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I suspect that developers are not so much upset at salespeople getting commission, but rather why they get paid so much compared to developers. Personally I do
by tensor 9y ago
I suspect that developers are not so much upset at salespeople getting commission, but rather why they get paid so much compared to developers.
Personally I don't buy that sales skills are so much more difficult to find or are in higher demand than software development skills. Some of the difference in equity certainly has to do with the higher risk of getting fired for poor performance in sales.
But beyond that it's probably that sales and business people are motivated mostly or only by money and thus have spent decades as a collective optimizing getting more money for themselves. In contrast, developers and designers are motivated by accomplishing and creating good things before money and end up not focussing on optimizing money making.
If developers were compensated like lawyers, I doubt they'd be so worked up over salespeople getting commissions.
- watwut 9y agoThe other reason is sales being motivated to sell no matter what - meaning they have all motivation to lie or mislead customers just to sell and none for the opposite. That leads to engineers being blamed for product not having (oftentimes mutually excluding) features that were sold or not being done in ridiculously short time. Which in long term oftentimes costs more money then the non-existing feature was sold for. And it leads to bad relationship with customers - and somehow it is engineers who deal with those problems s not sales.
- varjag 9y agoSure we like what we do but in the end of the day the engineers wake up and commute to the office to earn money for their services. Given FU money upfront, many would still code for fun of course, but unlikely the same kind of corp CRUD app or Uber for pets or cloud staging scripts, year after year as on the job. There's no reason to envy sales people being "paid so much" anyway. For every high earner there's a dozen who are living fairly stressful, very unstable lower income life. It is a very competitive line of work, directly reflecting the competitive nature of market economy - from which many of engineers are blissfully shielded.
- peteretep 9y ago> I don't buy that sales > skills are so much more > difficult to find or are in > higher demand than software > development skills Sure, and sales people don't understand why the entire engineering function of the company can't be done on eLance for $10/hr. We can talk about 10x developers all we like, but if you sit in a sales meeting of many companies you'll find there are 10x sales people whose presence is easily measured.
- tensor 9y agoThere may or may not be 10x employees in either camp, though I don't quite see what that has to do with the income difference. Should a 10x salesperson earn three times what a 10x developer earns? If so why?
- peteretep 9y agoManagement can easily recognize who the 10x sales people are, where 10x developers may be a myth.
- k__ 9y agoI think hiring sales is much more of a lottery than hiring engineers.
- rb808 9y ago> I suspect that developers are not so much upset at salespeople getting commission, but rather why they get paid so much compared to developers. Personally I don't buy that sales skills are so much more difficult to find or are in higher demand than software development skills. You should do it then! Seriously I know a few people that have made the switch. They felt vulnerable at first but wouldn't want to go back now.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoIt's objectively not true that salespeople in general get paid more than software developers. Maybe the very top salespeople get paid more than the very top software developers, but that is just because of how easily the top salespeople can prove that they are at the top.