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Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

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Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#171

Post by grecy »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #116
Kudos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which department are you talking about? If your department doesn't drive revenue, then the business leaders will see it as a cost center. It doesn't matter if you disagree with that perspective unless you can change their minds. How have you done that in the past, or hypothetically how do you think that might work?

It doesn't become any less nonsencial just because some business leaders who are still stuck in 1980s believe in it. Both profit centers and cost centers are supposed to increase profit, otherwise you wouldn't hire those people. If a department doesn't drive profit, then just axe it and stop wasting money on it. If you can't [1], then it actually drives profit, you just have no idea how. The fact that you can't set p…

> It doesn't become any less nonsencial just because some business leaders who are still stuck in 1980s believe in it.

Of course it does.

Whatever your business leaders believe is reality in that company. It makes no difference what you or the outside world believe.

You're either OK with it, or you need to get out ASAP.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#172

Post by generic92034 »

thfuran wrote: post #137
generic92034 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintenance is instantly a good business case if you can sell maintenance and support contracts to your customers. Of course you will rarely find that in B2C areas, but in B2B it is not uncommon.

Though that just kicks the can. We sell support contracts so everyone does a bunch of bug fixing as a matter of course, and that doesn't even get called maintenance internally. "Maintenance" is the refactoring or other tech debt quashing that the devs always want to do but which mostly isn't a priority.

Where I am working bug fixing was always classified as maintenance work. That is even relevant for taxes, as ticket processing is a different category, with different tax rules.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#173

Post by MichaelZuo »

indymike wrote: post #165

There are actually four buckets: 1. Research and Development. Special tax treatment and tax credits usually apply to R&D. 2. Sales/Marketing - Pre-sale sales engineers, sometimes implementations 3. Maintenance. Developers that fix bugs and perform non-R&D work on code that usually isn’t eligible for special tax treatment or credits. 4. In hosted services/PaaS/SaaS, operations usually carry some level of swe salaries.…

There's also a fifth bucket for really large companies and really high end engineers:

5. CEO/COO/CTO's special budget for special consultants

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#174

Post by ted6767 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #122
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…

I chose to make a career out of #3, specifically logistics. I know how stuff gets from vendor to customer. This isn’t something you can buy out of a box. It’s usually heavily customized and made out of multiple systems were never design to work together. Every company does this differently. I enjoy this. I’m good at thinking through whole systems across a company’s many departments. This requires knowledge of interna…

Brother

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#175

Post by ted6767 »

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.

Amazon is a partial monopoly so it depends on where you're working. Your team could be any of the 3 areas mentioned under the same umbrella.

Honestly a good manager will do more for your job than anything else.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#176

Post by ttymck »

verinus wrote: post #54
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…

this. first company is good for starters to get to know others. third should be avoided if you want to stay in software and not transition to management. You will always be seen as a necessary evil, your problems not understood while others working on core products will be perceived as an asset. second one is the one to make a career in software dev.

> second one is the one to make a career in software dev.

Your comment and a dozen others make this out to be so black and white. If this is true then why am I finding it so difficult to make a career out of these situations. I find it impossible to identify companies in this category that are good to work for. Does anyone have any heuristics, or should I keep bouncing from one to the next until I get lucky?

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#177

Post by hinkley »

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…

> you'll never be the star of the show.

This is far too kind. If you work eg for a hardware manufacturer, not only won’t you be the star, but good luck getting any respect. You are a cost. One they wish they didn’t have to pay. Delivering on time and under budget doesn’t put you on their radar, it takes you off.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#178

Post by sbrother »

jimbokun wrote: post #105
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…

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.

Actually #1 is my favorite, as I'm better at technical sales and rapid prototyping than I am at slow, FAANG style politicking, planning, risk mitigation and eventual development. I've done both at various points in my career and consistently make about ~twice as much money running my own consultancy, not to mention I'm so much happier in that environment.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#179

Post by digging »

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.

You misunderstand. The third group is not only companies that sell software-based products, the third group includes companies that use software to sell their products or manage other aspects of the business. Having an in-house online store is an example.

That presumably puts your company in that group, just like mine (or else I have no clue what thousands of software people would be doing on the payroll).

I bet our two companies have very different reliances on technology, but we're both in the same group, because all of our software supports our sales of our actual goods and services.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#180

Post by phkahler »

>> You're only as good as the multiplier a company gets on pouring money into your bucket.

Well that's why some places have sales people on commission. You set a fixed multiplier and let the sales person do their thing. You can still offer bonuses, but if one guy makes half the sales as another so what? He automatically gets paid half as much. Software supporting multiple sales people isn't so individualized though.

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