4 ms·

I don't disagree necessarily, but I'm definitely more cautious in criticising someone else's pay when I can't do their job. I certainly know that a lot of peop

I don't disagree necessarily, but I'm definitely more cautious in criticising someone else's pay when I can't do their job. I certainly know that a lot of people who know nothing about computers think that I'm overpaid as a software developer. Why should I earn several times their salary when I just sit at a computer all day, whilst they do hard work?

ythl 10y ago
> Why should I earn several times their salary when I just sit at a computer all day, whilst they do hard work? Yeah, why should you? I mean, you are essentially being paid to surf Hacker News and plunk out a few lines of code every once in a while, while the janitor is working hard all day.
- Zelphyr 10y ago
  You don’t pay engineers to write code, you pay them to understand subtleties and edges of the problem. The code is incidental. —Ted Dziuba
  - cosmie 10y ago
    Which is an argument that applies just as effectively to executive management as it does to engineers.
- riskable 10y ago
  Actually IT as a category of jobs requires constant knowledge and skill improvements. If you aren't reading HN and/or other tech news sites very regularly you're going to become obsolete very quickly. If you're doing the same thing in IT for more than a few years chances are you're digging a hole for yourself. Just ask any Silverlight developer.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Yeah, that's the excuse I'm going to use when my boss finally realizes what that site with the orange bar at the top is ;).
chadgeidel 10y ago
I think caution is indeed warranted, but to say one shouldn't "criticize someone's pay when I can't do their job" is - IMHO - misguided. The problem I see is that the CEO is rewarded with the high salary (and exit options) regardless if the CEO does their job well! I can certainly criticize that.
cheetos 10y ago
I've misread the tone of a few HN posts lately ... this is sarcasm, right?
cheetos 10y ago
I've misread the tone of a few HN posts lately ... this is sarcasm, right?
mpdehaan2 10y ago
In my case, I CAN do their job. They have a lot of support structures to delegate between. You may think you can't do their job, but you could, if you wanted - though getting there is a game of thrones of sorts, and you may not wish to play. However, they can't do your job. Assuming you are a developer, they are making a living based on your work. Your work has equal value. Well, if you ARE doing hard work. If you are just sitting at a terminal, more ambition might be a good thing :) Cultivate it and you can get there. If you want. We need not assume all leadership at the top is steering the entire ship, more so than steering parts of things, decisions trickling up as well as down, alongside information.
- softawre 10y ago
  I think this is a bit naive. You seem like the software engineer type that thinks the company revolves around you, that both middle-managers and upper management are clueless, and you could do anybody elses job if you just put a weekend into studying it. Getting a MBA, getting experience leading companies from the director level, then VP level, then CEO - that is valuable experience.
  - WallowC_33 10y ago
    Should probably read the posters profile
  - mpdehaan2 10y ago
    Again, see profile :)
- dsacco 10y ago
  >>In my case, I CAN do their job. Your overall point is diminished when you say things like this, because it comes across as arrogant. Without substantiating that, you're just pandering to everyone who holds the same ideology on CEO pay. The way you describe it, technical jobs are the hardest in the world, and everything else is comparatively easy. You make it sound as though there is only one truly difficult discipline, which happens to be yours. Furthermore, you're lumping the job duties of all CEOs together as though they all share a homogenous skill set you could pick up. I'm unconvinced by an ethos that boils down to, "My work is hard because it's programming, their work is not because it's soft skills."
Illniyar 10y ago
I've been a software engineer for close to 10 years now, and we are definitely overpaid for what most of us are doing, and that is mostly because of supply and demand.
- mpdehaan2 10y ago
  I'd suggest rather than look at it as you being overpaid, look at it as everyone else being underpaid - in other words, corporate profit sharing is not what it should be.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  We automate things. As Jaron Lanier says, "code is people who aren't there". We create substitutions for labor. The lot of mankind only began to improve rapidly after human and animal muscle power was substituted-for by engines. All production is a mix of land, labor and capital. So it depends on cases, but when we are in the right place at the right time, we deliver stupendous amounts of value. I've been involved in cases where two, three, four, twenty people could address tens of millions of cost $US per year. The interesting thing is that sometimes, even though you have the numbers on your side, the management team demurs. It's all but impossible to actually evaluate what we're worth. Appealing to supply and demand may involve what's called "The Lump of Labor Fallacy". We're not stevedores, and we're not surgeons. We're somewhere in between.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Nonsense. Relative to the value we provide, even average or mediocre developers are underpaid. "Everyone" else is, too, who isn't in upper management.
  - wott 10y ago
    Define 'value'.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      That turns out to be a deep and interesting question. One response: https://archive.org/details/lectureonnotiono00lloy https://archive.org/details/lectureonnotiono00lloy

ythl 10y ago

> Why should I earn several times their salary when I just sit at a computer all day, whilst they do hard work? Yeah, why should you? I mean, you are essentially being paid to surf Hacker News and plunk out a few lines of code every once in a while, while the janitor is working hard all day.

