8 ms·

Free food and misery: the life of a techie

120 points by pmuk 11y ago

geebee 11y ago
Wow. I'm a little surprised to read such a dim view of the lot of a software developer in the economist. I'm glad to see it in a mainstream publication, though. I don't think that software development is necessarily a bad career, but I do think it has been vastly oversold relative to other paths available to well educated, hardworking people who can choose their own career path in the US. And I think that this overselling is a big part of a PR campaign to convince congress and the public that there is a shortage of software developers. IN short, while this article presents an unusually pessimistic image of software development as a career, and I may not fully agree with it, I do welcome this rebalancing.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >I don't think that software development is necessarily a bad career, but I do think it has been vastly oversold relative to other paths available to well educated, hardworking people who can choose their own career path in the US. So what other paths are nicer, while requiring less up-front risk? Law? Totally flooded with first-jobbers and fresh graduates. Medicine? Salaries being suppressed and debts inflating unless you hit the right specialty. Academia? Oh boy, basically just triple what I said about medicine. At some point we just have to accept that the university-educated, white-collar professional class is being subjected to exactly the same wage repression and rentiering (on housing and education costs) as everyone else. We are all working-class now.
  - Apocryphon 11y ago
    Michael O. Church: "Software engineers aren't a privileged set. They're just less fucked than the rest of the U.S. Former Middle Class." https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much/answer/Michael-O-Church https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much...
    - madengr 11y ago
      That's a great comment he wrote.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - geebee 11y ago
    It's tough across the board, certainly. That said, can you think of another field that experiences a similar same drum beat about a "shortage"? Maybe nursing, though out here in SF, nurses actually do out-earn software developers at the median (US News "best jobs" has a roundup of BLS data), and because (again, this is in SF) they have powerful unions, they don't experience the Disney-stye situation where middle aged nurses are fired and forced to train their replacements as a condition of receiving severance or holding onto their jobs for a while longer. I always have to make sure I say this when I make this comparison: I am absolutely ok with nurses outearning software developers, it's a tough job, they deserve to be well paid. But according to the US News site, even dental hygienists make roughly as much at the median as software developers. Again, I have no problem with this, but it is at odds with the notion that software developers are a wildly well paid group that experiences wonderful perks, and that the big problem is that there's a "shortage" of them. The economic article makes it clear that the aversion to this field may be very rational. Although burnout affects everyone, I do think that software developers face greater age related employment issues than most fields as well. I can't really quantify this, but I don't think that the PR around a "shortage" of nurses reaches the same fever pitch for software developers. Overall, I'd recommend you just go through the "US News Best Jobs" list and check out salaries in high cost regions, relative to software development. Think about job security, stress levels, age discrimination, and so forth. Nothing's perfect, but I think you can make a good case that all of the fields in the top 10 may be preferable to software development.
    - revelation 11y ago
      It's evidence that people in these fields are much more attuned with their worth and work conditions. Meanwhile, as this thread will surely very soon demonstrate, software developers have taken the old US notion of hating on unions, peppered in a lack of overtime pay, clauses that claim ownership to things developed in their free time, a culture of big company pretend startups (you know, 60h week little pay all the micro management none of the freedom and ownership) and an attitude towards their own field that equals that of pirates.
      - Apocryphon 11y ago
  - madengr 11y ago
    "Medicine? Salaries being suppressed" How so?
    - placeybordeaux 11y ago
      To start off with a medical resident (meaning a person that has obtained their md, but haven't passed the boards yet) has an average salary of 52k. That's pretty damn low for that amount of education and hours worked.
      - CaptSpify 11y ago
        Low, sure, but being low isn't evidence that its being suppressed. That's the symptom
        placeybordeaux 11y ago
        That number is largely derived from the amount that medicare provides. I can't seem to find a source at hand though.
  - FLUX-YOU 11y ago
    >So what other paths are nicer, while requiring less up-front risk? It's pretty difficult to beat the upfront cost/risk of "Fire up a web browser and a compiler/interpreter and start reading a tutorial". That can lead to an entry level job in 6mo - year or less. Software is really an anomaly in this area especially with tuition costs these days. You can learn math or engineering on your own to lessen the risk of flunking out of a major, but you're still required to spend the time.
- zippergz 11y ago
