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How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

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Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#131

Post by billmalarky »

morgante wrote: post #119

A lot of people in this thread are pointing to the possibility of a technical track, but I just don't buy it. Any technical track stops far short of the management track, even in the most enlightened of companies. Taken to an extreme, you don't get to be CEO off the technical track. Ultimately, if you want more money and influence, you have to choose the management track. The technical track just exists to keep techn…

This is just a matter of scale. Sure you might be a "10x" developer, and such a developer does provide a tremendous amount of value to an organization. But if you are such an effective manager as to raise the value of a team of engineers significantly, then you are going to generally provide more value to the company than a single rockstar engineer. Of course there are outliers (IE Carmack) but generally skilled technical management scales better than skilled individual technical talent.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#132

Post by curun1r »

dmfdmf wrote: post #52
icyfenix wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the sentiment I was going for - people who want to stay engineers should be compensated for their badassery, and respected for it, which is usually all they want. That right there is exactly the "power to say No" I was talking about. And how do you know if an engineer wants to stay an engineer or not? By asking them.

I don't want to disparage the whole management class but I think part of it is that manager types don't really get the motivation to solve problems. They think that if someone doesn't have a manager telling them what to do then they won't do anything, but that is just psychological projection. Fred was one of the happiest (and busiest) guys at this company and many strived to achieve his status. Regarding respect; Af…

> They think that if someone doesn't have a manager telling them what to do then they won't do anything

As someone who has moved from being an IC to being a manager, I can assure you that's not true. What we do think is that an engineer won't necessarily work on the right things. Engineers have a tendency to work on something until they've solved it, which isn't the same things as finishing it. This is why personal projects usually end up being unfinished and unpolished. Engineers also sometimes let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The oft-cited Malcolm in the Middle episode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpJFROEOmg) illustrates this well.

As a manager, I don't see it as my job to keep my team busy or even productive...they do that on their own. I see it as my job to keep them focused, particularly on the tasks that will provide the most benefit for the business.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#133

Post by smsm42 »

zobzu wrote: post #14

One thing that always fails with that is that management always get more money. Wanna be a tech leader paid 150k? (fancy title, +- same salary as before) Or wanna be a director paid 250k? (fancier title, way bigger salary) Kinda difficult not to choose the "free tesla every year" isn't it? Plus.. the directory job is generally going to mean a more relaxed job (albeit less interesting for an engineer maybe, but that's…

I have no problem with getting less money for doing something I'm good at and not doing something I know I'd hate and probably suck at. After all, I gave up a career of a hedge fund manager and a billionaire already to be an engineer - probably for the same reasons, because I suspect I'd actually suck at hedge fund managing and won't become a billionaire. In the same vein, if I tried to become a director knowing I'd suck at it, I may briefly enjoy the benefits of higher salary, after which my incompetence and my dissatisfaction with the job would become apparent and I'd be asked to leave. So long term it is probably a bad plan, unless people I'm going to direct over and report to are exceptionally obtuse and won't notice me reaching my Peter ceiling. That happens, but why would I want my life to depend on it?

And remember, we're not talking about vow of poverty here exactly. 150K gets you in top 10% easily, and if you have a household with two 150K salaries you're pretty close to the much envied 1%. Maybe there's a point where more money wouldn't actually make it better if it comes with more frustration?

As for why directors get more money - again, I have no problem with people doing what I can't and won't do getting more money than I do. My life is not a competition with them, it's a competition with my last year self. If I win that, I'm good. Which means, if the company wants to keep a good engineer who thinks like me, they should be able to provide some track for me to be better next year - position-wise, money-wise, respect-wise, responsibility-wise, however it goes - than last year, without forcing people into doing something they may suck at.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#134

Post by hueving »

ObviousScience wrote: post #69
jshen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most obvious flaw, a programmer is only worth 5.7 times their 1999 salary if their work is generating 5.7 times as much revenue as it would have in 1999. I see no evidence that this is the case. If it were the case, and the vast majority of programmers are earning 1/6 of what their work is worth, then there is a huge opportunity that you can exploit to get rich. Go for it, and let us know how it works out.

Didn't a lot of major corporations get in trouble recently because they colluded to stop engineers from correcting this imbalance? Your argument seems to ignore that market forces agreed that engineers were underpaid, and it was only by illegal collusion that their wages were kept to what they were.

The imbalance was mostly on the management side. Even then, it wasn't almost an order of magnitude like that silly blog post suggested.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#135

Post by mtrpcic »

peteretep wrote: post #34
zobzu wrote: post #14

One thing that always fails with that is that management always get more money. Wanna be a tech leader paid 150k? (fancy title, +- same salary as before) Or wanna be a director paid 250k? (fancier title, way bigger salary) Kinda difficult not to choose the "free tesla every year" isn't it? Plus.. the directory job is generally going to mean a more relaxed job (albeit less interesting for an engineer maybe, but that's…

> Plus.. the director job is generally going to mean a > more relaxed job If you believe responsibility over people, budgets, liabilities and policy is less stressful than responsibility over systems, you're high. As a programmer, let me tell you: people who have only ever done programming for a career have no clue how relatively easy they have it.