Zelphyr 10y ago
You don’t pay engineers to write code, you pay them to understand subtleties and edges of the problem. The code is incidental. —Ted Dziuba
- cosmie 10y ago
  Which is an argument that applies just as effectively to executive management as it does to engineers.
riskable 10y ago
Actually IT as a category of jobs requires constant knowledge and skill improvements. If you aren't reading HN and/or other tech news sites very regularly you're going to become obsolete very quickly. If you're doing the same thing in IT for more than a few years chances are you're digging a hole for yourself. Just ask any Silverlight developer.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Yeah, that's the excuse I'm going to use when my boss finally realizes what that site with the orange bar at the top is ;).

chadgeidel 10y ago

I think caution is indeed warranted, but to say one shouldn't "criticize someone's pay when I can't do their job" is - IMHO - misguided. The problem I see is that the CEO is rewarded with the high salary (and exit options) regardless if the CEO does their job well! I can certainly criticize that.

cheetos 10y ago

I've misread the tone of a few HN posts lately ... this is sarcasm, right?

cheetos 10y ago

I've misread the tone of a few HN posts lately ... this is sarcasm, right?

mpdehaan2 10y ago

In my case, I CAN do their job. They have a lot of support structures to delegate between. You may think you can't do their job, but you could, if you wanted - though getting there is a game of thrones of sorts, and you may not wish to play. However, they can't do your job. Assuming you are a developer, they are making a living based on your work. Your work has equal value. Well, if you ARE doing hard work. If you are just sitting at a terminal, more ambition might be a good thing :) Cultivate it and you can get there. If you want. We need not assume all leadership at the top is steering the entire ship, more so than steering parts of things, decisions trickling up as well as down, alongside information.

softawre 10y ago
I think this is a bit naive. You seem like the software engineer type that thinks the company revolves around you, that both middle-managers and upper management are clueless, and you could do anybody elses job if you just put a weekend into studying it. Getting a MBA, getting experience leading companies from the director level, then VP level, then CEO - that is valuable experience.
- WallowC_33 10y ago
  Should probably read the posters profile
- mpdehaan2 10y ago
  Again, see profile :)
dsacco 10y ago
>>In my case, I CAN do their job. Your overall point is diminished when you say things like this, because it comes across as arrogant. Without substantiating that, you're just pandering to everyone who holds the same ideology on CEO pay. The way you describe it, technical jobs are the hardest in the world, and everything else is comparatively easy. You make it sound as though there is only one truly difficult discipline, which happens to be yours. Furthermore, you're lumping the job duties of all CEOs together as though they all share a homogenous skill set you could pick up. I'm unconvinced by an ethos that boils down to, "My work is hard because it's programming, their work is not because it's soft skills."

Illniyar 10y ago

I've been a software engineer for close to 10 years now, and we are definitely overpaid for what most of us are doing, and that is mostly because of supply and demand.

mpdehaan2 10y ago
I'd suggest rather than look at it as you being overpaid, look at it as everyone else being underpaid - in other words, corporate profit sharing is not what it should be.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
We automate things. As Jaron Lanier says, "code is people who aren't there". We create substitutions for labor. The lot of mankind only began to improve rapidly after human and animal muscle power was substituted-for by engines. All production is a mix of land, labor and capital. So it depends on cases, but when we are in the right place at the right time, we deliver stupendous amounts of value. I've been involved in cases where two, three, four, twenty people could address tens of millions of cost $US per year. The interesting thing is that sometimes, even though you have the numbers on your side, the management team demurs. It's all but impossible to actually evaluate what we're worth. Appealing to supply and demand may involve what's called "The Lump of Labor Fallacy". We're not stevedores, and we're not surgeons. We're somewhere in between.
sidlls 10y ago
Nonsense. Relative to the value we provide, even average or mediocre developers are underpaid. "Everyone" else is, too, who isn't in upper management.
- wott 10y ago
  Define 'value'.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    That turns out to be a deep and interesting question. One response: https://archive.org/details/lectureonnotiono00lloy https://archive.org/details/lectureonnotiono00lloy