  I make over $200k most years, with a liberal arts bachelor degree. I work in a comfortable office with reasonable hours, no one yells at me, I don't have to get dirty or put myself in physical danger. I take several weeks of vacation a year, I very rarely work a late night, and I have recruiters reaching out to me on a regular basis offering me new opportunities. While I don’t love all aspects of my work (who does?), I also can’t say with a straight face that I don’t have a drastically better situation than most people. If you ask me, software development is a pretty damned good field to be in.
  - madengr 11y ago
    What sort of software development, and what area of the country?
    - zippergz 11y ago
      SaaS marketing software in Los Angeles. I've also lived in Seattle and pay was in a similar range there.
      - heckerboy 11y ago
        Los Angeles, huh? I would love to work down in LA, but I've been staying in the Bay because I assumed this was the only place I could earn ~200k. Mind listing some of the companies that pay in that range in LA?
  - jaimebuelta 11y ago
    I don't think that $200k is a common salary among tech people. Especially out of Silicon Valley, and, even more so, out of the US (The Economist is a British magazine, after all)
    - zippergz 11y ago
      I didn't say it's salary. That's salary+bonus+stock vesting. This is in line with the total cash comp I've seen and received from most of the major tech companies in the US.
vosper 11y ago
I don't believe the Instagram billion was about acquiring 13 software engineers. It was about controlling an application that was a huge (and growing) competitor for attention on mobile, was it's own social network, and was better (or at least, more flexible and fun) than Facebook at one of Facebook's core functionalities: sharing photos.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  It was about preventing any social application that might conceivably threaten facebook. Personally I think it was a bit of an over reaction on Facebook’s side, but they do seem very paranoid about this. I have to say I am a true old fuddy-duddy when it comes to Instagram as I can’t think of a single use for it that appeals to me.
  - tedks 11y ago
    That's exactly the intention of instagram. It took my parents a very long time to get on instagram and they only eventually did so to try to police my teenage sister (who promptly made a new account, added her friends to it, and dribbled a few worksafe photos a month onto the account our parents knew about). Now everyone is on snapchat, which fortunately, nobody's parents will EVER be aware of.
    - lacker 11y ago
      Parents will become aware of Snapchat, at least when the current cohort of Snapchatters starts having kids ;-)
      - tedks 11y ago
        Lol. When do you think millenials will have kids? When they have houses? Stable jobs? Nope, you Gen-Xers have fscked yourselvs as far as that goes. Nobody in my generation in the West will ever be able to have children. Hope you like immigrants.
  - pconner 11y ago
exceptione 11y ago
working link: https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/proxy2?ep=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&epile=4q6n41784r6n41784q5455794q3138334q5335725n586o3q&edata=c0eff3bd66f286e1e9b21ff08f32efdd&ek=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&ekdata=66d9be2b43f5d6726cad2d828bb7ecd5 https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/proxy2?ep=5679746e445249575...
mberning 11y ago
Fabulously paid? Yeah right. Salaries are decent compared to the average working stiff. You still top out early in your career with little chance for significant increase. In regards to the perks, having access to all of them mentioned is the exception rather than the rule. It is a sad indictment of work culture that the freedom to make your own hours or rest when tired is seen as an extravagant benefit.
- jusben1369 11y ago
  "You still top out". Actually that's pretty unique to sw development vs other white collar roles and is not discussed enough when it comes to understanding higher levels of disillusion. SW developers are basically having their mod life crisis at 28 or 32 when they realize they've mostly flatlined unless they go into management.
  - umanwizard 11y ago
    Saying "unless they go into management" is an artificial distinction. In most white-collar roles, "advancement" is synonymous with "going into management", and software development is no different.
  - mkozlows 11y ago
    1. I know many people who've had significant salary increases into their 40s, at least. 2. Management is not automatically higher-paying than development, until you get into the higher reaches of management, which not everyone will. 3. To the extent people are flatlining, it might just be a case of starting high; if you're hitting a wall with a number that's in the top 5% of individual income nationally, well, you're doing better than 95% of people out there, so consider that it might not be so bad after all.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    Is that really a big problem? Growth slows down as you get older and more experienced, not everyone can grow beyond some level. A company isn't going to keep giving big raises to someone who isn't growing that much anymore. That seems fair. Worst case for most people is that they hit a reasonably high wage quickly and can stay there for a long time, even if the increases become modest at best. That's a good thing. If you are willing to develop the skillset you can still move into management and continue to increase your earning power. That's good too. It does suck to think that as a mid level engineer I'll most likely get to a senior level in a few years and rise no further, but it's just something you have to get over.
