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The Burnout Machine

unionize.fyi

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#541

Post by gnarlynarwhal42 »

__loam wrote: post #176
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather have layoffs at your company or have your company go out of business due to excessive labor costs? Should poor performers be immune from layoffs? When is a layoff justifiable? I'm free to leave my job at any time, so why shouldn't my employer be free to leave me?

Should the most profitable companies on the planet be free to lay off good performers in a country where healthcare is tied to employment? You can invent strawmen like poor performers and failing companies all day long but the facts differ quite a lot from your perception.

What motivation would a company have to lay off a good performer? Seems counter-productive, but I'm not a CEO

Re: The Burnout Machine

#542

Post by Nemi »

nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

This is overly simplistic. I don’t fault you for it, but it shows a lack of understanding how a business functions.

There is a lot of overhead that goes into running a business, as others have mentioned. Taxes. Rent. Utilities. Licenses. Certifications. HR, testers, project managers, product managers, people managers, directors, marketing, customer service, sales, C suite, and on and on.

I know right now you might be saying “those people don’t even do anything! Developers are the only people making the damn product!”. Again, a business is kind of like a product of its own. It takes many moving parts to take a usable product and get it to market, fight off competition, work with government for regulations (or keep from getting regulated), find and get customers, etc.

Once you try and “go it alone” you will realize that creating the product is only one small part of making a functional and profitable business.

I run a small business. I don’t use half of those roles I mentioned and there is still a lot of overhead. It is very easy to underestimate the amount of extra work involved.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#543

Post by rufus_foreman »

nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

>> We literally earn $1,000,000 for every $100,000 developer salary.

Start your own company, hire the developers for $200,000, double their income and get rich.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#544

Post by matrix87 »

I feel like these calls to unionize aren't trying to improve working conditions for tech workers, they're just trying to find ways to politically capture tech companies

That's why, you know, most of the people who call to unionize are left wing progressives who don't work in tech (and a large number in the bay area resent the shit out of tech)

Frankly given their attitudes towards meritocracy, "social justice", etc, I don't really trust these groups to actually negotiate a better deal for me. I'd expect them to just use the leverage I give them to screw me over. Go on Alphabet Workers Union's website and this is the exact shit you'll see

They probably target tech specifically because they think we aren't "class conscious" enough to understand our own situation. That's why they don't go and bother the finance industry, those guys know where they're sitting economically

Re: The Burnout Machine

#545

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

lblume wrote: post #513
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most developers are paid more than 2x the median wage. For HN, that difference is probably 3x-5x or more. If class consciousness is on the rise, HN's readership is in the classes that the lower economic strata are going to be rising up against. If you have any illusions that the proletariat will welcome you with open arms for your claimed solidarity, think again or you might be in for a shock; specifically, a short,…

Disagree. Class consciousness is about realizing that societal classes correspond to their relation to the means of production, not the concrete wage being earned. The majority of developers is part of the proletariat, at least according to Marx.

In an actual class conflict, when a group of working poor people knocks on your door and notices that you are a little too well dressed, a little too well fed, lacking the calluses and fatigue from working two low wage jobs, a little too well spoken and educated, a little too bourgeois, do you think they will be interested in discussing the minutiae of the Marxian definition of the proletariat or weighing the metrics of exploitation before they drag you out into the street?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#546

Post by theflyinghorse »

" the tech industry loves to sell us on the myth of the "dream job." You know the pitch - beanbags in the office, free kombucha on tap, and "Agile" processes that are supposed to make everything more flexible, more efficient."

Never seen that. I'll also bet vast majority of tech workers have never seen that either.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#547

Post by [deleted] »

nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

[deleted]

Re: The Burnout Machine

#548

Post by bgilroy26 »

dkarl wrote: post #540

I have a hard time with this pitch because I've watched people burn out working alongside me, on the same team, for the same boss, on the same problems, for entirely personal reasons. I've also been in shitty situations with shitty bosses that caused me a lot of stress, and it's hard to point to any clear lines that were crossed. I haven't heard any proposed union rule that would protect me in those situations, just…

If factory workers could delete the processes and equipment they work on with the press of a button, they would be bought off too

Paying tech workers high wages reflects the need for them to side with capital when it comes to protecting assets

I had an Ask HN last weekend that did not get any responses but I would still love to learn what governance prevents workers from deleting key software products and their backups because I can't believe boards of directors are not responsible to guarantee product continuity to shareholders

Re: The Burnout Machine

#549

Post by coolThingsFirst »

nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

And how will you leverage that as a developer? Only making a startup seems to work.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#550

Post by ever1337 »

Nemi wrote: post #542
nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

This is overly simplistic. I don’t fault you for it, but it shows a lack of understanding how a business functions. There is a lot of overhead that goes into running a business, as others have mentioned. Taxes. Rent. Utilities. Licenses. Certifications. HR, testers, project managers, product managers, people managers, directors, marketing, customer service, sales, C suite, and on and on. I know right now you might be…

And yet you still turn a profit at the end of the day, i.e., money that's not going to 'overhead'. Let's not kid ourselves. Your interest as the owner is to maximize that profit and minimize expenses, and our interest as workers is to maximize our wage and minimize your profit.
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