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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#61

Post by charlesdm »

jon-wood wrote: post #39
deanCommie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector? If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.

Oh if only that were true. I've worked with people in the past who know just enough to hack together a front end on top of a simple database, but who would completely fall apart when presented with anything more complex than that. These are the sort of people who when asked to build an internationalised website "solve" the problem by copying an entire PHP application into directories called "english" and "german" and…

:D

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#62

Post by morgante »

jasode wrote: post #10

If there's a pronounced bimodal distribution, it seems like the biggest driver of it would be the lumping of various programmer specialties into one giant bucket. It seems like the 2 sub-buckets would be: 1) $100k or less: backoffice programmers where software itself is not the product sold. Also known as enterprisey/LOB/CRUD developers working outside Silicon Valley. (E.g. programmer working on mortgage servicing so…

Isn't that pretty much the O-ring model from the article?

There are companies which value software engineering and those that don't. Eventually all the good developers migrate towards the former (where they are paid well) and the bad developers are stuck in the latter (where they are paid poorly).

I definitely think the bimodal distribution is between firms, not within them. That being said, it's not as simple as geography or sector. There are plenty of remote gigs which will pay 6 figures, and there are plenty of non-tech companies which value software enough to pay $150k+. And there are, amazingly, some "tech" companies who still pay relatively poorly.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#63

Post by alistproducer2 »

morgante wrote: post #56
stdbrouw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the conclusion follows from the data. It's not implausible that in computer science you need to "get" a whole bunch of things before it clicks and you start being productive, and a bimodal distribution of grades would then be indicative only of people who are further along in the learning process vs. those that have not yet reached that critical point, rather than any huge difference in intrinsic abilit…

It also requires the right kinds of insights. I know plenty of people who somehow manage to make it all the way through an undergrad degree without ever really getting programming. They then managed to get a low-skill job at a low-caliber employer, where they produce bad code, poorly. But because even bad employers need code these days, they manage to maintain a job in programming despite never really understanding i…

I work at a large corp that has recently insourced all its IT. To support this they have been vacuuming up as much mediocre IT talent as they possibly could. Every once in a while they hire a person who is curious about the field and competent. For the most part, though, the majority MIS/CIS folks who couldn't hack CS or were business until a professor told them they could make a lot more money in MIS or "experienced hires" who just want a paycheck and health insurance. Its depressing to be surrounded by such people.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#64

Post by phd514 »

joeblau wrote: post #28

> Programming also doesn’t have a licensing body limiting the number of programers, > nor is there the same prestige filter where you have to go to a top school to > get a well paying job. This is my favorite quote from this article. I went to a great school and even though it wasn't Berkley, Stanford, MIT, or CMU, that qualification has never limited my ability to get great opportunities.

While it's true that a prestigious degree is not strictly necessary for obtaining a good job, in my experience, it helps a lot in getting your resume nearer the top of the stack for those job openings.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#65

Post by random_coder »

nnq wrote: post #52
deanCommie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector? If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.

I imagine you've never been the one hiring or interviewing developers, have you? There is an amazing bit though: there are the ones that you classify as "surely worthless", but then you see they can indeed get some jobs done , so a non-technical manager or HR-person can easily confuse one of those that "can sometimes program computers to do useful stuff or keep things running" vs someone who can do "software engineer…

Lol at the third category - they're at the wrong jobs(for them), perhaps they need to do something on their own, figuring things out themselves!

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#66

Post by morgante »

pmorici wrote: post #59
jasode wrote: post #10

If there's a pronounced bimodal distribution, it seems like the biggest driver of it would be the lumping of various programmer specialties into one giant bucket. It seems like the 2 sub-buckets would be: 1) $100k or less: backoffice programmers where software itself is not the product sold. Also known as enterprisey/LOB/CRUD developers working outside Silicon Valley. (E.g. programmer working on mortgage servicing so…

$80k in Kansas City and $150k in San Francisco is exactly the same amount of money after accounting for differences in the cost of living. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=$80000+salary+Kansas+C...

I hate these reductive COL adjustments. They're preposterous.

Even if you assume that all your expenses are linearly multiplied (hint: Amazon costs the same no matter where you live), your savings are a lot more afterwards. If you were living on $40k/yr in Kansas City, you could move to SF and suddenly be saving $80k/yr.

Would you really rather have $600k in Kansas City than $1 million in SF?

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#67

Post by alistproducer2 »

Retric wrote: post #54
mafribe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I don't think there is much difference in intrinsic ability. I'm absolutely convinced that every healthy person can become a really good programmer. But becoming a really good programmer requires putting in a lot of time doing programming, and a lot of students don't put in that time.

It's really not about time, it's being able to think flexibly. I have seen several freshman who never coded before where 1/3 of them get it in a few weeks and have an easy 4 years, where the second set either drops out or spends a lot of time trying to keep up. An assembler class where the high end spent 2-3 hours and come in with 3-5 pages of code vs. the low end that spent 50x as long had 100+ pages of code that di…

I don't think he was refering to time spent on a given program; rather, for people who don't intuit CS concepts time spent staring at the page can make the difference between a person who never gets it and one who eventually does. At that point, there isn't much functional difference that person and a person who got it from the start.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#68

Post by kriro »

My working hypothesis is that there's more programmers in the "very good" bucket that don't care all that much about monetary compensation than in other domains. As long as a certain X that is deemed fair is reached they are way more interested in interesting problems/an opportunity to learn new things/access to hardware or data they couldn't otherwise get etc.

Or in other words, (good) programmers care a lot more about motivating factors than hygiene factors than other employees.

I have no data to back this up, only a gut feeling.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#69

Post by alistproducer2 »

henrik_w wrote: post #58
charlesdm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you enjoy something, it's much easier to put a lot of time in to figure it out. For example, I became a software entrepreneur about five years ago making money from my own projects. Dealing with a lot of business related "work", I actually discovered I also really like law, in particular tax law. A friend of mine was a pretty good lawyer (hung up his hat to do more entrepreneurial stuff) and I occasionally a…

I think the question of whether anybody can get good at programming is very interesting. I often hear "anybody can do it, but you can only become really good if you enjoy it". So then the question is: why do you enjoy something? Are we born that way, or is it something we do? (I don't know what the answer is) Edit: also, it is interesting to replace "programmer" with "math professor". Can anybody become a good math p…

For me I think the determining factor of a good programmer is not enjoyment (although that is necessary), it's curiosity. I work with a guy who I'm pretty sure has a photographic memory and would probably run circles around me in an IQ test and with his GPA, but I'm constantly showing him more efficient ways to write code. The difference is I am forever curious about CS-related stuff. I spend hours a day reading HN and other things like it. I'm orders an of magnitude better prgrammer than he is simply because I'm curious.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jon-wood wrote: post #39
deanCommie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually doesn't your experience hint at the opposite trend in the working sector? If everyone (roughly) either fails programming, or aces it, then the working professionals are the ones who passed AND excelled.

Oh if only that were true. I've worked with people in the past who know just enough to hack together a front end on top of a simple database, but who would completely fall apart when presented with anything more complex than that. These are the sort of people who when asked to build an internationalised website "solve" the problem by copying an entire PHP application into directories called "english" and "german" and…

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