I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation • Hacker News Board

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#281

Post by kbenson » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #193

nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

Annecdata: as a teacher in an inner city high school, I did not break past 50k/year for the three years I was there. That includes the summers I worked. Between grading, lesson planning, meetings, and teaching, my typical week day started before 7am, ended around 8pm or later. Typically most of my Saturday was used up and half my Sunday. Normally all of spring and winter break was used up likewise. I typically got cl…

It's my understanding, from an ex-gf in college who was going through the teaching credential program at the time and had a mother that was a teacher, that there's a lot of work loaded on teachers inthe beginning, as they need to develop lesson plans for everything from scratch (where "develop" may mean find and adapt in some cases). Then, after a couple years it's settles into a normal churn of updating or replacing a much smaller portion of lesson plans as you go, and the rest of the time is the normal grading work.

That said, I'm not sure I've ever met a teacher who takes off at 3:20 every day. I imagine it probably averages out to around an hour before and after school, so 7 AM to 4 PM? But there's often grading that happens at home throughout the week. I wouldn't be surprised to see veteran teachers averaging 44-50 hours a week of actual work for the year (with lulls and spikes for midterms/finalls, etc).

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#282

Post by ThrustVectoring » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

developer2 wrote: post #66

20yrs_no_equity wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's worthless, and you're taking below a market salary, and you're working much harder than you would have to at a company paying you that market salary... then you're getting a raw deal. Better to get the market salary for a 50 hour a week job and do your own startup on the side as a side project. The thing is, early employees (first 1-4 years) put in as much effort and take as much risk as founders, and take a…

>> Options do have a calculable value, if you can determine the risk of failure for the company. Yes, because every company that has ever failed was predetermined to be a failure long before they went out of business. Give me a break. I've watched companies of varying sizes do extremely well for several years, which then fall apart into ashes in a matter of a month or two. You can't assign value to options unless you…

You can take the outside view on the company. There are N companies in a comparable situation, and of those companies M of them failed. M/N is approximately what you should believe the failure risk to be.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#283

Post by kbenson » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

warfangle wrote: post #268

nommm-nommm wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a teacher in high school once explain to us a side lesson on time management, she says she used moments of "downtime" in the school day to do grading and lesson planning so she almost never brought home work as a result. I took it to heart. It worked very, very well for me in college. I'd always have homework with me ready to go and when I was waiting for a class to start, or any other short time with nothing t…

I had a total of 3 hours a day on a bus to/from high school. I wish I could have done homework during that time! But you know how spine-jarring school busses are. Maybe if I'd been able to complete it on a laptop instead of worksheets. But nah, with how I was treated by folks on my bus, my laptop would've been tossed out the window the second day.

I've often wondered about those that commuted long ways for school. Was it because the school was better, or because there was no closer school? If it was just a better school, do you think it was more beneficial overall to have that time used on the bus when it could have been put to work on something else, or was the local school unsafe?

I was lucky enough to always live very close to my schools, so hours spent commuting to school is entirely alien to me, and barring safety issues, I'm not sure a directed extracurricular learning program wouldn't be more beneficial (and if the student or parents care enough to commute, I imagine they could work out some program from available sources). Then again, I've never been put in a situation that young where it relied that much on my own motivation.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#284

Post by kbenson » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

edwhitesell wrote: post #214

ma2rten wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually according to http://transparentcalifornia.com/ my daughter's elementary school teacher makes around 130k in a public school.

There are lots of places where teachers easily make 80k or more. Most states also drive additional salary requirements based on the level of education the teacher has. Also, the number of years teaching (though sometimes tied to the number of years in the specific school system/district) include increases too. Source: a friend who taught elementary school in the Boston area.

I once had it explained by a teacher in highschool (in CA), that the compensation was based on both years worked and additional education they had completed. IIRC, teaching for 20+ years and taking all the education could net you $65k-$85k ~ 20 years ago. That was the upper range though.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#285

Post by jt2190 » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

scandox wrote: post #127

People who care about money will always have trouble understanding people that don't care about money - and vice-versa. (Obviously, the context here is a milieu in which everybody has enough for basic needs.) It's all about head space. Caring about money is quite a binary thing: once you engage with it, it's a huge commitment - intellectually and emotionally. People who don't care about money understand that they're…

    > That's why [those who don't care about money are] 
    > willfully disengaged from these issues.

One can argue that it's irresponsible for those who have access to power to refuse to wield it. After all, not deciding is essentially a decision to support the status quo.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#286

Post by pc86 » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

hockley wrote: post #271

n72 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps patronage covers this, but I would put skill at office politics/ass kissing high on the list.

Also known as: "Works well with others."

I think about 50% of the time someone bemoans office politics what they really mean is "I don't have the emotional bandwidth not to be an asshole to people."

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#287

Post by fma » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #202

nilkn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's truth here, but I also think programmers routinely underestimate the quality and compensation of other careers that they think are "below" them. For instance, you did it in this very post. Do you really think that all high school teachers are locked into making $40k for life? Here where I live (a large city, but also a pretty affordable one), teachers start at ~$55k in base salary, get a whole range o…

They may leave at 3:20, but that doesn't mean they are done working. Teachers do lots of work -- lesson planning, grading, etc. -- out of the classroom and outside of "working" hours. Not to mention the money they spend on basic supplies for their job that aren't provided by their employer -- or the time they sirens trying to solicit other people to find that.

Comments like the parent is why our teachers are undervalued. In my younger years, my roommate was a high school math teacher. And the soccer coach. He traveled a lot with the team and drove the bus, stayed late for practices, went in early to to supervise for safety...At nights when he comes home, he comes home tired, passes out, wakes up and grades papers.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#288

Post by gaius » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

scandox wrote: post #127

People who care about money will always have trouble understanding people that don't care about money - and vice-versa. (Obviously, the context here is a milieu in which everybody has enough for basic needs.) It's all about head space. Caring about money is quite a binary thing: once you engage with it, it's a huge commitment - intellectually and emotionally. People who don't care about money understand that they're…

But more money is always better - if you don't need it, donate it to an animal shelter or something.

What do you think happens to money that you leave on the table? Someone else takes it, and they might spend it less responsibly than you would. So if it's there take it and then at least you can control it.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#289

Post by YuriNiyazov » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

etatoby wrote: post #104

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really wrong. You can very well assume that it's worthless. If you do, chances are you will not do your research on things like early exercise and 83(b) filing (whether, for example, you work at a company that even allows things like that). Then, in the very small chance that your equity is actually worth something, you will be kicking yourself really hard because if you'd only prepared, you could've been pay…

> you will be kicking yourself really hard because if you'd only prepared, you could've been paying LTCG... AMT... illiquid stock... IRS... CA FTB... ACME... Road Runner... Look, I won't be kicking myself neither hard not soft, because I made a conscious decision to study and become proficient in another field. You finance people work under the assumption that everybody cares—or should care—about the underlying conce…

This is tax jargon. Death and taxes, everyone should care about those two.

Re: I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

#290

Post by looserof7 » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

heurist wrote: post #270

nommm-nommm wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the Valley startup culture but I live very far from the Valley and that's not even close to my experience at all. What kind of "physical strain" does typing code result in? I seriously have one of the most flexible and lowest stress job than anyone I know.

Sitting in one position while making only minute movements and staring at a screen causes significant strain if you don't balance it out with exercise.

Once try to solve a bug, from a program of size 100mb. Then you will probably known what happens to your brain. Try to continue a project, which is huge, without any documentation, it takes years of efforts, to do so.