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Want good programmers? Then pay them.

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Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#391

Post by jshen »

xnxn wrote: post #349
jshen wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, do you hear yourself? The OP said "under no circumstances will I work overtime". Someone says that he really meant "i will sometimes do overtime". I said, "he could have said I will rarely do overtime, only for exceptional cases". And you claim that this isn't more precise? Did you pass reading comprehension in grade school?

Check your tone, please. I can't downvote, but I don't want to see comments like yours on HN.

You can check my comment history and see that I don't insult people often. However, sometimes when people are being really stupid the correct response is to call them stupid.

Think about what numerous people are arguing here. OP said, "under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week" and a number of people insist that these words mean "sometimes I will work OT", and that it's perfectly clear. That's stupid.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#392

Post by danssig »

gopi wrote: post #373
carlob wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. [Public education]. If one supposes a good public school in the US is comparable to schools in France or Scandinavia, which I doubt, the issue of secondary education being at least 10 times more expensive remains. 2. [Healthcare]. Not all insurance plans are equal and most of them do not cover limitlessly. In the unlucky event of something like cancer, Americans are left bankrupt, Europeans are not. 3. [Vacation].…

Public education: I was talking about schools in good school districts. They are comparable to most European schools. Healthcare: If you have a good health insurance, you are covered better than any other govt sponsored health system in the world. Again i agree you are screwed if you don't have a insurance but that's a whole different argument Vacation: I am a Indian living in US and many of my friends take a month o…

I grew up in the US and now live in Europe so I'm at least as qualified as you.

Education: Yea, get ready to pay insane prices to get in these so-called "good districts" because there are so few and everyone wants in. Realistically, you're going to have to send your kids to private school if you don't want to worry about violence and them learning anything useful. But you'll still pay for the near useless public system.

Healthcare: this is a bold faced lie. Two separate independent reports compared health care around the world and found that the US was the most expensive in the world and did not provide the best care. Where do you get your metrics? Some talking head like Hanity?

Vacation: I don't know where you work but a lot of companies seriously frown on taking unpaid leave. There is a lot of culture in the US that feels that 2 weeks is all anyone should want. When I was telling my friends about how excited I was to come to Europe and get 5 weeks vacation, one of them told me he thought that was immoral!

I worked the majority of my life in the US and I'll never go back unless it's to do a startup.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#393

Post by khuey »

carlob wrote: post #272
jacoblyles wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a national law on maternity leave, the family and medical leave act. Of course, we expect US laws to be less generous because it is the government of a federation of states, like something between a European national government and the EU.

A national law that imposes at least 0 weeks of maternity leave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas

No paid leave.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#394

Post by phamilton »

bobbydavid wrote: post #249
phamilton wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a CS class I took, we built a project over the course of a month. The TA's then introduced 5 bugs into the project, locked us in a room for 3 hours and we were required (individually) to find and identify the 5 bugs in that time. If you failed, they do it again a week later for a lower grade. Cool assignment.

I'll assume you simply ran your comprehensive test suite, inspected the five failing tests, and left in five minutes :-)

pretty much. Though some were nasty:

char * getFirstName(char * name){ char * fname = strtok(name, " "); return fname; }

became:

char * getFirstName(char * name){ char * fname = strtok(name, " "); return "fname"; }

And stuff like that. It was fun though.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#396

Post by 0xDECAFFEE »

skerrit_bwoy wrote: post #344
kamaal wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, One more thing that I didn't like about it was the feeling that its OK for the employer to overwork you and then not compensate it, under the pretext of 'interesting work'. This is an old plan used by most companies. I like doing what I do, but I would love to something else if I had the money to free me up. For most people, their area of least incompetence becomes their passion.

I'll add that if you LOVE doing what you do for 40 years, straight through retirement, you are one odd duck indeed. The idea of "passion for work" is a power play to get folks to put in more for less. Don't get it twisted. Furthermore, workaholism is for people who don't understand what it means to be human. Steve Jobs was a sucker - almost as much as his followers who didn't realize that he was.

Say it how it was, Steve Jobs was plain bat shit crazy.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#397

Post by zeemonkee »

mryan wrote: post #355
mryan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the "30% ruling". For those that haven't heard of this wonderful piece of legislation if means you only pay tax on 70% of your salary if you qualify as a knowledge migrant. Yes, you get 30% of your salary tax free. There are also other benefits, e.g. you don't pay income tax on dividends from your home country. It's not just consultancies and OEMs that will help apply for this - I work at a startup and I am class…

PS: I had someone email me to see if this post was serious. It is - if you know Django/Python and want to live in Amsterdam, please email me.

Yes, to both - unfortunately personal circumstances keep me here in Finland. I'd recommend Amsterdam to anyone, however, it's a great city.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#398

Post by JVIDEL »

mseebach wrote: post #160
JVIDEL wrote: post #111

And the sad part is that recruiters are going to keep talking crap about "motivation" and how gamification makes working "fun". Pay up: there's an actual deficit of coders in the market, know why? because years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided to go into finance instead, because those guys actually get paid You know who makes the most money in the gaming industry? not the artists, they are…

> because years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided to go into finance instead, because those guys actually get paid That's not just "years ago", that's very current.

OK I meant when it started

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#399

Post by danssig »

gopi wrote: post #211
carlob wrote: post #139

I wouldn't compare European salaries with US so quickly. I have a cautionary tale to tell: when in 1990 the USSR collapsed, many Russian physicists decided to move abroad, some to western Europe, some to the USA. At first the European ones were complaining about their lower salaries, but once they started having kids and needing more medical care, they realized that they were actually much better off than their Ameri…

I see this argument (Europe is superior) made again and again. Let me try to clear the misconceptions. Please note i am a immigrant in US and somewhat qualified to compare it with the other countries. 1, Public education is free in US. Of-course the quality varies depending on which school district you live. But in most metros (other than NYC/Bay area/north east) you will be able to buy a 4 bedroom house in a good sc…

You're not clearing any misconceptions, you're making them. It would take a lot of research and work to discover what a "good district" is, while in western Europe you can just send your kids to school and not worry about it. Lots of states don't have any good districts at all.

Healthcare paid for by the company is the stupidest thing ever. The company is trying to save money and having them pay for health care means (a) you have little or no choice of what provider they choose and (b) you cannot be without a job ever due to the insane exposure that would put you and your family under and keeping the insurance plan you had with your employer will usually be prohibitively expensive.

Many employers just give you "catastrophic" coverage which will leave you with something like a $10k deductible (I'm serious) and if you do manage to go over that expect to take the company to court for not paying. Anecdotal but I only know two people who tested this (I'm one of them) and in both cases the insurance companies refused to pay. I sued them to get my bills paid. The other guy wasn't so lucky. Shame, he would have retired by 40 if it weren't for a surprise illness.

You can't "always" take non paid vacation. In many companies if you do that make sure you take all your stuff with you and polish your resume before you leave.

2x the salary? Not where I live. I'm above all but a Facebook/Google salary (but those are within view) and I don't know what 3/4 the social benefits you're talking about are. The US has worse roads, hostile public services (e.g. DMV, police, etc.), a horrible health care system and poor worker protections (compared to Europe). Could you break down your social benefits because I literally cannot imagine what you could possibly mean with this.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#400

Post by jchung »

Apreche wrote: post #93

So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets. Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this. Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you…

I have great difficulty with the idea of hiring someone who says they will under no conditions work more than 40 hours a week. That won't work in a situation where we are all working together as a team to achieve something worthy of achieving. I don't hire people by the hour; I hire them to accomplish things.

TL;DR If you want to punch out when the clock strikes 5, get a job in Detroit.

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