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Programming Is a Dead End Job

thecodist.com

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Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#171

Post by xentronium »

ams6110 wrote: post #76
mturmon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The market mostly sets the wages

Unless, you know, several high-ranked managers collude together. Like it happened with Google and Apple.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#172

Post by scotty79 »

quickpost wrote: post #101
scotty79 wrote: post #32

You don't get to be 4bln $ companys CEO doing management job 9 to 5 any more that you are going to be Marcus Persson or John Carmack doing programming job 9-5. Sky is the limit only for people who have right combination of skill and luck.

> Sky is the limit only for people who have right combination of skill and luck. Don't forget hard work and persistence! :)

I sort of treat ability and propensity to work hard and persistence to be skills. Ones I almost completely lack.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#173

Post by rwallace »

School-Cotton wrote: post #133
michaelochurch wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Startups tend not to have that kind of money. Big companies do, but how can they be sure who's the best?

One answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acqui-hiring

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#174

Post by nikhizzle »

michaelochurch wrote: post #126
nikhizzle wrote: post #85

This is plain wrong. Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have parallel tracks for programmers and managers. You can progress all the way up to Senior VP equivalent as an engineer with no management duties. These roles include compensation equivalent to traditional CEO level roles. Eg. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/02/28/meet-jeff-rot...

This is plain wrong. Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have parallel tracks for programmers and managers. You can progress all the way up to Senior VP equivalent as an engineer with no management duties. These roles include compensation equivalent to traditional CEO level roles. It is a lot harder to make "Director-equivalent programmer" in those companies than to make Director. In terms of skill, hard work, and intell…

I don't have enough information to judge that, since I never made it to director level at my time at FB.

One salient note is that at FB you can switch between parallel tracks whenever you like. Eg. Any director level engineer can switch to being a director level manager and vice versa.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#175

Post by ryanpardieck »

Calling programming a dead end job is kind of outrageous. I normally associate the phrase "dead end job" with stuff like pizza delivery, or some of those severely monotonous office jobs like data entry or working in a call center. Most people would perceive programming to be an excellent job. A good wage, enjoyable/challenging work, and loving what you do: there are many who would love to be stuck in that kind of dead end.

edit - Somehow, I goofed and lost the rest of my post. Anyhow, I noticed that in a separate blog post, the author said something like "Programming isn't just a job for me, but a way of life." I questioned whether that is something you can say of a job that is truly dead-end.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#176

Post by BugBrother »

smsm42 wrote: post #166
BugBrother wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most everyone has forgotten the 2000 dot com crash, when all the computer jobs disappeared. This "learn to code" is just how it was then. I would bet money that in less than five years, a lot of software people will be unemployed -- again. (If I win, good. If not, good. :-) )

I'm curious - how much money would you be willing to bet on that? At which odds? I've been through the dotcom crash and minor disturbances after, and the jobs never "disappeared". Yes, there were layoffs, pay cuts and hiring freezes. But not all jobs disappeared, and most of the people who lost their jobs found new ones after a while. I'm not diminishing the pain and suffering of those who got caught in bad situation…

>>But not all jobs disappeared

I wrote "all jobs" in one place and in another "a lot of software people [...] again".

Since you were also there, what I meant should be obvious...?

In my Swedish job market, there was also something similar around a decade earlier. But it was not only for software people.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#177

Post by andyidsinga »

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…

It seems you're both right - but that good managers and good engineers are both rather difficult to replace.

The problem being that replacement "good" managers and engineers aren't just sitting around waiting for you to hire them - they're already in good jobs - see also: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

Additionally, for managers, you can't promote from your summer interns.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#179

Post by markpettersson »

The problem with programming vs management is that at the end of the day, a programmer is at the mercy of management which may or may not be competent. You may love programming but if you are not allowed to address technical debt, have unrealistic deadlines and silly priorities you won't have fun at your job.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#180

Post by michaelochurch »

rwallace wrote: post #173
School-Cotton wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Startups tend not to have that kind of money. Big companies do, but how can they be sure who's the best? One answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acqui-hiring

Acqui-hiring: buying mediocre talent at a panic price because your middle management filter is so broken that you can't spot talent at the bottom. (Granted, after a long enough spell of dysfunction, you won't have much talent at the bottom either.)
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