Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

swizec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 265 posts

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#141

Post by irrational »

jeremyjh wrote: post #138
irrational wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is your company selling something else that has a software component or that software enables (pretty much every other company)? I'm not sure this is true? If my company sells food or clothing or shoes, they don't have a software component. I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but my gut feeling is "pretty much every other company" is wrong. I work for a company that makes clothing and shoes. We have an enormous tec…

This is an article about software engineering - for software engineers. In this context it should not be hard to reason that companies that do not employ any software people are out of scope. Of course they exist.

But, my company does employ thousands of software people. We just don't sell consulting, sell software to other people, or sell products that use software.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#142

Post by toast0 »

irrational wrote: post #133
mooreds wrote: post #3

In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…

> Is your company selling something else that has a software component or that software enables (pretty much every other company)? I'm not sure this is true? If my company sells food or clothing or shoes, they don't have a software component. I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but my gut feeling is "pretty much every other company" is wrong. I work for a company that makes clothing and shoes. We have an enormous tec…

Your shoes and clothes don't have a software component (well, most don't), but in most producers, software enables their production.

Inventory management, production automation, order management is software at pretty much every company now, because doing it with paper or in people's head is error prone. I imagine your tech organization is in an enabling role.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#143

Post by patja »

irrational wrote: post #131

What about HR? HR Tech is not working on software to create new products (research and development) or on software to sell said products to other people (sales/marketing), but it also isn't maintenance.

The whole blog post is very tech company product oriented and seems almost completely oblivious to the vast number of software engineers building line of business applications for internal use, under the COO's budget.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#144

Post by shermantanktop »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #70

I really like this, but patio11’s blog does a nice job as well. He breaks it down into cost centers and profit centers, and argues why you really want to be attached to a profit center. Lots of other good stuff in here if you haven’t read it. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

That’s my #1 rule; go (and stay) where there is either profit or a realistic path to profit.

Rule #2 is to play a role within that profit center which can be credibly linked to continued profitability. It doesn’t have to be directly making money, but it should be clear why the money will be directly impacted if I stop doing my job.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#145

Post by Supermancho »

Closi wrote: post #111
jimbokun wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To simplify, you always always always want to be working in bullet point 2, if at all possible. In the other two, you are a cost to be minimized or eliminated. Only if you are working on one of the companies core products are you an asset bringing revenue into the company.

I disagree - It depends on your career aspirations, your skillset, the company, and the type of software you like making. If you are a great communicator and have a great ability to just 'get stuff done', you might be a superstar in 1 & 3, and you might find working in bullet point two highly frustrating. With number 2 you are more likely to be working on a tiny part of a larger application. My brother went from bash…

As a software developer, I rather work at a company that sells billions of dollars in merchandise, with a huge amount of software to maintain doing that and endless middle management ideas to build on (most of which won't amount to anything). Job security. Lots of opportunities to move around and nobody needs to know how the reference was about all the s-shows, when you go somewhere else.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#146

Post by hackernoteng »

mooreds wrote: post #3

In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…

My experiences: 1) programmer in IT department of major newspaper: disregarded as IT geek. very small salary. the worst office spaces. 2) senior engineer in software startup: rockstar treatment, stock options, all the things you would expect as office culture 3) senior consultant at IT consulting company: must basically be a sales guy who writes good PowerPoints. Maximize billable hours. What ever you do dont complete a project quickly or with minimum amount of code.

you can probably guess where I am now.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#147

Post by alephnerd »

irrational wrote: post #141
jeremyjh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an article about software engineering - for software engineers. In this context it should not be hard to reason that companies that do not employ any software people are out of scope. Of course they exist.

But, my company does employ thousands of software people. We just don't sell consulting, sell software to other people, or sell products that use software.

I'm guessing GAP.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#148

Post by count »

smugglerFlynn wrote: post #40
Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #13

Maybe someone who knows more about this stuff can enlighten me. From what I've heard there are actually only 2, opex and capex. If I recall correctly capex is better for the business because of how it gets treated in the accounting stuff. This naturally gives rise to the feature factory style work of a lot of dev jobs. Some reason like they can record capex spend as an asset with depreciation. Is this true?

3 parts of organisation mentioned in the article have their own respective Operating Expenses (OpEx) and Capital Expenses (CapEx). OpEx is what you spend on day to day activities, and CapEx is what you invest into something that you will use long term. You can pay via CapEx or OpEx for the same exact result: e.g. if you purchase a car, that's CapEx, but if you rent it each month, that's OpEx. I'm simplifying, but tha…

The CapEx -> OpEx push is also heavily tax based. I can write off (generally) 100% of an OpEx expense today (or, as I spend the money). CapEx expenses become Assets, which are tracked and taxed, and the business doesn't get to write off that spend immediately - it turns into a 'depreciation' write off, spread over the useful life of the item (sometimes 5, 10, or more years). Real estate, vehicles, large equipment, etc. is generally all done this way - a CapEx gets you an asset or property, which is then taxed and depreciated. Software licenses, insurance and other things can also be done this way (CapEx), depending on the terms and your accounting standards.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#149

Post by hackernoteng »

hackernoteng wrote: post #146
mooreds wrote: post #3

In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…

My experiences: 1) programmer in IT department of major newspaper: disregarded as IT geek. very small salary. the worst office spaces. 2) senior engineer in software startup: rockstar treatment, stock options, all the things you would expect as office culture 3) senior consultant at IT consulting company: must basically be a sales guy who writes good PowerPoints. Maximize billable hours. What ever you do dont complet…

The consulting company gig paid alright. and all the guys who stayed got really rich due to IPO. I left the second my options vested. Literally when the transaction went through... no regrets because it SUCKED

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#150

Post by michael_leachim »

chadash wrote: post #127
michael_leachim wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What category is Amazon? (the marketplace). It looks like a third category (company sells something else, but it has a software component supporting it). I am asking because I am working in a company with similar business model and I am trying to figure out what category does my work belong to. thank you. EDIT: fix msg

Amazon is unique. If you look at their revenue, the vast majority comes from E-Commerce. But if you look at their profits, the majority comes from AWS. AWS is indisputably a software org, so it's clear that their senior leaders value software engineering. But I think that even Amazon's marketplace sees itself as a software org. From the early days, they always saw software as being a competitive advantage.

I agree that AWS is a software org, I am interested in E-Commerce in this particular case. Thank you for response
Post reply on HN