This is definitely true. I recently made the transition from full time Engineer to Engineering Manager, and there's a lot more stress involved. It stems from a few different things:

* In most cases, the Manager acts as the communication layer between different departments. They abstract all that stuff away so developers can write code without being interrupted by various people. They then have to communicate that information back down to their team when needed (and in the right way)

* As a developer, you have a deadline, but missing it is often just a "Well, we didn't have the time" or "We tried, but just couldn't quite get there". As a Manager, it's your responsibility to explain why something was late, how it can be remedied in the future, and answering the inevitable "Well when will it be done then?". You're responsible for the overall project, including deadlines.

* Meetings. Not only are there a lot more meetings, they're often made for the schedule of other departments who don't have "the zone" in the same way that developers do. I still write code in my day-to-day, but a 60% reduction in programming time ends up being an 80% reduction in output because you get interrupted, side tracked, and generally don't have time to "ramp up" for >2 hours at a time.

There are many more reasons, but the stress level in the Management role, in my opinion, is a bit higher.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#136

Post by politician »

irremediable wrote: post #130
Bahamut wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add some more details - being a good manager can be a delicate dance. When you are a manager, you start to become responsible for high level tasks that have huge impact to a company. However, if you micromanage too much, you create an awful culture of fear and hamper developer productivity. So how do you inspire developers to execute in a timeframe dictated by others? You have to be a leader who inspires the engin…

Thanks for sharing your story. This is part of why I love HN: I can learn from the experiences of people who're interested in similar things to what I'm interested in, but who're much further along in life. Also wow, well done on shielding your junior engineers from the worst of the death march. Did you suffer much from burnout during your heroic effort? How did you cope?

Not the OP, but similar situations. My coping strategy involved vitamins - a generous dosage of B-complex, and a mandatory eating and sleeping regimen. Survived potential burnout myself, and won concessions for team recovery. I've done this a few times now, difficult, but still works.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#137

Post by smenko »

Err... Money???

Most people will (rightfully) settle for money. Because people need love, and to demonstrate love you need to show that you care, that you're willing to give something up in a hard situation. And the only thing a company cares for is money. So, I want said company to give me money. More money than the 'manager'. Because I can do their job just as badly as they are doing it, but they can't do mine at all.

I don't want your stupid titles and shit - those are cheap. Cash is what will hurt you. Pay up if you care!

And when people realise they have to pay you or lose you, then you get respect. Priceless!!!

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#138

Post by michaelochurch »

mateo411 wrote: post #71
ionforce wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it flawed?

The figure 779,000 makes sense if you could take a programmer today and have him travel back in time to 1999. While the programmer was back in 1999 he(or she) would have access to everything that is available in 2014. The programmer would have access to the frameworks, the infrastructure(AWS), and everything else that we have available. The reason average programmers today don't make on average 779,000 dollars a year…

because like many things, programming hours and talent have been commoditized.

True. We should have fought it. We should still be fighting it. If commoditization is doomed to happen, then there's a structure (called a union) that enables it to happen on our terms rather than theirs.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#139

Post by michaelochurch »

frozenport wrote: post #82
jshen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most obvious flaw, a programmer is only worth 5.7 times their 1999 salary if their work is generating 5.7 times as much revenue as it would have in 1999. I see no evidence that this is the case. If it were the case, and the vast majority of programmers are earning 1/6 of what their work is worth, then there is a huge opportunity that you can exploit to get rich. Go for it, and let us know how it works out.

It's even worse because you might code up a storm and not add any value. You might work a dead project and only loose the company money. I have seen many a John Henry try to save a project from technical failure when it was a business failure.

It's even worse because you might code up a storm and not add any value. You might work a dead project and only loose the company money.

Very true. We have the value-add potential that, on paper, would justify upward of $700,000 per year. Unfortunately, most of us are managed ineptly and so much of that value is squandered. There are plenty of ways that the surplus generated by our talents could be spent (expansion, higher salaries) but right now it's wasted on a high tolerance for mismanagement.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#140

Post by zobzu »

peteretep wrote: post #34
zobzu wrote: post #14

One thing that always fails with that is that management always get more money. Wanna be a tech leader paid 150k? (fancy title, +- same salary as before) Or wanna be a director paid 250k? (fancier title, way bigger salary) Kinda difficult not to choose the "free tesla every year" isn't it? Plus.. the directory job is generally going to mean a more relaxed job (albeit less interesting for an engineer maybe, but that's…

> Plus.. the director job is generally going to mean a > more relaxed job If you believe responsibility over people, budgets, liabilities and policy is less stressful than responsibility over systems, you're high. As a programmer, let me tell you: people who have only ever done programming for a career have no clue how relatively easy they have it.

ive done both and the stress depends on where you work a lot.

Note that this include the "tech lead" stuff. That said on average for me and my close colleagues its largely always been easier and less stressful as a manager or director.

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