Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 365 posts

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#321

Post by xapata »

someguydave wrote: post #254
slsii wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ~long history of people attempting to answer that question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm From the article, "Firms exist as an alternative system to the market-price mechanism when it is more efficient to produce in a non-market environment."

If that "theory of the firm" is true, then engineering is much less commoditized than stated by the top-level commenter.

I believe that was the evidence provided by the great outsourcing experiment of 1996-2006. Turns out programming can't easily be turned into a low-skill job.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#323

Post by walrus1066 »

g9yuayon wrote: post #103

This hardly comes as a surprise. How many companies, especially startups, really need to tackle tough technical challenges? On the other hand, how many companies desperately need product talents to figure out what is valuable to produce? In addition, engineers have commoditized many technical solutions that used to be challenging in the past 15 years. Scaling used to be a tough challenge, not any more for many compan…

Think the key factor is, talented engineers write software that's maintainable, and easier to change, extend & adapt.

This could make the difference between having to do a complete rewrite at great expense, vs a small tweak.

For startup with no customers it's probably fine to cowboy up a solution, then throw away and start again, to find market fit.

But if you've got lots of customers, and you're forced to rewrite because the previous engineers left an unmaintainable mess, it's going to be hugely complex, risky, long & expensive undertaking.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#324

Post by acct1771 »

luckydata wrote: post #285
BlackJack wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that, but something is wrong if the PM is that unaware of the state of the product.

Did I mention "lying" was a part of it?

How did he make such a convincing mockup that you couldn't tell he was lying about it being the project he was showing you?

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#325

Post by opportune »

pmiller2 wrote: post #34
amyjess wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed is that companies generally have fewer PMs than software engineers. A company might have a whole team of engineers but only one PM, and the PM typically has a title like "Director of Product Management". So it gives the impression that product manager is a director-level position. But eventually as the company grows, they'll eventually hire more PMs who report to the Director of Product Managem…

I think this has some merit. I’ve seen ratios from 3:1 to 10:1 engineers to PMs at companies I’ve been at. I could imagine the ratio going even higher. Edit: this does raise the question, though: where do product managers come from? What does the career path of a PM look like, including what happens before they become PMs?

It totally depends on what problems you’re trying to solve. Engineering managers often end up performing many duties of a PM, and in smaller companies the only PMs you may need are the founders/executives

Most PMs I know are former software engineers (or if hired as PMs out of school, studied computer science) with good people skills and high level knowledge of what they help coordinate. I would hate to work with an MBA-type PM who couldn’t appreciate technical problems and solutions

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#326

Post by rswail »

obmelvin wrote: post #261
jahaja wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with this usage of the word "talent"? Tech is in such acute need of humble pie I don't even know where to begin. I'm becoming disillusioned. Why is a programmer etc. a "talent", but a carpenter just an employee, hire or whatever? But maybe it's actually an appropriate term, now when our interview processes so clearly have ceased to be job interviews, and have become auditions - because nothing less satisfie…

> These middle-management positions are so unmeasurable that I think they may be greatest source of bullshit jobs in tech. So if it's true that their success is largely unmeasureable, I wonder how you've come to that conclusion? But, product improvements shouldn't be immeasurable. Through analysis of engagement metrics, talking with users, etc. one can measure improvements. Sure, it isn't a direct measurement, but pu…

Except that no one actually evaluates KPIs like that. Product improvements are not KPIs that anyone gets measured on.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#327

Post by rswail »

walshemj wrote: post #260
jahaja wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with this usage of the word "talent"? Tech is in such acute need of humble pie I don't even know where to begin. I'm becoming disillusioned. Why is a programmer etc. a "talent", but a carpenter just an employee, hire or whatever? But maybe it's actually an appropriate term, now when our interview processes so clearly have ceased to be job interviews, and have become auditions - because nothing less satisfie…

Because Tech is a "profession" and if you think we are you obviously haven't seen how other professions Architects for example and Journalists have a very high opinion of them selves.

Except that Tech isn't a profession. Professions have bodies that establish and enforce professional standards and appropriate evaluations and credentials.

Programmers that call themselves "engineers" are fooling themselves. Unless they are doing the sort of programming that the NASA shuttle team used, none of us are "engineers".

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#328

Post by rswail »

justboxing wrote: post #303
gnulinux wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very young (21) so no need for a studio. My current rent is $900 including everything. I'm extremely conscious of what I eat to a paranoia level so I never eat out (except when I go out on a date with a girl or a close friends) so I cook home (I have a Trader Joe's literally next to my house) and my monthly food expense is $200. With various other stuff (gym, phone, entertainment, Uber etc...) I spend less than $…

This is simply not sustainable. As a veteran in this industry, I must tell you that a software engineer's career is very similar to an athlete or model's career in the sense that you make the most money in your career only in your early years ( 10 - 12 years after the first 3 to 5 years). So if you started your career at 21 and if you are above average, your salary will grow from 25 to 25 / 37 or even 40. After that,…

As a programmer/analyst/manager/architect of 34 years experience (goddamn it), that's not true unless you stay in a "grunt developer" role for your whole career.

The greatest acceleration of your salary occurs early in your career, but that applies to most careers. The sustained level of your income is dependent on how you progress.

Personally, I think the movement to project management is a Bad Idea for programmers, because we make lousy project managers and they get paid like crap, because PM-ing is considered a "generic" skill that is not IT specific.

Product Management and Architecture roles are paid better because they need the hind/foresight to actually lead the development of a product/service. That skill is pretty much only developed by experience.

So like any industry, your career development will lead to potential income changes. How that reflects your needs as an individual (eg family etc) is up to you.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#329

Post by mooreds »

gonehome wrote: post #165
Xcelerate wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My advice is be to be ludicrous. For recruiters who contact me from companies that aren’t my usual area of career interest, I do this to see what the upper bound is. It once backfired on me. Shortly after finishing grad school, a recruiter contacted me about a quantitative finance position and asked what range I was looking for. I replied “about $350k”. He responded, “We can work with that.” I think I had to scrape…

I think quants can get 350k - 700k, extremely high compensation is the main draw of finance and what the positions seem to lead with.

From my reading, it's pretty much the only draw. I guess you could say working in an algorithm heavy environment is the other draw.

If a company has to pay you that much over typical market rate (for software devs), there's a reason.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#330

Post by mooreds »

zer00eyz wrote: post #150
reggieband wrote: post #73

I swear, every time I read an article on HN about salary it gives me anxiety. I'm perpetually worried that I'm not earning as much as I should be earning. I don't think it is healthy but I can't look away.

The answer: talk about how much your making - write the number down and publish it. The whole cultural bias against talking about how much money one makes has to go away - it serves no one except the people writing checks.

How much do you make? :)
Post reply on HN