tokenadult 11y ago
A key paragraph in the article kindly submitted here is this paragraph about promised shares of stock in a company: "Moreover, tech startups typically attract talent by offering shares. Employees work like dogs in return for supposedly making a fortune when the firm goes public. However, such firms often use multiple classes of shares that preserve the biggest gains for insiders, leaving the employees with common stock that can easily lose value. In particular, startups have taken to offering later-stage investors guarantees that they will get their money back, if either a subsequent funding round or an eventual initial public offering (IPO) values their shares at a lower price than they are paying. When firms have to pay out on such guarantees, they generally do so by issuing extra shares, which dilute other common shareholders such as their staff." That's what makes the venture-capital-funded tech industry different: it looks like it offers opportunities to make serious money through appreciation of shares in the company, but all too often that doesn't work out. It was interesting to see, in another part of the article, the suggestion that knowing what a company's goals are in relation to one's work can make one's work more satisfying. That makes sense.
jethro_tell 11y ago
The crazy thing is job satisfaction. People do things they dislike because you pay them more. I've been a carpenter and a heavy machinery opperator before my current job in tech. Come March, I'm going to look out the window at the first sunny day and wish I was crushing a house. But in April 15, I'm going to smile as I realize how much money I save this year and look at my investments yoy. I mean, I don't feel as apriciated or have as much fun, but I put money in the bank, I'll have healthcare for my family, retirement for my self and better job security. Everyone is feeling pressure from inflation and stagnating wages, but let's not pretend an SDE with a six figure income is some how part of the working class now. The working class was relieved of health care and security a decade or more ago.
- civilian 11y ago
  Off topic, but is crushing houses fun? It sounds like it'd be a lot of fun.
  - jethro_tell 11y ago
    It is so much fun that many years, I schedule summer vacation to coincide with a house crushing from my old boss. I go out and give home 2 free days of labor cleaning up after the crushing in exchange for getting to drive into someones kitchen with a dozer. It's harder than you would think, you kinda try to scrape the inside out through the windows or a hole you made in the walls, then push it in on itself. It's really easy to get a pile of garbage that is too weak to drive on and too tall to pull the top off of. That's when you have to start driving dump truck and realized there are people who do this for a living and you're just playing around. For the record though, cleaning up involves driving a dump truck, bobcat or excavator. It's not like I have a shovel in hand for more than an hour in the week.
    - beachstartup 11y ago
      i always thought the guys who imploded buildings had a fun job too.
madengr 11y ago
For me, as an EE, all those perks are a fantasy. All I can expect is my company to consistently screw us every year on our benefits.
- linuxlizard 11y ago
  And move your job to China.
  - madengr 11y ago
    It needs a security clearance, so not yet, but I'm sure they would if they could figure out how to do so. Funny thing is, if they would offer free lunch, they would get some more work out of me. They don't even offer free coffee; yes that's how fucking pathetic it is. Not even cheap black coffee. They'd improve employee health if they offered free fruit, but nope, that bag of apples from Costco is too fucking expensive. Instead they just fine us $2000 for not participating in biometrics.
    - vonmoltke 11y ago
      Been there, done that, got the fading coffee mug. Didn't have the biometrics bullshit at least, yikes.
    - albemuth 11y ago
      > Instead they just fine us $2000 for not participating in biometrics. Mind explaining?
      - madengr 11y ago
        I, and my spouse, must participate in the yearly biometrics screening (i.e. blood test and BMI) or else we are fined $1500 each. By fine I mean a paycheck deduction.
mkozlows 11y ago
The biggest card this article palms is by starting out talking about tech companies, and then switching into a survey that's not primarily about tech companies: "A survey last year of 5,000 such workers at both tech and non-tech firms... found that many of them feel alienated, trapped, underappreciated and otherwise discombobulated." Because, sure, if you're the person who does Crystal Reports at Bob's House of Widgets, or the VB person at Gary's Lawncare, or even (to some extent) one of the J2EE horde at MegaBankCorp, you're in a place where you're not core to the business, you're viewed as a cost center, you have a limited career path, and the main people at the company probably have you lumped in with HR and Accounting. But I really, really, really doubt you're going to find that same sense of alienation, underappreciation, etc. at a tech company.
- jfb 11y ago
  But I really, really, really doubt you're going to find that same sense of alienation, underappreciation, etc. at a tech company. How many tech companies have you worked at?
  - ionforce 11y ago
    What are you trying to imply?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - marktangotango 11y ago
      I think the implication is, tech company or not, there's a huge gulf between cost center and profit center with regard to how management treats you.
