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Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

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Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#91

Post by hinkley »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #37
bitL wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for the companies considered "the best" in our industry with Glassdoor rating >4.5 at various stages of their lifecycle. This was happening everywhere, with singular pockets of progressive parts of company that were immune to that. At worse companies you can directly observe sexual or financial relations between managers and subordinates and resulting quick path to success as well, demoralizing the rest. Tec…

Glassdoor is fascinating for all the wrong reasons. I've now worked in charity/community, private sector, and government, for big, small and medium. During my last switch (from private back to government), i noticed what I'll call the "reverse glass door" effect while browsing their profiles. It was weak but it was there. That is to say, if i had to take all the employers, consultancies and corporations I've had to d…

I think what people want and what they need are often very far apart.

Since self awareness matters to me, I’m miserable at places where the koolaid is strong. Maybe you’re picking up on something similar.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#92

Post by dreamfactored »

indemnity wrote: post #82
jondubois wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I don't like how some people try to rationalize the circus that really goes on. In reality, for most people, it's chaos, it's random and it doesn't make any sense... For a select few people everything just happens to work out; then these 'survivors' feel compelled to lecture everyone else about how everything works... In reality, these 'survivors' know nothing about how things really work because their personal…

I’ve experienced both sides, this is 100% accurate. When I lucked out it was right time, right place, getting noticed, and I saw the opportunity for what it was. When I struggled I’d busted my ass for a few years with no recognition. In both instances I’d done the same thing with wildly different results.

This just says you didn't figure out the system but happened to 'luck out' one time. If you learn where the value is, you will know how to get recognition for any value you add (e.g. who values it and who's attention to bring it to that you are boosting it). In the case that the company is dysfunctional and doesn't promote value creators you will also get an earlier heads-up this way.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#93

Post by dreamfactored »

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

> This is why I struggle with scenarios where people discuss pay and work without considering value. Counter-point: firms exist. If I'm the one figuring out how to create value, why the hell are the C suite, middle managers, and investors getting 99% of the profits? So no, in the context of a large firm, it's definitely NOT an engineer's job to figure out how their skills align with market demand. And that's the whol…

Depends on whether you want to be a fungible cog in a race to the bottom on compensation. If yes, then you should make yourself a commodity. But if you want to move up the value chain, you should find out where those links are and start climbing.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#94

Post by agentultra »

I sometimes wonder if the vulgarity of capitalism forces us to think this way. You don't see lawyers, doctors, or capital-P engineers thinking this way. They have to think about the state of the art and practicing their craft with the utmost attention to detail. Anything less would be unprofessional.

And yet we programmers hear this story time and again: you don't matter, your craft doesn't matter: _all_ that matters is getting that money. If that's what your company values then that's what they'll make you do... and we don't have any profession to back us up when we say, "That's not good enough."

I suspect this is part of the story of how the Equifax's and the like happen: we prioritize profits over integrity and the consumer pays. If you, the professional software developer, refuse the company will simply find someone else who will. And they will probably hire them for less.

And yet if we were to raise the bar, stakeholders argue, then programmers would not be affordable: producing software would be too expensive and nobody would do it.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#95

Post by dreamfactored »

solotronics wrote: post #64
angersock wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who drives the better cars, has better vacations, and better real-estate?

sales and c-suite

In a services company a salesperson will generate around 10x to the bottom line compared to an equivalent level fully utilised engineer, so this is more than fair.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#96

Post by dreamfactored »

foobarian wrote: post #4
nawitus wrote: post #3

"If you want to increase your compensation over time, continue to put yourself in a position where you can deliver the most value." This assumes an efficient market. In the real world, however, value of a software engineer's output is really difficult to measure. Indirect value (like helping a team member) is even more difficult to measure than direct value (like implementing features or solving bugs and so on).

Simple rule of thumb for enterprise, make your bosses look good.

My variant is solve their problems. Works flawlessly until they leave and then you are back to square one :D

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#97

Post by bitL »

dreamfactored wrote: post #90
bitL wrote: post #9

Real-world: - you increase value; your bosses team up with each other and claim the credit; you might even get booed for some minor deficiencies whereas they will be boasting about their achievements - you are generous and do non-AGPL based open-source; parasites are waiting in the open, incorporate your code to their commercial offering, never paying you anything; your bonus will be rude complaints about bugs in you…

If you get recognition as the golden goose, many companies will promote rather than kill. Getting recognition is a part of figuring out where value is added .

I've experienced both - being ridiculously pushed up for no reason as well as company attempting to destroy me after I gave them world-class products that put them on the radar (in medieval sense when they crippled some masters once they built something for them so that they couldn't build something better in another place). Both companies "famous & loved" by geeks. Both situations were stupid and I escaped both of them. I guess for me being independent is more important.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#98

Post by hinkley »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I completely endorse the suggestion that engineers should learn to understand this concept. If you learn one thing in your career, it should be this. One of the differences between working at BigCorp versus working at SmallCo or VentureCo is that in the smaller companies the relationship is much easier to trace out. Dan Warmenhoven (when he was CEO of Network Appliance) had a wonderful way to very clearly explaining…

I’ve had coworkers confide in me that their value isn’t being seen. Some were really good, some were constant problems to be managed. I have seen this scenario you observed, and my standing advice is take a week off.

If people are glad you came back then you are correct and you need a raise or more power or both. If they just ask you about your trip then your perception of your value is out of whack.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#99

Post by hinkley »

zzzcpan wrote: post #16

This is really dishonest and disrespectful to people. Most companies are dictatorships, where all of the profits that come from maximizing value to customers do not go to employees. Employees have absolutely no say in it whatsoever and in fact are paid for their time for the sole purpose of not sharing profits with them.

It’s a fiefdom. They are the lords and we are the peasants.

Re: Fellow Engineers: This is where your money comes from

#100

Post by hinkley »

jeffdavis wrote: post #60

"All you can contribute is what your own two hands can code." The value of which has no obvious bound. The failure rate of software projects is huge and each failure can easily cost millions of dollars, or much more if it amounts to a product failure or business failure. A single engineer's technical choices can easily make or break a project. It's hard to tell later which were the crucial choices, though.

Yeah if I believed the line you quoted I’d be very depressed. Is this all their is?
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