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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

#201

Post by v-erne »

ponector wrote: post #95
v-erne wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Both maintenance and testing are not valued by business. It depends on the incentives I suppose - if commission and bonuses for sales people comes only from new sales, then sure, maintenance is irrelevant and will be ignored. >> Because you cannot sell maintenance to the customer, you only can sell features. No, that's not true at all. If sales people are properly incentivised to sell support contracts (their base…

Support contract does not linked directly to the maintenance of the software you are selling. More support contract does not mean company will assign more resources into maintenance of software itself.

If you work for people that are only extracting value and are making decision based on next quarter predictions then I can see that.

This is why I do not work for faceless corporation. I deliberately sticked with small lifestyle business that values maintenance as much as new sales (as a matter of fact just this week I was refactoring my own, original piece of code, that its first version is dated by versions control as written 15 years ago and during this whole time there were clients that were paying support fees for it)

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#202

Post by closeparen »

osigurdson wrote: post #128

As an aside, it seems that the $500K/year jobs have dried up - at least I don't see much of that on the "Who's hiring". Salary ranges seem to be more in the $100K - $200K range.

These compensation packages served the very specific purpose of enticing US-based talent to relocate to the Bay Area. As we increasingly accept remote work for senior talent and look abroad (or not at all) for junior talent, this is not as much of a need anymore. The inflow to the Bay Area always had a built-in expiration given there are only finitely many neighborhoods to gentrify and still no appetite for significant housing growth.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#204

Post by shadowgovt »

It's important I think to note the head fake that Google's engineering pulled off when they developed site reliability as its own discipline.

It's maintenance, but the argument they successfully sold to management was that if management planned to scale indefinitely, maintenance cost would also scale indefinitely unless maintenance also had a budget for R&D to push up the ratio of services maintained to maintainers (and the authority to tell software engineering "Yes, you built a new shiny thing, but it's not shaped correctly yet to be maintainable so here is the pager, enjoy your 2:00 a.m. wake up calls to keep the money flowing").

This has, overall, worked pretty well for them given what they want to do. While maintenance is still a cost, it's understood that they minimize that cost via R&D, not cutting.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#205

Post by lotsofpulp »

count wrote: post #187
lotsofpulp wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> This implies a higher income tax bill 'now', with a smaller deduction smeared over time.

I would not characterize a lower deduction for a business expense as taxing something. I would have assumed it meant a buyer has to pay an additional tax as a result of purchasing something.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#206

Post by hinkley »

badpun wrote: post #192
hinkley wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Depends on the hardware manufacturer. From what I know, developers at Intel are treated pretty well. It all depends on how integral the software component is to the overall product's market success. In the case of Intel, a GPU with poor and buggy drivers is not gonna sell, so software is pretty important.

Isn't Intel struggling now because their definition of 'pretty well' wasn't good enough and they lost key people to competitors?

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#207

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

jwineinger wrote: post #168
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…

Agree with these. I was a dev at a retailer that did catalog/phone sales and was starting to use web. Small salary, small PTO, no benefits. Pay increased when the business had an existential crisis and came to rely much more heavily on tech. Next was software consulting company churning out sites designed by marketing agencies, billed to the 15 min. Small salary, small PTO, some benefits. Then I went into SaaS (start…

The point you made about consulting interactions resonates with why I also ended up not liking consulting. It feels like incentives are not aligned when doing software consulting a lot of the time.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#208

Post by killjoywashere »

ted6767 wrote: post #170
Closi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would also add career longevity and security. I work at a number 3, I wrote and maintain all the logistics stuff. Every product they sell goes through my code to package parts, put it together and get it out the door. Average time working here is measured in decades not years. It would take a new person roughly a year to figure out what's going on. It's incredibly complicated cash cow that complies with a slew of n…

Labcorp?

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#209

Post by jncfhnb »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #207
jwineinger wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with these. I was a dev at a retailer that did catalog/phone sales and was starting to use web. Small salary, small PTO, no benefits. Pay increased when the business had an existential crisis and came to rely much more heavily on tech. Next was software consulting company churning out sites designed by marketing agencies, billed to the 15 min. Small salary, small PTO, some benefits. Then I went into SaaS (start…

The point you made about consulting interactions resonates with why I also ended up not liking consulting. It feels like incentives are not aligned when doing software consulting a lot of the time.

Flat fees. Problem solved.

Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets

#210

Post by sbrother »

granshaw wrote: post #197
sbrother wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you get much stress in terms of sometimes not being “rapid” enough, not having anyone to rely on apart from yourself (assuming you’re solo), and finding business?

Not really, because I always maintain at least a few clients so I'm not too worried about losing one. Once you have a solid pipeline, losing a client becomes just part of the business, not the scary emotional experience of "getting fired".

And I have a network of other independents I can bring in to help out with things. They're a good source of leads for me as well.

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