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We will never have enough software developers (2020)

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Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#111

Post by ethbr0 »

computerex wrote: post #102
Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

Well, I think the parent is comparing software engineering to other white collar professions like lawyer. In my opinion comparing SWE to blue collar work like construction is apples to oranges. Ofc the blue collar work is harder and more demanding physically. It’s better to think about whether software engineers are being compensated fairly relative to other professions like lawyers. I think they are given that wages…

> work from bed naked

Can confirm. Just did an onboarding in my underwear. (Although mostly because I forgot time conversion when on business travel was a thing, because COVID)

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#112

Post by bluGill »

rapind wrote: post #86
Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

> Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. Nope this is an outdated opinion. You can do just as well or better in trades (source: my electrician buddy). If you’re referring to the FAANG salaries (sub 1%) you’re comparing to doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs in terms of opportunity cost. Your average joe programmer isn’t killing it like you seem to think, and they’d do just as well in t…

You can do just as well in the trades - if you are a master (whatever the top rank is) working 80 hours a week. Right now the trades are in high enough demand that you can get that overtime, but that will change and then you are back to hoping you can even get 40 hours. In the meantime working for a boring company is a 40 hour a week job with great pay. FAANG is much higher pay, but they are also more hours per week in general (or so I'm told).

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#113

Post by speed_spread »

trashtester wrote: post #2

Just wait for gpt 42, it will be better than most of us at coding.

Just wait till you have to debug GPT42-generated code produced by offshore subcontractors fulfilling GPT43-generated business requirements beamed straight down from Orbital 4B.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#114

Post by BlargMcLarg »

trashtester wrote: post #94
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the ethnicity or sex matter when these HR managers would still see the same differences regardless of ethnicity or sex? Either way, I'd think twice about putting HR managers as victims here when they are the main perpetrators of low raise budgets and high hiring budgets.

When people see that some other group of people, with identity traits different from themselves, are doing better than themselves on some metric, it often induces resentment. That's just a fact. Whether its justified or not, varies with circumstances and what ethical system people have. When black people in the 50's felt that way about white people and their privileges, most people today would see those concerns as j…

I have a hard time believing the reaction would be any different if a bunch of older white collars would stare at young Hispanic software devs making more instead of Asian devs. Only difference being they couldn't hide their jealousy behind politics.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#115

Post by Clubber »

bruce343434 wrote: post #46
quickthrower2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes up in value. Also interests rates decreasing means more immediate money in lower living costs.

You can't pay for groceries with those unrealized gains. You'd have to sell your house. Wait, where will you live?

You can take out a loan on the house with the house as collateral. That's a tactic wealthy people use with their stocks. Also having a home equity loan is a good padding for rainy days.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#116

Post by drnonsense42 »

alexfromapex wrote: post #109
Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

So many things I have to disagree with. Not all software engineering is easy, particularly the highly paid variety. The six figure salary is diluted by spending weekends constantly having to learn new technology off the clock. Companies then expect senior engineers to mentor other engineers and give presentations of their technical challenges, debasing the value of the knowledge gained working off the clock. Manual l…

A lot to disagree with here, but off the bat, many of the highest paid software engineers are the ones working the very least or not at all.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#117

Post by trashtester »

TexanFeller wrote: post #82
trashtester wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWE's are not the only ones that think that their pay is low compared to their intelligence level, their education level, how tough, inconvenient or important their work is or what they feel they deserve for some other reason. For instance, I'm sure there are plenty of HR managers in various companies that are secretly furious about all the young young mostly males, mostly white or asian, still in their 20s, join the…

HR managers are rarely ever intelligent. The work they do doesn’t require it and intelligent people don’t want to do a job where they’ll be surrounded by lower intelligence people.

Maybe some HR managers believe that empathy and "EQ" are more important than IQ?

Maybe they even think that intelligence is a social construct invented by the Patriarchy for the purpose of oppressing people who are not "cis white males"?

Who knows, maybe for some, these ideas may even have been part of their education....

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#118

Post by spicymaki »

Gigachad wrote: post #59
cs137 wrote: post #10

There isn't a shortage of software developers. The pay isn't great--the kids getting $300K packages out of Stanford are an exception; it's a marketing expense. In fact, if you control for the level of intelligence it takes to be any good, SWEs make less (and get far less autonomy--do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets?) than any other professional, and they hit a salary/challenge plateau quick... after which, the…

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

I can't get on the "It is a hard-knock life for Software developers" train. We are very-very well compensated, and we are insufferable.

I do understand the issue. Humans are prone to complain about any slight whether real or imagined. Millionaires will complain about not having enough money, A-list celebrities will complain about not having enough visibility, sports stars will complain about every foul play.

Money just does not lead to life satisfaction, only craving. I just have to accept that this is the human condition.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#119

Post by cableshaft »

capableweb wrote: post #79
Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

Yeah indeed. Coming from someone who had to work with physical labor before I started programming, software developers don't know how good they have it. "The pay isn't great", "treated far too shabbily", "dealing with bugs and bad decisions", "inadequate processes" and so on, sucks when development is the only thing you've dealt with, but you have no idea how it is to actually have a blue collar job if you're actuall…

My first job was fast food too. Except for the pay, the grease, the unpredictable and strict hours, and the cleaning of bathrooms, I'd love to take a job like that up again.

There's stress, but it ends at the end of the breakfast/lunch/dinner rush, not a constant low-grade stress over the whole day and often lingering into the night from unfinished JIRA tickets.

Then there's mostly chatting and hanging out with interesting people, either kids with dreams or adults with off-the-beaten-path lives (not an endless stream of white collar adults who only have stories about how they went to a bbq or just had another kid) while cleaning or prepping food, helping a customer here and there. Some customers were assholes but they'd be gone a few minutes later and you'd go back to other things. And because it's a public facility sometimes my friends would stop by just to say hi and shoot the shit for a few minutes.

And I was much healthier then too, despite working fast food. Mainly because I spent my day moving instead of being stuck in a chair.

I also worked a retail, a warehouse, and a factory job. The retail job was even better because you didn't have to deal with the grease or cleaning bathrooms, and the customers were somewhat nicer. If it paid remotely near what I make now I'd probably switch to that tomorrow.

Factory job was probably the toughest. More isolating, no A/C in the summer, more constant stress, more physically demanding, mandatory 10 hour days for weeks sometimes, and there was an incident where a drunk forklift driver almost knocked a tower of heavy steel racks on top of me. I quit the next week.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#120

Post by fileeditview »

Gigachad wrote: post #97
BigJ1211 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a perspective that's exclusively silicon valley (perhaps large parts of the US) based. Not at all true in Europe at the least. Not that it's a bad job by any stretch of the imagination, but even low six figures is really rare in the EU for Software Development. Easiest is also highly subjective, if your job is making wordpress templates/sites then sure. If you're working on complexer systems then thi…

I’m from a small Australian city. I earn in the top 5% of the country with 8 years experience and no degree. And I see all my friends who picked software in the same situation. It’s probably the most privileged position possible.

Maybe it's true in Australia.. however here in Germany e.g. your chance of being a top earner if you have no degree is near nil. Usually you are expected to have university degrees for tech jobs. There are also some without but it's the minority and their promotion prospects are a lot worse.
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