4 ms·

I'm not sure about better, but it was certainly a very different set of disciplines

by colinstrickland 10y ago

MiddleEndian 10y ago
My favorite "old development" story is the one about how the developers snuck into Apple to make Graphing Calculator, which is one of my favorite applications of all time.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CharlesW 10y ago
  (For those who may not be familiar: https://www.pacifict.com/Story/ https://www.pacifict.com/Story/)
Rustydave 10y ago
And was the pay better back then than it is now? Just curious
- colinstrickland 10y ago
  hard to say. Salary was market rate. Stock was 2001-era amzn, which wasn't a bad deal
- mikestew 10y ago
  Software salaries have always been good, usually a bit better than middle middle class. For contrast, I've worked as an auto mechanic. Good, middle-class living that. Left that for software, made a bit more money doing software. After a bit, but still before the dot-bomb, I went to work for Microsoft. Salary was shit, but the stock options were still enticing back then. All the dot-bombs were paying better, so MSFT upped the salaries. Based on performance reviews, I was apparently a pretty good employee, so the mileage of many might vary. But after one review I got a 35% salary bump that year in an effort to keep MSFT competitive. One more comparison: my responsibilities aren't much greater than they were back in the day, but I'd say I live a more comfortable lifestyle now than I did then. tl;dr: it's super-hard to make direct comparisons, but I'd say salaries are better now than back-in-the-day.
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  I'd say given inflation, cost of living etc, that pay back in the day was on average, over average for upper figure salaries. There are more devs/techies/IT literate people about these days so although there are sought after roles, positions are easier to fill these days. IMHO, Obvs.

4 ms·

I'm not sure about better, but it was certainly a very different set of disciplines

by colinstrickland 10y ago

I'm not sure about better, but it was certainly a very different set of disciplines

MiddleEndian 10y ago
My favorite "old development" story is the one about how the developers snuck into Apple to make Graphing Calculator, which is one of my favorite applications of all time.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CharlesW 10y ago
  (For those who may not be familiar: https://www.pacifict.com/Story/ https://www.pacifict.com/Story/)
Rustydave 10y ago
And was the pay better back then than it is now? Just curious
- colinstrickland 10y ago
  hard to say. Salary was market rate. Stock was 2001-era amzn, which wasn't a bad deal
- mikestew 10y ago
  Software salaries have always been good, usually a bit better than middle middle class. For contrast, I've worked as an auto mechanic. Good, middle-class living that. Left that for software, made a bit more money doing software. After a bit, but still before the dot-bomb, I went to work for Microsoft. Salary was shit, but the stock options were still enticing back then. All the dot-bombs were paying better, so MSFT upped the salaries. Based on performance reviews, I was apparently a pretty good employee, so the mileage of many might vary. But after one review I got a 35% salary bump that year in an effort to keep MSFT competitive. One more comparison: my responsibilities aren't much greater than they were back in the day, but I'd say I live a more comfortable lifestyle now than I did then. tl;dr: it's super-hard to make direct comparisons, but I'd say salaries are better now than back-in-the-day.
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  I'd say given inflation, cost of living etc, that pay back in the day was on average, over average for upper figure salaries. There are more devs/techies/IT literate people about these days so although there are sought after roles, positions are easier to fill these days. IMHO, Obvs.