    - jfb 11y ago
      In my experience, having worked at many "tech companies" as well as "square-job companies", there is no great difference in how software engineering types are treated.
- 11y ago
ditonal 11y ago
The most insulting things companies do is offer 'vanity' perks while slashing real perks. My last gig had fancy parties, free dinner (no lunch interestingly), got itself ranked as a "best place to work" etc. It could market its employees as entitled, spoiled developers for sure. However, there was no 401k matching. No tuition reimbursement. There were multiple weeks of uncompensated 24/7 on-call rotations throughout the year, many for stressful legacy applications the company refused to invest resources to actually maintain for real. Basically, if you couldn't market the perk to 20-somethings, they slashed it. Meanwhile I'm told that my very existence screws over the poor working class police officers and firefighters, who make 80% of what I make but have job security and lifetime pensions awaiting for them. And they get paid for overtime. While I absolutely feel like I'm privileged in many ways to work in tech, the industry has many incentives to make tech workers look more 'spoiled' than they are, and so they work their PR engines to do exactly that. I am also sick of hearing these 'rumors of one engineer at Google' making millions being cited as if it was a BLS salary report or something.
- ljk 11y ago
  > got itself ranked as a "best place to work" recently learned that a lot of places give employees incentives to leave positive reviews on glassdoor.. hopefully glassdoor doesn't go the same way as yelp
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  > free dinner (no lunch interestingly) Free lunch doesn't get them anything - you already expect to be at work before and after the lunch hour. Free dinner gets you to stay until it arrives (6:30, I'd bet) and probably afterwards.
- hawkice 11y ago
  > There were multiple weeks of uncompensated 24/7 on-call rotations throughout the year, many for stressful legacy applications the company refused to invest resources to actually maintain for real. I am a 20-something who was woken up every day at 1am for weeks to "handle emergencies" that didn't exist -- are you telling me the standard is compensating people for this? I did get the sense that if it cost the company meaningful amounts of money they would have let me change the alerting system so that only real emergencies woke me up, instead of "not your department"ing me.
linuxlizard 11y ago
Does this article apply at all outside Silicon Valley?
- pconner 11y ago
  If anything, I think it would be worse outside. Crazy perk culture is mostly associated with bay area companies. Other areas have cheaper costs of living, which may help reduce stress, but bay area companies have better base salaries to compensate, and they tend to provide better stock options/grants than companies based in other areas.
  - mooseburger 11y ago
    Well, I'm a software developer with three years of experience in Puerto Rico. It hasn't been too bad so far. There isn't an expectation that one will regularly work 12 hour days or something, though of course there is crunch time.
staunch 11y ago
Why haven't salaries at tech companies gone up much despite huge increases in demand, profits, and housing costs? Most programmers make about what they've always made, maybe less (adjusted for inflation). $120k/yr in 2001 is $160k/yr in 2015.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  because smart kids are always willing to work for less and there's no credentialing guild like there is with medicine or law or real engineering.
noam87 11y ago
Have we arrived at the conclusion that the people who convinced the middle class that unions are evil did not have our best interests in mind yet, or are we gonna keep shooting ourselves in the foot? Keep shooting ourselves in the foot it is then. K. Carry on.
jarjoura 11y ago
I'm sorry, but software engineering was never glamorous. When I went into college, over a decade ago now, the first year courses were always the most packed, largely filled with hopeful souls. Then by year 2 and 3 they dropped back to only the most dedicated fans. That's right, I said the word fans. I graduated with 20 other computer science majors, out of what was probably thousands at the beginning. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else in my career and the tech press and media did little to influence or change it. Netscape, then Google, then Digg, on to Facebook and Twitter, these were all early companies that got the press raving about how cool, how easy, how glamorous it was to work in startups and in tech. Yet at the end of the day, it's still solving mundane and sometimes really hard problems with you butt glued to the seat and writing a lot of code in a text editor. I should also add that the biggest reward for me every day is solving a problem and finally getting that ah hah moment. It's not the foosball table or free lunch.
vonnik 11y ago
> However, a career as a software developer or engineer comes with no guarantee of job satisfaction. No career comes with a guarantee of job satisfaction, and very few come with much security. Less so in the tech industry, because tech itself is evolving quickly. I'm a little disappointed that this reporter feels such a statement is newsworthy. To read this article, I would almost believe that its author doesn't believe in meritocracy or neo-liberalism, which is kind of bad faith, coming from The Economist.
gansai 11y ago
liked one metaphor in the article: golden handcuffs

