, cutting deals, leading teams, handling legal and financial work, hiring people for all functions. The blogpost itself is peppered with examples of people who took the risk and made it big. How many software engineers really want to handle all these complexities?

There simply aren't enough top spots for everyone. Some love to lead, some love to code... some love to do both. You make your choices. Of course some people do get lucky and some people even win by clandestine ways. But the focused, hard-working one has his place. Everyone doesn't want a mansion and Ferrari. I don't. Why make that a parameter for success!

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#73

Post by siscia »

Can we please come back with our foot on Earth ?

Waitress is a Dead End Job, WallMart employs are a in a Dead end job, hairdresser is a dead end job.

Whoever makes > 60k $/yr is not a dead end job.

Please let's try to realize how lucky we (as programmers) are to live(/and work) today.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#74

Post by jasonwocky »

nawitus wrote: post #50
untog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. It might be an unpopular opinion (and I'm a programmer myself) but 80% of programmers are relatively easily replaceable, particularly in large organisations. There are indispensable unique unicorns out there, but they tend to be well compensated. When a project is managed by one manager and coded by five developers, you could easily lose replace two of those developers with little impact. If you lost the…

>If you lost the manager (who is calculating deadlines, coordinating with other departments, pitching for funding, as well as managing the individual developers) the project could run into problems quickly. Really? In my experience managers can be replaced rather easily, or at least more easily than it is to a replace a single engineer. It always takes some time for the new software engineer to learn the specifics of…

> Really? In my experience managers can be replaced rather easily, or at least more easily than it is to a replace a single engineer.

Possibly true. But think about how most engineering managers attained that role...it was because companies thought they were good engineers, despite little if any evidence that they'd ever make good managers. Throw in a dash of, "we don't really have a training budget" for this new profession (which it is...management is an entirely different profession from engineering), and you have a recipe for disappointing, easily replaceable parts.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#75

Post by fragmede »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I respond really negatively to the notion of 'dead end.' Programming isn't a dead end job any more than welding is a dead end job or painting. But it is a trade . What is more, managing is a different job than programming. Not a lot of programmers really internalize that until they try out being a manager. Architecture, and technical leadership in general, is still another job. It takes the ability to internalize mas…

> So yes, there is an economic limit on your pay.

As a mere programmer, sure, but senior developers get well into the six-figure range, and with some luck, those stock options are worth quite a bit.

Sure, not everyone gets to work at Google at an early stage, but their IPO minted a good number of 'mere' programmer millionaires.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#76

Post by ams6110 »

mturmon wrote: post #26
declan wrote: post #9

It's a well-written essay (I say this as someone who has been a journalist/editor/manager and is now doing quite a bit of programming again for Recent.io). But really you could say the same thing about many other jobs: * Do you love to report the news? In most jobs as long as you continue to be a reporter you will likely have a limited set of promotions you can get... * Do you love woodworking? In most jobs as long a…

A cynical take on your observations sometimes occurs to me, and seems pertinent. The managers set the wages. Therefore, they will be well-paid, and their contributions will readily recognized. This is simplistic and does not explain everything, but I think it is a major ingredient.

The market mostly sets the wages. Pay too low, and you'll be unable to hire anyone. There's also an upper bounds on what one person is worth. It can be a lot, and the difference in productivity between average and superstar programmers is well noted. But even a highly productive programmer has a limited value as an individual member of a team.

Executives get promoted because they've proven to be able to get groups of people to work together to achieve something. Most programmers don't want to or can't do that. Our trade is mostly one of individual contributions, often as part of a team but generally we're not responsible for more than our own tasks, and we're generally not blamed when one of our peers can't keep up.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#77

Post by learnf007 »

Narrow and very misleading way of looking at engineering and careers for sure because it assumes a false binary choice.

A choice between doing what you love and making a big payout by doing something else. This assumption is wrong.

