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Market salaries are currently distorted by the easy money available right now. The fact is most companies who pay market salaries can not afford it either, the

Market salaries are currently distorted by the easy money available right now. The fact is most companies who pay market salaries can not afford it either, they're just placing a bet with investors' money and they will go out of business sooner than they could have in a more sane market. I think it's shortsighted to just throw up your hands and say "because free market" in this kind of scenario. The fact is if "market" salaries for software engineers are based on unicorn thinking and the salaries that Apple, Google and Facebook can pay, then there won't be much of a long-tail of interesting companies, we will all end up working for mega corps.

learc83 11y ago
If anything market salaries are artificially low because of the power imbalance between employers and employees. All the current H-1B debacle does is increase that power imbalance even further.
gnaritas 11y ago
That is the nature of business, those salaries are not distorted, they're what's in demand. Those companies pay that because they must to capture the amount of dev supply they require. If they blow up because they can't afford to maintain it, it'll correct the situation and release some supply back into the market. Salaries are high because supply is low, not because there's too much easy money.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  Supply of developers that meet the high (whether justified or not) bar of those companies is low.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Not at all. Supply of developers that both meet the high bar and are willing to accept poorer economic futures (see eg housing costs that have doubled in the last 5 years, expensive childcare, etc) is low. My experienced mid-career engineering peers keep moving to Austin, Seattle, and various cities in the midwest because being able to get a house for $300k, $500k, or $250k, respectively, massively changes their financial outcomes.

learc83 11y ago

If anything market salaries are artificially low because of the power imbalance between employers and employees. All the current H-1B debacle does is increase that power imbalance even further.

gnaritas 11y ago

That is the nature of business, those salaries are not distorted, they're what's in demand. Those companies pay that because they must to capture the amount of dev supply they require. If they blow up because they can't afford to maintain it, it'll correct the situation and release some supply back into the market. Salaries are high because supply is low, not because there's too much easy money.

vonmoltke 11y ago
Supply of developers that meet the high (whether justified or not) bar of those companies is low.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Not at all. Supply of developers that both meet the high bar and are willing to accept poorer economic futures (see eg housing costs that have doubled in the last 5 years, expensive childcare, etc) is low. My experienced mid-career engineering peers keep moving to Austin, Seattle, and various cities in the midwest because being able to get a house for $300k, $500k, or $250k, respectively, massively changes their financial outcomes.