120 points by pmuk 11y ago

Wow. I'm a little surprised to read such a dim view of the lot of a software developer in the economist. I'm glad to see it in a mainstream publication, though. I don't think that software development is necessarily a bad career, but I do think it has been vastly oversold relative to other paths available to well educated, hardworking people who can choose their own career path in the US. And I think that this overselling is a big part of a PR campaign to convince congress and the public that there is a shortage of software developers. IN short, while this article presents an unusually pessimistic image of software development as a career, and I may not fully agree with it, I do welcome this rebalancing.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>I don't think that software development is necessarily a bad career, but I do think it has been vastly oversold relative to other paths available to well educated, hardworking people who can choose their own career path in the US. So what other paths are nicer, while requiring less up-front risk? Law? Totally flooded with first-jobbers and fresh graduates. Medicine? Salaries being suppressed and debts inflating unless you hit the right specialty. Academia? Oh boy, basically just triple what I said about medicine. At some point we just have to accept that the university-educated, white-collar professional class is being subjected to exactly the same wage repression and rentiering (on housing and education costs) as everyone else. We are all working-class now.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Michael O. Church: "Software engineers aren't a privileged set. They're just less fucked than the rest of the U.S. Former Middle Class." https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much/answer/Michael-O-Church https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much...
  - madengr 11y ago
    That's a great comment he wrote.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- geebee 11y ago
  It's tough across the board, certainly. That said, can you think of another field that experiences a similar same drum beat about a "shortage"? Maybe nursing, though out here in SF, nurses actually do out-earn software developers at the median (US News "best jobs" has a roundup of BLS data), and because (again, this is in SF) they have powerful unions, they don't experience the Disney-stye situation where middle aged nurses are fired and forced to train their replacements as a condition of receiving severance or holding onto their jobs for a while longer. I always have to make sure I say this when I make this comparison: I am absolutely ok with nurses outearning software developers, it's a tough job, they deserve to be well paid. But according to the US News site, even dental hygienists make roughly as much at the median as software developers. Again, I have no problem with this, but it is at odds with the notion that software developers are a wildly well paid group that experiences wonderful perks, and that the big problem is that there's a "shortage" of them. The economic article makes it clear that the aversion to this field may be very rational. Although burnout affects everyone, I do think that software developers face greater age related employment issues than most fields as well. I can't really quantify this, but I don't think that the PR around a "shortage" of nurses reaches the same fever pitch for software developers. Overall, I'd recommend you just go through the "US News Best Jobs" list and check out salaries in high cost regions, relative to software development. Think about job security, stress levels, age discrimination, and so forth. Nothing's perfect, but I think you can make a good case that all of the fields in the top 10 may be preferable to software development.
  - revelation 11y ago
    It's evidence that people in these fields are much more attuned with their worth and work conditions. Meanwhile, as this thread will surely very soon demonstrate, software developers have taken the old US notion of hating on unions, peppered in a lack of overtime pay, clauses that claim ownership to things developed in their free time, a culture of big company pretend startups (you know, 60h week little pay all the micro management none of the freedom and ownership) and an attitude towards their own field that equals that of pirates.
    - Apocryphon 11y ago
- madengr 11y ago
  "Medicine? Salaries being suppressed" How so?
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    To start off with a medical resident (meaning a person that has obtained their md, but haven't passed the boards yet) has an average salary of 52k. That's pretty damn low for that amount of education and hours worked.
    - CaptSpify 11y ago
      Low, sure, but being low isn't evidence that its being suppressed. That's the symptom
      - placeybordeaux 11y ago
        That number is largely derived from the amount that medicare provides. I can't seem to find a source at hand though.
- FLUX-YOU 11y ago
  >So what other paths are nicer, while requiring less up-front risk? It's pretty difficult to beat the upfront cost/risk of "Fire up a web browser and a compiler/interpreter and start reading a tutorial". That can lead to an entry level job in 6mo - year or less. Software is really an anomaly in this area especially with tuition costs these days. You can learn math or engineering on your own to lessen the risk of flunking out of a major, but you're still required to spend the time.
zippergz 11y ago
I make over $200k most years, with a liberal arts bachelor degree. I work in a comfortable office with reasonable hours, no one yells at me, I don't have to get dirty or put myself in physical danger. I take several weeks of vacation a year, I very rarely work a late night, and I have recruiters reaching out to me on a regular basis offering me new opportunities. While I don’t love all aspects of my work (who does?), I also can’t say with a straight face that I don’t have a drastically better situation than most people. If you ask me, software development is a pretty damned good field to be in.
- madengr 11y ago
  What sort of software development, and what area of the country?
  - zippergz 11y ago
    SaaS marketing software in Los Angeles. I've also lived in Seattle and pay was in a similar range there.
    - heckerboy 11y ago
      Los Angeles, huh? I would love to work down in LA, but I've been staying in the Bay because I assumed this was the only place I could earn ~200k. Mind listing some of the companies that pay in that range in LA?
- jaimebuelta 11y ago
  I don't think that $200k is a common salary among tech people. Especially out of Silicon Valley, and, even more so, out of the US (The Economist is a British magazine, after all)
  - zippergz 11y ago
    I didn't say it's salary. That's salary+bonus+stock vesting. This is in line with the total cash comp I've seen and received from most of the major tech companies in the US.

