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The Burnout Machine

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#601

Post by simonask »

samatman wrote: post #258
simonask wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In normal countries, the role of unions is to ensure that your rights and livelihood are secured when your body or mind sustains damage from a work injury. It sounds like your idea about what unions are and do are deeply informed by abnormal circumstances.

Perhaps that's why I've met so many engineers from these normal countries in my own, abnormally wealthy one. In fact, they've told me so, in so many words.

Engineering salaries in Europe are held back compared to the US by market forces (notably lack of investment), not unions. Unions representing highly educated workers do not typically engage in collective bargaining on salary, but rather supply legal aid and continuing education. It’s useful to have an army of lawyers on your side when the MBAs in charge try to cheat you and take away that promised equity, just to take one example.

In general it’s surprisingly difficult to compare salaries, because the US is a complete anomaly here. The tech bubble, stock inflation, real estate prices in SF and NY, student debt are all contributing factors.

In my anecdotal experience, there is little difference in actual disposable income for software engineers in the US and North West Europe, even when one makes $200,000/year and the other makes €100,000/year.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#602

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

mxkan3 wrote: post #514
wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a once remote cottage guy, yes you can have internet. kids love it out there. you bring your friends. its better out there man. i miss it. I was waking up with no alarm to blue sky and chirping birds, and then I could read papers and to pytorch all day. Never heard a car.

> as a once remote cottage guy You imply you no longer live like this. What made you stop?

a sexy adventure. i met a hot japanese girl online. i wanted to meet her but during covid japan was closed. so i enrolled in a year at a japanese language school to get a student visa.

well now we are married, baby is due soon. and i can speak japanese.

in a couple years well be making a slightly larger cottage back in the US and then ill be a cottage man again.

whenever we are having a tough day, we just think of waking up to the blue sky and chirping birds in the countryside. but now the vision includes little feet

Re: The Burnout Machine

#603

Post by m463 »

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…

Isn't this how business works?

For example, walmart revenue per employee is $300k but they mostly make minimum wage.

starbucks is $94k/employee

Re: The Burnout Machine

#604

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

h2zizzle wrote: post #570
Nemi wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should be. I am not begrudging anyone of that. As a matter of fact, I often mentor employees on treating their career as a business, and build it accordingly. Just like a strong business, you should be selling your services for as much as reasonable, and if your employer is not paying the appropriate price then find another “buyer”. To maximize the price you can sell your ‘product’ (you), you should be making c…

>As it should be. No, this is just the (insane) status quo. Ideally, however, businesses exist to carry out a mission (beyond making money). Part of this mission is supporting the livelihoods of employees; part of it is giving a return to investors; part of should be some social net good (maybe within a larger societal context, if not unilaterally). Much as "maximizing" the price at which you sell yourself (ick) ofte…

> No, this is just the (insane) status quo. Ideally, however, businesses exist to carry out a mission (beyond making money).

Well, that's the beauty of the system. You can go and be the change you want to see in the world.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#605

Post by paulcole »

kortex wrote: post #531
paulcole wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to get as much productivity out of you for as little pay as possible It’s only adversarial because you want to get as much pay as possible out of them for as little productivity as possible. > I somewhat agreed and got caught up in that culture until I got picked up in the fourth round of layoffs at a time when I felt I was doing my best work. Did everyone feel that way?

> It’s only adversarial because you want to get as much pay as possible out of them for as little productivity as possible. And the employer wants to pay the employee as little as possible for as much productivity as possible. In a perfect world with perfect information and rational actors on a level playing field, this is great: we expect supply and demand to converge, this is econ 101. But it's not a perfect playin…

> And the employer wants to pay the employee as little as possible for as much productivity as possible.

Yes, this is literally what I replied to in the first place.

Both sides want to get the most for the least.

It doesn’t matter how tilted the playing field is or is not, both sides have the same goal.

I never said that both sides have equal chances to get their goal.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#606

Post by saagarjha »

paulcole wrote: post #497
saagarjha wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the same question can be asked of my employer.

Yes, but right now I’m asking the person who said they wanted a proportional amount of value. Either they can/will answer the question or they can’t/won’t.

Maybe they didn’t feel answering your question would give them a proportional amount of value.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#607

Post by bobmcnamara »

shagie wrote: post #562
bobmcnamara wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about regulation, but directly responsible professional software engineer licensing. The federal government classifies most software people as a computer specialist, not an engineer.

We had it. Nobody cared. https://www.nspe.org/career-growth/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncee... > The Software Engineering PE exam, which has struggled to reach an audience, will be discontinued by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying after the April 2019 administration. The exam has been administered five times, with a total of 81 candidates. > NCEES’s Committee on Examination Policy and Procedur…

I looked into it after I met the experience requirements. Passed the FE in college.

But there was zero demand for software PE at the time.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#608

Post by YZF »

hirvi74 wrote: post #357
YZF wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay like other things is something you mentally calibrate to. Once you have then it has only marginal impact on your happiness and mental well-being. Let's say your TC is $120k or $80k or even $250k you're going to adjust your lifestyle to this. So sure, you can drive a nicer car and live in a nicer place for $250k but now you also maybe have to make payments on your nicer car and your nicer house and those things ma…

I live in the US, and according to what I read online, I am severely underpaid. The thing is, I don't really care. I have almost 9 years of experience, and I haven't even broke $100k yet. I work in government (state level), so it's not known for being high paying in the first place. There are other benefits, of course. Nonetheless, I would obviously take more money, if offered, but I don't feel the need to franticall…

I got my first software job while I was still in high school and when I started my career I mostly worked jobs that I really enjoyed for a lot less than I could potentially make otherwise. I didn't have a family yet, I didn't have a lot of expenses, I didn't care. Later down the road I joined a "real" startup and started getting paid much better (coincidentally or not around the time I had my first child) and since then I've sort of been in the rat race so to speak. Can't complain though but most of my later jobs were not as fun as my earlier ones.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#609

Post by dns_snek »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #604
h2zizzle wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As it should be. No, this is just the (insane) status quo. Ideally, however, businesses exist to carry out a mission (beyond making money). Part of this mission is supporting the livelihoods of employees; part of it is giving a return to investors; part of should be some social net good (maybe within a larger societal context, if not unilaterally). Much as "maximizing" the price at which you sell yourself (ick) ofte…

> No, this is just the (insane) status quo. Ideally, however, businesses exist to carry out a mission (beyond making money). Well, that's the beauty of the system. You can go and be the change you want to see in the world.

That's the standard conversation line that sounds oh-so optimistic but it's not actually true, is it?

As soon as you need to raise money, or as soon as you need to compete, the system will either beat you into submission or you'll get out-competed by companies that don't concern themselves with any missions other than making the maximum amount of money possible.

The most ruthless, dirtiest, immoral players can cut the most corners, grease the most political wheels and offer products and services at the lowest prices.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#610

Post by AdieuToLogic »

ever1337 wrote: post #550
Nemi wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Business owners are also responsible for ensuring their employees (and payroll taxes) are paid whenever revenue dips into the "L" part of "P&L".

Wise owners ensure some portion of profit is retained such that temporary market adversity does not immediately result in terminating their employees.

People who have never had these concerns make sweeping statements such as the one quoted.

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