On one level, there is truth to what is stated--- but it correlates more to big company paths, people who have a conservative view on their ability to leave an impact on the world, and people who are narrowly focused on programming for programming's sake.

It's not about "switching" to management (this thinking is big company), it's about taking your technical skills and making things happen. If that means you have to be a startup founder or a leader (CTO, CEO, VP engineering, whatever) who ends up not coding much anymore to make that happen, so be it. The point is if you love programming, do it, get amazing at it, solve real problems... and you'll have limitless potential in the future.

Being a programmer/engineer gives you the ability to find and build real solutions to problems in the world. If you're good, being able to build things = creating a startup or partnering with others to take on big things.

Regardless of statistics on the rate of success of startup endeavors, this potential and this opportunity make being a programmer completely worthwhile and rich with potential. You do not need to be a manager to have financial success. What you need is equity, equity that appreciates massively in a successful company. Financial outcome is a nice side effect of starting or joining a startup but not the only metric of success.

IMO, the more "correct" way of looking at a career as an engineer is what other smart people have blogged about. After graduating, join the best mid-level (in terms of size) startup you can (or hell, start your own). The relationships and the higher opportunity for rapid growth will serve you well down the road--- whether that means you're an executive or still an engineer who codes. And it's this perspective that creates a healthier mindset where you aren't thinking "Oh when should I jump ship into management" but rather "if I build X, it could solve Y in Z industry... I can partner with A and together we can make it happen or I'll start a side project and build a solution and see if I get traction": http://hunterwalk.com/2014/03/08/new-grads-midstage-startups...

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#78

Post by sklivvz1971 »

I read the blog post and my reaction is: they are saying that being a programmer is not a good way to become a manager, or to be successful in terms of what makes a manager successful.

As a developer who has also been a director and a team lead:

- Good programmers get pretty good wages in the current market. I wouldn't call earning 6 figures a "dead end job".

- The number of people you manage is important to a manager, not a programmer

- Becoming a CEO is important to someone that wants to manage a company, not to someone that wants to write code

There are many rewards in writing code, if that's the job you like. You can write code that makes a difference in a company which does something you agree on. You can create a new company or product from scratch. You can spend your career learning new stuff. All of this is exciting to me!

If your definition of success is a truckload of money, retiring at 30 and being the boss of 100 people... you shouldn't be a coder, but that's a very narrow (and let me add, totally shallow) definition.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#79

Post by gambiting »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #31
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, you can go waaaaay past zero :-)

no, zero is the bottom limit. Unless you do something stupid like personal guarantees on loans or do not incorporate. Thats the point of LLCs. Limit the liability of shareholders. Edit: I guess I should add, of course legal matters depend on location. AFAIK much of the developed world has legal structures that allow risk to be limited to the "company" and not risk the shareholders' personal assets (ie Your personal a…

>> Unless you do something stupid like personal guarantees on loans

As a director of a limited company in the UK - it's virtually impossible to get a loan without a personal guarantee by the director, unless your company has as much money as you are trying to borrow - in which case getting a loan is slightly pointless.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#80

Post by pyrrhotech »

netcan wrote: post #46

This is silly. First, very few people become millionaire CEOs. If thats your standard for success, then every path likely leads to failure because no path reliably leads to that kind of success. Some paths are more likely than others, but none are very likely for the average person. Part of the reason for flat-ish career trajectory is that programmers earn more at the start than most. Some professions have more of a…

You can become a millionaire CEO if you are intelligent with at least a 10-20% success rate. Get 5 years work experience, ace the GMAT, go to a top 5 MBA, do consulting at 250-500k/year for 10 years for a company like Bain or McKinsey, then get hired as CFO of one of the companies you work for, 5 years later get promoted to CEO.

Even if you don't make CEO, you can get to several multiples of an engineer's salary with a 100% success rate with this plan. Let's face it, a software engineer is far from a top tier occupation, and for good reason. You can hire very high quality people with 10 years of experience in eastern Europe for $30/hour.

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