vosper 11y ago

I don't believe the Instagram billion was about acquiring 13 software engineers. It was about controlling an application that was a huge (and growing) competitor for attention on mobile, was it's own social network, and was better (or at least, more flexible and fun) than Facebook at one of Facebook's core functionalities: sharing photos.

danieltillett 11y ago
It was about preventing any social application that might conceivably threaten facebook. Personally I think it was a bit of an over reaction on Facebook’s side, but they do seem very paranoid about this. I have to say I am a true old fuddy-duddy when it comes to Instagram as I can’t think of a single use for it that appeals to me.
- tedks 11y ago
  That's exactly the intention of instagram. It took my parents a very long time to get on instagram and they only eventually did so to try to police my teenage sister (who promptly made a new account, added her friends to it, and dribbled a few worksafe photos a month onto the account our parents knew about). Now everyone is on snapchat, which fortunately, nobody's parents will EVER be aware of.
  - lacker 11y ago
    Parents will become aware of Snapchat, at least when the current cohort of Snapchatters starts having kids ;-)
    - tedks 11y ago
      Lol. When do you think millenials will have kids? When they have houses? Stable jobs? Nope, you Gen-Xers have fscked yourselvs as far as that goes. Nobody in my generation in the West will ever be able to have children. Hope you like immigrants.
- pconner 11y ago

exceptione 11y ago

working link: https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/proxy2?ep=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&epile=4q6n41784r6n41784q5455794q3138334q5335725n586o3q&edata=c0eff3bd66f286e1e9b21ff08f32efdd&ek=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&ekdata=66d9be2b43f5d6726cad2d828bb7ecd5 https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/proxy2?ep=5679746e445249575...

mberning 11y ago

Fabulously paid? Yeah right. Salaries are decent compared to the average working stiff. You still top out early in your career with little chance for significant increase. In regards to the perks, having access to all of them mentioned is the exception rather than the rule. It is a sad indictment of work culture that the freedom to make your own hours or rest when tired is seen as an extravagant benefit.

jusben1369 11y ago
"You still top out". Actually that's pretty unique to sw development vs other white collar roles and is not discussed enough when it comes to understanding higher levels of disillusion. SW developers are basically having their mod life crisis at 28 or 32 when they realize they've mostly flatlined unless they go into management.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  Saying "unless they go into management" is an artificial distinction. In most white-collar roles, "advancement" is synonymous with "going into management", and software development is no different.
- mkozlows 11y ago
  1. I know many people who've had significant salary increases into their 40s, at least. 2. Management is not automatically higher-paying than development, until you get into the higher reaches of management, which not everyone will. 3. To the extent people are flatlining, it might just be a case of starting high; if you're hitting a wall with a number that's in the top 5% of individual income nationally, well, you're doing better than 95% of people out there, so consider that it might not be so bad after all.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Is that really a big problem? Growth slows down as you get older and more experienced, not everyone can grow beyond some level. A company isn't going to keep giving big raises to someone who isn't growing that much anymore. That seems fair. Worst case for most people is that they hit a reasonably high wage quickly and can stay there for a long time, even if the increases become modest at best. That's a good thing. If you are willing to develop the skillset you can still move into management and continue to increase your earning power. That's good too. It does suck to think that as a mid level engineer I'll most likely get to a senior level in a few years and rise no further, but it's just something you have to get over.

