6 ms·

Because there's a shortage of good people and you provide this much value to the company. Where that money comes from is another question :) You might feel this

Because there's a shortage of good people and you provide this much value to the company. Where that money comes from is another question :) You might feel this because don't challenge yourself enough.

le-mark 9y ago
The kicker is, an external observer (ie your boss or hr) has no way to judge who the "good people" are. Are you the one fixing the bugs that stumped the team for weeks, or are you the one poorly implementing features that then require rework later on (and all that entails; prioritization, scheduling, talking, tracking)? What we do is totally opaque to everyone, but us. So yes, I agree, there is a shortage of developers of all kinds. And nowadays, every company out there has some legacy system or another they need maintained or enhanced. Thus we're paid a lot. Some positions are very demanding, some aren't. A position that's demanding to one developer may not be to another (depending on experience etc). At the end of the day, the big corporations are sitting on hoards of cash. The way a lot of companies are choosing to spend it are via "capex" captial expenditures on software projects. For these they need developers. I've addressed this for myself by hopping jobs 3 times in 2 years, now my salary is 10% above the local market rate. I am intentionally extracting the most wealth from this situation that I can (within the bounds I have set for myself ie w2 fulltime, contracting I could be making quite a lot more).
- kzisme 9y ago
  >I've addressed this for myself by hopping jobs 3 times in 2 years, now my salary is 10% above the local market rate. How did you manage this? Did you end up switching technologies or fields? Was it just for a salary increase, or were you un-challenged?
  - le-mark 9y ago
    I did not switch fields, so far as technical skills, I rarely feel challenged nowadays. A few things: The way it came about was partly accidental. When I started this, the company I was at was failing, I knew it was time to leave. Then I took a contract position at a Big Dumb corp, when that was ending, instead of converting to full time, I had 3 other offers on the table. One local company was desparate, that's where the > 10% came from. Always be interviewing. from constantly interviewing, I knew what the local market was like for my expertise (java enterprise). And I knew a great offer when I saw it. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Train for the technical interview, be able to talk about how you've rocked past positions, and how you're going to rock this new position. Put in the time, don't hide from the hard stuff. Every job I'd had I was sticking my nose into everything; frontend, backend, deployments, appserver and cluster adminning, production support, everything. That's how you get to be expert level at everything. It gives confidence, there's no part of the process I haven't experienced and have firm opinions on how to do right. Sorry that turned in to general "dev career advice". I agree with the other comment, we are probably in a buble so far as dev salaries, on the other hand, this may be the new normal. I base this opinion on the way central banks are continuing to print money.
    - kzisme 9y ago
      That makes sense and thanks for the insight! Any advice is always appreciated Having not interviewed much I'm always weary of looking at job postings, interview questions, and such (for no good reason really). I've learned a lot in my current position, but I'm starting to feel un-challenged and slightly bored with the main initiatives we are working on. Soon enough I'll be the only developer left at this place aside from contractors, so that will be strange too...

le-mark 9y ago

The kicker is, an external observer (ie your boss or hr) has no way to judge who the "good people" are. Are you the one fixing the bugs that stumped the team for weeks, or are you the one poorly implementing features that then require rework later on (and all that entails; prioritization, scheduling, talking, tracking)? What we do is totally opaque to everyone, but us. So yes, I agree, there is a shortage of developers of all kinds. And nowadays, every company out there has some legacy system or another they need maintained or enhanced. Thus we're paid a lot. Some positions are very demanding, some aren't. A position that's demanding to one developer may not be to another (depending on experience etc). At the end of the day, the big corporations are sitting on hoards of cash. The way a lot of companies are choosing to spend it are via "capex" captial expenditures on software projects. For these they need developers. I've addressed this for myself by hopping jobs 3 times in 2 years, now my salary is 10% above the local market rate. I am intentionally extracting the most wealth from this situation that I can (within the bounds I have set for myself ie w2 fulltime, contracting I could be making quite a lot more).

kzisme 9y ago
>I've addressed this for myself by hopping jobs 3 times in 2 years, now my salary is 10% above the local market rate. How did you manage this? Did you end up switching technologies or fields? Was it just for a salary increase, or were you un-challenged?
- le-mark 9y ago
  I did not switch fields, so far as technical skills, I rarely feel challenged nowadays. A few things: The way it came about was partly accidental. When I started this, the company I was at was failing, I knew it was time to leave. Then I took a contract position at a Big Dumb corp, when that was ending, instead of converting to full time, I had 3 other offers on the table. One local company was desparate, that's where the > 10% came from. Always be interviewing. from constantly interviewing, I knew what the local market was like for my expertise (java enterprise). And I knew a great offer when I saw it. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Train for the technical interview, be able to talk about how you've rocked past positions, and how you're going to rock this new position. Put in the time, don't hide from the hard stuff. Every job I'd had I was sticking my nose into everything; frontend, backend, deployments, appserver and cluster adminning, production support, everything. That's how you get to be expert level at everything. It gives confidence, there's no part of the process I haven't experienced and have firm opinions on how to do right. Sorry that turned in to general "dev career advice". I agree with the other comment, we are probably in a buble so far as dev salaries, on the other hand, this may be the new normal. I base this opinion on the way central banks are continuing to print money.
  - kzisme 9y ago
    That makes sense and thanks for the insight! Any advice is always appreciated Having not interviewed much I'm always weary of looking at job postings, interview questions, and such (for no good reason really). I've learned a lot in my current position, but I'm starting to feel un-challenged and slightly bored with the main initiatives we are working on. Soon enough I'll be the only developer left at this place aside from contractors, so that will be strange too...