Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets • Hacker News Board

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#181

Post by mooreds » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #167

OJFord wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If my company sells food or clothing or shoes, they don't have a software component. E-commerce? I can't think of any chains without a website, or any large enough that 'company' seems apt that don't sell via it. > I work for a company that makes clothing and shoes. We have an enormous tech organization, but we aren't a consulting company, don't sell software, and don't put software into our products. Ok that's the…

I guess we are interpreting the third bullet point differently. I interpreted "Is your company selling something else that has a software component" as something like a car that has software built into it. And, I interpreted "or that software enables" as something like a board game that requires the use of a mobile app (like The Search for Planet X). In other words, the products are not useable without the software.…

Ah, sorry, when I wrote "that software enables" I meant you use some kind of software tool to help ship your product or service. That could be excel macros, SAP, custom POS systems or anything else. If it is customized or built in-house, you'll need developers.

Sorry I wasn't clearer.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#182

Post by rprospero » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

resonious wrote: post #57

verinus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually had a pretty good time at a third-category place. When you're writing software for a non-tech company, it means your customers are very close - often in the same building, working at the same time. You can watch them use the software, hear complaints in real time, and push solutions very fast. In my case, I might've been lucky, though. One of the co-founders had a CS degree and deeply valued the productivi…

Along those lines, one of the most toxic places I've ever encountered for developers was at a company that sold b2b software. You would think that developers would be valued for creating the product, but they were fully treated as a cost centre. The profit centre was the sales team who went out and got companies to send money. The developers merely existed because legal said that, for compliance reasons, the firm was required to provide the costumers with software after the client paid for said software (legal accounted for 24% of the company's budget while software development was 15%). If the sales team promised something that the software couldn't do (e.g. track the position of any cell phone in the country with just a phone number in the early 90's before smart phones), then any refund owed to the client would come out of the product team's budget. The salesman (they were all men) would not be required to return his commission, since he did his job and got someone to sign a cheque.

Surprisingly enough, the company was not Oracle.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#183

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

count wrote: post #148

smugglerFlynn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

> CapEx expenses become Assets, which are tracked and taxed,

> 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.

What tax(es) are you referring to? Property taxes?

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#184

Post by teaearlgraycold » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

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…

> Maximize billable hours. What ever you do dont complete a project quickly or with minimum amount of code.

OOF

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#185

Post by OkayPhysicist » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:27 PM UTC

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…

Pepsi's hiring Elixir developers for their backend and logistics systems. Pretty much every company of significant scale realizes they can either save money or gain some advantage from using custom software.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#186

Post by Spoom » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

lstamour wrote: post #164

michaelt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on the structure of the organisation, and how well managed it is. Imagine an organisation where developers are adding features to the service, where each new feature uses $1000 of disk space and enables $10,000 of new sales. And imagine the sysadmins buy huge file servers, each new file server costs $500,000 In a highly bureaucratic organisation, the sysadmins will cross-charge the developers for disk…

… and somebody gets the bright idea to replace the sysadmins with “managed cloud” and S3 file storage, leaving the sticker price as a “digital transformation” cost until they can work out the cross-org billing using an app someone built in their spare time to read itemized bills and re-bill internal budget numbers for their fair share of resources?

To complete the story here, the app doesn't work because dependencies have changed in the meantime, so everything is tracked on multiple giant spreadsheets.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#187

Post by count » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #183

count wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

> CapEx expenses become Assets, which are tracked and taxed, > 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. What tax(es) are you referring to? Property taxes?

In some cases (e.g. a building or expensive equipment purchase, probably yes, property taxes in most jurisdictions, at least in the US). The depreciation is deducted from income for income taxes over time, rather than all at time of purchase as an opex expense is. This implies a higher income tax bill 'now', with a smaller deduction smeared over time.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#188

Post by granshaw » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:10 PM UTC

hackernoteng wrote: post #149

hackernoteng wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How often do consulting companies ipo nowadays tho… heck ipos in general have dwindled to a tiny number

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#189

Post by rmk » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:18 PM UTC

georgyo wrote: post #38

I don't understand our modern tech culture of saying maintenance is the last on the list; always getting chopped and cut; never getting a decent budget. In 20 years and several different companies I have always heard this but never agreed with it. Sure, the company wants new features to market, but the company also wants things to freaking work. During layoffs and hiring freezes I have seen SRE type orgs fair better…

Well there's "should" and actual reality. The article lays out the latter, pointing out that it's career suicide to go into bucket #3. If you are not an 'up or out' type of person, then maybe it's worth considering spending time in bucket #3.

Of course, software is obsolete the moment it's written, so it could be argued that a lot of people who think they are in #2 are probably in #3 much of the time, spending a small sliver in #2. However, budgets are allocated once a year or maybe a couple more times, so if you are in something that's categorized as #2 when that exercise occurs, you are still in a better place.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#190

Post by deadbabe » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

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…

#2 is the best because if you can do your job quickly and efficiently you can minimize the amount of actual time you spend working as long as you are delivering the software.