tokenadult 11y ago

A key paragraph in the article kindly submitted here is this paragraph about promised shares of stock in a company: "Moreover, tech startups typically attract talent by offering shares. Employees work like dogs in return for supposedly making a fortune when the firm goes public. However, such firms often use multiple classes of shares that preserve the biggest gains for insiders, leaving the employees with common stock that can easily lose value. In particular, startups have taken to offering later-stage investors guarantees that they will get their money back, if either a subsequent funding round or an eventual initial public offering (IPO) values their shares at a lower price than they are paying. When firms have to pay out on such guarantees, they generally do so by issuing extra shares, which dilute other common shareholders such as their staff." That's what makes the venture-capital-funded tech industry different: it looks like it offers opportunities to make serious money through appreciation of shares in the company, but all too often that doesn't work out. It was interesting to see, in another part of the article, the suggestion that knowing what a company's goals are in relation to one's work can make one's work more satisfying. That makes sense.

jethro_tell 11y ago

The crazy thing is job satisfaction. People do things they dislike because you pay them more. I've been a carpenter and a heavy machinery opperator before my current job in tech. Come March, I'm going to look out the window at the first sunny day and wish I was crushing a house. But in April 15, I'm going to smile as I realize how much money I save this year and look at my investments yoy. I mean, I don't feel as apriciated or have as much fun, but I put money in the bank, I'll have healthcare for my family, retirement for my self and better job security. Everyone is feeling pressure from inflation and stagnating wages, but let's not pretend an SDE with a six figure income is some how part of the working class now. The working class was relieved of health care and security a decade or more ago.

civilian 11y ago
Off topic, but is crushing houses fun? It sounds like it'd be a lot of fun.
- jethro_tell 11y ago
  It is so much fun that many years, I schedule summer vacation to coincide with a house crushing from my old boss. I go out and give home 2 free days of labor cleaning up after the crushing in exchange for getting to drive into someones kitchen with a dozer. It's harder than you would think, you kinda try to scrape the inside out through the windows or a hole you made in the walls, then push it in on itself. It's really easy to get a pile of garbage that is too weak to drive on and too tall to pull the top off of. That's when you have to start driving dump truck and realized there are people who do this for a living and you're just playing around. For the record though, cleaning up involves driving a dump truck, bobcat or excavator. It's not like I have a shovel in hand for more than an hour in the week.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    i always thought the guys who imploded buildings had a fun job too.

madengr 11y ago

For me, as an EE, all those perks are a fantasy. All I can expect is my company to consistently screw us every year on our benefits.

linuxlizard 11y ago
And move your job to China.
- madengr 11y ago
  It needs a security clearance, so not yet, but I'm sure they would if they could figure out how to do so. Funny thing is, if they would offer free lunch, they would get some more work out of me. They don't even offer free coffee; yes that's how fucking pathetic it is. Not even cheap black coffee. They'd improve employee health if they offered free fruit, but nope, that bag of apples from Costco is too fucking expensive. Instead they just fine us $2000 for not participating in biometrics.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    Been there, done that, got the fading coffee mug. Didn't have the biometrics bullshit at least, yikes.
  - albemuth 11y ago
    > Instead they just fine us $2000 for not participating in biometrics. Mind explaining?
    - madengr 11y ago
      I, and my spouse, must participate in the yearly biometrics screening (i.e. blood test and BMI) or else we are fined $1500 each. By fine I mean a paycheck deduction.

mkozlows 11y ago

The biggest card this article palms is by starting out talking about tech companies, and then switching into a survey that's not primarily about tech companies: "A survey last year of 5,000 such workers at both tech and non-tech firms... found that many of them feel alienated, trapped, underappreciated and otherwise discombobulated." Because, sure, if you're the person who does Crystal Reports at Bob's House of Widgets, or the VB person at Gary's Lawncare, or even (to some extent) one of the J2EE horde at MegaBankCorp, you're in a place where you're not core to the business, you're viewed as a cost center, you have a limited career path, and the main people at the company probably have you lumped in with HR and Accounting. But I really, really, really doubt you're going to find that same sense of alienation, underappreciation, etc. at a tech company.

