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Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

neomindlabs.com

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Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#251

Post by stale2002 »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #157
benburleson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the perspective. If we're considering this a zero-sum situation, we have to conclude that your situation is good for developers in general because it will cause all developer/engineer salaries to rise to meet the (possibly inflated) salaries that the market has deemed required to recruit talent. On the other hand, does it mean that some employers won't have money to hire talent? And will that res…

Short term, yes. Having a company with deep pockets driving up salaries is great for the people working for those salaries. I've definitely benefited from having a bunch of tech companies a short walk down the road. Long term, however, there's a risk of a monopoly forming, which isn't good for developers or society. FAANG are willing to pay big salaries because they are competing. If they use their power to destroy t…

> Long term, however, there's a risk of a monopoly forming, which isn't good for developers or society. FAANG are willing to pay big salaries because they are competing. If they use their power to destroy the competition, that market force goes away.

Big companies have been overpaying developers for almost a decade now. It is not going away. It is not some short term thing. Instead, that is what these elite tech companies pay.

It is not some singular company, that is buying up all of the tech talent. Instead, it is a whole bunch of elite tech companies, paying lots of developers lots of money.

The idea that there is one singular company, that is a monopoly on developer talent, that is false, given that there are a whole bunch of them doing it.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#252

Post by saalweachter »

jefftk wrote: post #225
Cederfjard wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that very wealthy companies can temporarily pay employees more than the value they provide, and willingly eat that cost until the competition has been stifled, at which point they can lower compensation again.

On the other hand, offering extremely high salaries makes a lot of people consider becoming programmers who wouldn't otherwise think of it. You can't buy your way out of having your competitors having access to skilled labor, outside of perhaps the very short-term.

Yeah, this is the housing problem all over again. If the price to buy (well, rent) an engineer is too high, build more engineers.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#253

Post by [deleted] »

inetknght wrote: post #156
sjburt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

> If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is. Arguably. But, if 10 average people are worth $200k and one exemplary person is worth $500k... and the company pays the 10 average people $100k instead, then the company can hire two exemplary people where it only needed one. Scale it down to minimum wage and you end up with people who are…

[deleted]

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#254

Post by whatshisface »

benrbray wrote: post #188
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Google is willing to pay 200k above market rate This is not possible according to the usual definition of "market rate". If Google is willing to pay X, that is the market rate.

I disagree with your definition of "market rate", but let's suppose you're right: Do you not see it as a problem that Google alone decides the cost of entry to an entire market?

Google isn't the only well-paying software company. If they were, they wouldn't throw money away by paying so much in the absence of competition. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping you from paying $100,000/hour and beating Google if you wanted to. If your business can't make good enough use of programmers to justify paying more than Google, then maybe their talents would be best allocated where they would be most valuable.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#255

Post by thesuitonym »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #141
Bootvis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way as offering products below costs would be to drive out competition and become a monopolist. I'm not sure I think this is bad but I believe this is the argument.

Equating the two creates a perception that employees shouldn't be paid as much as they're worth. An employee being paid $500k/year is probably producing even more value to their employer than that, and if anything, the goal should be to close the gap between value and compensation, not widen it.

>is probably producing even more value to their employer than that

That's the crux of the argument, though. Google can afford to take a loss on the employee's salary for years, just to keep them from a competitor. We're not talking about Google arbitrarily paying a developer more than their competitors, we're talking about Google diverting funds from other business units to cover costs.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#256

Post by pb7 »

esrauch wrote: post #75
influx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For senior engineers, yes. I've found that https://www.levels.fyi/ is pretty accurate.

Levels.fyi seems to indicate senior total comp as more like 300k in Bay Area for FAANG.

Google is ~$350K, Facebook is ~$375K, Amazon is ~$315K (and not known to pay well outside of equity appreciation), Apple is ~$320K for ICT4 which doesn't map well to Senior at the others, probably a bit low. Netflix is severely north of $300K but hard to say because there's just one title -- average at $450K.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#257

Post by redisman »

marcinzm wrote: post #10

There's several reasons a bus is seen as worse than them being poached: * Early startup employees have golden handcuffs regarding switching jobs. Sure, Facebook is offering them $500k but they'd be on the hook for $200k in taxes if they exercise their options and they leave a bunch more un-vested options on the table. * You can mitigate them leaving by having a better work environment, equity and so on. Not much you…

Options for most startups are mostly way overrated. The opportunity cost to hang around for 5-10 years to maybe get to a liquidation event is very high.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#258

Post by benrbray »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #193
benrbray wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your definition of "market rate", but let's suppose you're right: Do you not see it as a problem that Google alone decides the cost of entry to an entire market?

Why do you think that Google alone can afford to hire software engineers? edit - I see how my post was misleading. I should have said X is a "lower bound" for the market rate.

Do you mean upper bound?

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#259

Post by notJim »

axaxs wrote: post #177
JPKab wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that hits me is the "$500k+/year in the valley". Is this really a thing? Am I a giant dumbass for staying in Colorado? Even factoring in my stock grants, I'm nowhere close to that number.

I went through the same thing for years. If I were young (early 20s?) and single, I'd probably consider it. But keep in mind that's the high end. Most people in the valley also don't come close to that number, so it's a gamble without an offer in hand. I'm in my 30's now, with a family. There is no reasonable amount of money that could convince me to uproot and go to the valley. Sure I could come out ahead financiall…

You're making a lot of assumptions that are not necessarily true. You'll never know if you don't look.

* Commute/housing: you can afford a lot of house in a good location on $500k (or even 250-300k which might be more attainable).

* Long hours: varies a lot from team to team, and company to company. From my own experience, there's not a lot of correlation between long hours and salary, and a lot of people who work long hours do it because they want to.

* Crime: crime in the US is at historic lows, not sure what you're worried about here.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#260

Post by biztos »

pavlov wrote: post #17

The author makes it sound like Rails is the recommended way to build software that is maintained by a revolving door of junior developers whom you don't have to motivate or compensate, because you can just hire another cog-in-the-machine when the old ones inevitably wise up to your game. Not sure if that was the intended message.

Also, it might not even work!

What happens when one of your fungible junior engineers happens to be smart enough to do some tricky things even with Rails?

And then she gets hired by Netflix to do something more career-enhancing than copy-pasting Ruby code from StackOverflow.

Now you're stuck with your revolving door of undercompensated junior developers and a complicated Rails application. Uh-oh!

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