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> It's disappointing to me to see so much disparity between the compensation for C-level and VP-level versus engineering. Without engineering, there would be no
by copsarebastards 11y ago
> It's disappointing to me to see so much disparity between the compensation for C-level and VP-level versus engineering. Without engineering, there would be no product to sell and nothing for investors to invest in. Ideas are nice, but implementation is hard.
It's exactly what you'd expect when programmers are willing to sell their birthright for lentil stew.
Frankly, most C-level executives at a small startups are glorified secretaries taking care of the paperwork for the people who provide most of the actual value. They get paid more because they've played the social game well enough to persuade engineers to work for them instead of the other way around.
- anindyabd 11y agoI work at a big company, and I also consider most C-level executives here to be glorified secretaries. All they ever do is write emails, stare at some charts, and yell at engineers to write code faster. What's most annoying is that sometimes they pretend to understand engineering challenges -- they learn some jargon and start throwing it around. That makes things worse; a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. We engineers are nothing but servants to these people.
- Bostonian 11y agoIf what they do is so easy, and if they are much better paid than programmers, why aren't the programmers doing those jobs instead?
- mbesto 11y ago> We engineers are nothing but servants to these people. Which is funny you say that because apparently the "SV elite" think quite the opposite: https://twitter.com/sama/status/641281287660007424 https://twitter.com/sama/status/641281287660007424
- oroup 11y ago> a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Indeed. I'd suggest that your understanding of what they do might be a little underdeveloped. (And perhaps your company is particularly dysfunctional.)
- gaius 11y agoIt's exactly what you'd expect when programmers are willing to sell their birthright for lentil stew. Anyone can learn to code! Software should be free! And they wonder why programmers don't get paid... No other profession talks themselves down like us.
- copsarebastards 11y agoI agree with you that "Anyone can learn to code!" is wrong. Anyone can learn to code... badly, so badly that they're a danger to every piece of code they touch. However, dragging software into it is a bit misguided. The value a programmer provides is a service (the production of software) not a commodity (the software). The software has almost no monetary value because it can be reproduced at will. Various DRM schemes attempt to make software a commodity but this viewpoint in general holds humanity back. More to the point, viewing the production of software as a service rather than viewing software as a commodity demonstrates why programmers are the real value. If you view the C-level execs as retailers of a commodity, their business model makes sort of sense. But if you view software engineers as providing a service, it becomes strikingly obvious that the executives are extraneous, unnecessary middlemen attaching themselves parasitically to a service transaction.
- gaius 11y agoSure, but it creates the general impression that programming has no monetary value so why should programmers be paid to do it?
- copsarebastards 11y agoI don't think people's inability to distinguish between paying for software and paying for programming makes the statement "Software should be free" a bad statement.