jfb 11y ago
But I really, really, really doubt you're going to find that same sense of alienation, underappreciation, etc. at a tech company. How many tech companies have you worked at?
- ionforce 11y ago
  What are you trying to imply?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - marktangotango 11y ago
    I think the implication is, tech company or not, there's a huge gulf between cost center and profit center with regard to how management treats you.
  - jfb 11y ago
    In my experience, having worked at many "tech companies" as well as "square-job companies", there is no great difference in how software engineering types are treated.
11y ago

ditonal 11y ago

The most insulting things companies do is offer 'vanity' perks while slashing real perks. My last gig had fancy parties, free dinner (no lunch interestingly), got itself ranked as a "best place to work" etc. It could market its employees as entitled, spoiled developers for sure. However, there was no 401k matching. No tuition reimbursement. There were multiple weeks of uncompensated 24/7 on-call rotations throughout the year, many for stressful legacy applications the company refused to invest resources to actually maintain for real. Basically, if you couldn't market the perk to 20-somethings, they slashed it. Meanwhile I'm told that my very existence screws over the poor working class police officers and firefighters, who make 80% of what I make but have job security and lifetime pensions awaiting for them. And they get paid for overtime. While I absolutely feel like I'm privileged in many ways to work in tech, the industry has many incentives to make tech workers look more 'spoiled' than they are, and so they work their PR engines to do exactly that. I am also sick of hearing these 'rumors of one engineer at Google' making millions being cited as if it was a BLS salary report or something.

ljk 11y ago
> got itself ranked as a "best place to work" recently learned that a lot of places give employees incentives to leave positive reviews on glassdoor.. hopefully glassdoor doesn't go the same way as yelp
ceejayoz 11y ago
> free dinner (no lunch interestingly) Free lunch doesn't get them anything - you already expect to be at work before and after the lunch hour. Free dinner gets you to stay until it arrives (6:30, I'd bet) and probably afterwards.
hawkice 11y ago
> There were multiple weeks of uncompensated 24/7 on-call rotations throughout the year, many for stressful legacy applications the company refused to invest resources to actually maintain for real. I am a 20-something who was woken up every day at 1am for weeks to "handle emergencies" that didn't exist -- are you telling me the standard is compensating people for this? I did get the sense that if it cost the company meaningful amounts of money they would have let me change the alerting system so that only real emergencies woke me up, instead of "not your department"ing me.

linuxlizard 11y ago

Does this article apply at all outside Silicon Valley?

pconner 11y ago
If anything, I think it would be worse outside. Crazy perk culture is mostly associated with bay area companies. Other areas have cheaper costs of living, which may help reduce stress, but bay area companies have better base salaries to compensate, and they tend to provide better stock options/grants than companies based in other areas.
- mooseburger 11y ago
  Well, I'm a software developer with three years of experience in Puerto Rico. It hasn't been too bad so far. There isn't an expectation that one will regularly work 12 hour days or something, though of course there is crunch time.

staunch 11y ago

Why haven't salaries at tech companies gone up much despite huge increases in demand, profits, and housing costs? Most programmers make about what they've always made, maybe less (adjusted for inflation). $120k/yr in 2001 is $160k/yr in 2015.

beachstartup 11y ago
because smart kids are always willing to work for less and there's no credentialing guild like there is with medicine or law or real engineering.

noam87 11y ago

Have we arrived at the conclusion that the people who convinced the middle class that unions are evil did not have our best interests in mind yet, or are we gonna keep shooting ourselves in the foot? Keep shooting ourselves in the foot it is then. K. Carry on.

jarjoura 11y ago

I'm sorry, but software engineering was never glamorous. When I went into college, over a decade ago now, the first year courses were always the most packed, largely filled with hopeful souls. Then by year 2 and 3 they dropped back to only the most dedicated fans. That's right, I said the word fans. I graduated with 20 other computer science majors, out of what was probably thousands at the beginning. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else in my career and the tech press and media did little to influence or change it. Netscape, then Google, then Digg, on to Facebook and Twitter, these were all early companies that got the press raving about how cool, how easy, how glamorous it was to work in startups and in tech. Yet at the end of the day, it's still solving mundane and sometimes really hard problems with you butt glued to the seat and writing a lot of code in a text editor. I should also add that the biggest reward for me every day is solving a problem and finally getting that ah hah moment. It's not the foosball table or free lunch.

vonnik 11y ago

> However, a career as a software developer or engineer comes with no guarantee of job satisfaction. No career comes with a guarantee of job satisfaction, and very few come with much security. Less so in the tech industry, because tech itself is evolving quickly. I'm a little disappointed that this reporter feels such a statement is newsworthy. To read this article, I would almost believe that its author doesn't believe in meritocracy or neo-liberalism, which is kind of bad faith, coming from The Economist.

gansai 11y ago

liked one metaphor in the article: golden handcuffs