Well he's right for his life. You are what you believe.
A programmer, can easily invent something that makes you a trillionaire.
Ah the power of imagination and belief :)
Programming Is a Dead End Job
131–140 of 186 posts
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#132By the same logic, anything from being a plumber to a brain surgeon is a dead end job.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Watch out, you might lose all your karma for interrupting the Bay Area self flagellation. Honestly, it is expensive, but not enough to offset the insane salaries, at least for devs. If you're going to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for everyone else who lives here.
Honestly, it is expensive, but not enough to offset the insane salaries, at least for devs. If you're going to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for everyone else who lives here. Programmer salaries are not "insane". A half-decent programmer is worth $500,000 to the business and costs about $100,000. A good one is worth over $3 million, and only costs about $150,000. Programmers are actually incredibly fucking cheap…
If that were true, why wouldn't some startup pay the best programmers it could find $2,000,000 a year and put everyone else out of business?
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.
A) That's not what the post above says, and b) it's not accurate. Blue collar refers to jobs that involve physical labor. The term arose when people on the factory floor would wear blue coveralls, and people that worked in the offices off the floor would wear white button down shirts. Why exactly every job needs to have a clear path to CEO or be considered a dead end or blue collar job is a mystery to me.
because unless you can work 40 hours a week and spend another 20 learning new techs as they come out for the entirety of your life, you will become obsolete unless you can move onto other roles. If management is not an option, then chances are very likely that person will be unemployable somewhere between ages 40-50.
and that's only one problem. you may reach (or ever want to) the top, but if there is a low ceiling that is going to put so many pressures on your career.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agreed. In the Bay Area, there are many companies where the most junior engineering tier earns more than $100k a year, only including cash compensation. To expect to grow by 20% per year on average for a decade given this starting condition is just not realistic. Honestly, to be in the top 95% of incomes at the entry level and then to complain that you're in a dead-end job . . . it just smacks of a lack of aw…
>> "In the Bay Area, there are many companies where the most junior engineering tier earns more than $100k a year" It's important not to forget cost of living in that area is abnormally high.
It depends on where you live in the Bay Area. If you avoid San Francisco and the peninsula then housing I'd about the same as the rest of California.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#136This is exactly why even though I graduated with an engineering degree, I went straight into business.
I didn't want to have to make that jump to management. Rather, I started with an analytical role and moved up (well I actually left soon after).
While there aren't many exec-level programming jobs out there, there are plenty that still require analytical skills. While none of the execs where I worked crunched numbers themselves, they reviewed other work and poked holes in business analyses. I think analytics career paths are perfect for the people who like engineering but want the upward mobility into management.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.
By the article's definition, neurosurgery is a blue collar trade as well.
If you consider blue collar work as "manual labor" and white collar work as "knowledge work", then there likely is a middle-category that is a mix of both - "knowledge work that require you to use your hands to deliver results".
Peter Drucker called these folks "knowledge technologists": http://www.economist.com/node/770819 ... And believed probably will be the majority of workers in a developed countries over the next century.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#138I 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…
From an economic standpoint, being able to generate
1000 lines of syntax error free code per day, is
perhaps the best possible programmer you could be,
but its never worth more than 10 programmers
generating 100 lines of syntax error free code a day.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#139I 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…
Yeah, Jeff Dean would probably disagree with this post too.
Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they are useless, but I also do not think that the majority are particularly skilled. In many cases, it seems like teams succeed despite their managers interference. A lot of managers are more like secretaries and I think they should be compensated as such. There are exceptions of course, but the unequal pay has nothing to do with skill as far as I'm concerned.
A lot of managers are more like secretaries and I think they should be compensated as such. Which is where I fundamentally disagree with you. Optimised database indexes (for example) can be valuable to a company. But if the company lacked a developer who could optimise them, they could get by - they'd just have to get more/faster servers. You can't throw money at organisational and communication skills in the same wa…
Frequently, especially in smaller (Every communication layer you add to this mix has an enourmous cost. It is a bit like playing Chinese Whispers.
I think the first level of important management is managing teams of teams or portfolios of projects